Said Mohamed has been working for Uber and Lyft for four years. He says that rideshare drivers who bring passengers to and from the Minneapolis-St. Paul International airport have been asking for better facilities for restroom use and religious prayer for two and half years.
“The airport makes $5 million a year from Uber and Lyft drivers,” he says. The wind chill is minus one degree as he stands in front of the cell phone waiting lot for rideshare drivers. “This is where we stand every day, seven days a week,” he continues. “We pray outside.”
On Wednesday, December 3, rideshare drivers marched and rallied at the airport in freezing weather with unions and community groups. Workers organizing with SEIU Local 26’s rideshare organizing committee have been demanding that the state-level agency that owns and operates the airport, the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC), provide adequate facilities for restrooms and prayer. Now, they are calling out the agency as well as various companies for operating deportation flights for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“These are private companies that are profiting off of deporting our brothers and sisters out of this very airport which is paid for with our tax dollars,” says SEIU Local 26 president Greg Nammacher.
Around 200 union and community members from groups such as Indivisible Twin Cities, Minnesota 50501, Women’s March, and the Minnesota AFL-CIO, marched from the light rail station at Terminal 2 toward the cell phone lot on Post Road. Faith groups like Jewish Community Action, ISAIAH, and Minnesota Unitarian Universalist Social Justice Alliance were also in attendance.
Imam Yusuf Abdulle, executive director of the Islamic Association of North America, led rideshare drivers in one of their daily prayers on the street in front of the cell phone lot as part of the action. “When leaders attack immigrants, they are hoping we turn against each other, instead of standing together, but we are united,” he says. “Immigrants are part of every history, every school, every union, every workplace. You hold up our airports, clean our buildings, drive our buses, care for our elders, build our homes, and serve our communities. You deserve dignity and respect and due process. Today we say clearly, no more terrorizing families. No more raids that rip communities apart.”
Wednesday’s action follows an increased presence of federal agencies in the Twin Cities. Reporting from The New York Times details the Trump administration’s intent to launch an operation targeting the Somali community in Minnesota, including sending potentially up to 100 federal agents to the Twin Cities, according to an unnamed official and documents obtained by The Times. The news prompted city leaders to hold a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, and as of Wednesday, reports of increased immigration enforcement actions have been spreading across the cities of Minneapolis, St. Paul, Richfield, and Bloomington.
ProPublica has reported that 85% of the Trump administration’s deportation flights have been on charter planes. Some flight attendants also allege to ProPublica that they were advised to abandon detainees in case of an emergency.
“These deportations are ripping families apart and are doing nothing but sewing fear and anxiety in our community,” says Geof Paquette, UNITE HERE Local 17’s internal organizing director. Food service workers at the airport represented by UNITE HERE Local 17 recently won the highest wage increases ever at the airport after threatening to strike on the busiest travel day of the year. “We’ve got to demand better from our local government leaders, from the MAC who runs the airport who knows these deportation flights are taking place.”
Nick Benson built an app for sharing commercial flight data analytics and is a member of Minnesota 50501. He says that he started paying attention to deportation flights this spring, after noticing a lack of transparency to the public, which the Minnesota Reformer has recently reported. After looking at the data and noticing a flight coming in, Benson explains that he would go to a favorite spot and watch a truck from a company like Signature Aviation pull up and refuel a plane. Then, a convoy of vehicles with the Department of Homeland Security would pull up and unload vans of people. He says watching it feels “gut-wrenching.”
“ICE agents disembark from the airplane, and unload bags of shackles from the cargo hold. I was here yesterday recording a video, and they were laying the shackles out on the icy tarmac,” he says. “It’s time for all of us here, regular people and bureaucrats alike, to start looking for peaceful, safe, legal, and creative ways to slow this down until it stops.”
Retired janitor and member of SEIU Local 26 George Mullins said earlier this year he traveled to Louisiana for demonstrations outside of ICE detention centers alongside hundreds of SEIU members. He said they heard reports of poor living conditions, such as medical negligence, cockroaches, lack of clean drinking water, and expired food. “As we sit and watch Trump’s cruel mass deportations, I’m reminded of being a young, Black kid in Tennessee during the civil rights movement,” he says. “To our neighbors who are being put on these planes in chains, likely with no idea where they’re being taken, we see you.”
More than two weeks earlier, on November 18, a militarized, multi agency raid at St. Paul wiper distributor Bro-Tex Inc. resulted in 14 workers being arrested for alleged immigration violations. Over 200 people attended a vigil following the raid on November 19 hosted by Immigrant Defense Network and COPAL where community leaders spoke on holding the government accountable.
“In Minnesota, we do not cower in the face of intimidation,” said State Sen. Zaynab Mohamed at the vigil two weeks ago. “We will not allow fear to become a tool of governance.”
Speaking at the beginning of the December 3 march, Nammacher said, “We know that especially with the focus on the last couple of days against our Somali brothers and sisters, these attacks will only increase. This is the beginning of a long struggle. It may be snowy outside, it may even get worse. But we are going to be here and continue to show up until we stop this deportation machine.”