Minnesota Teachers and Grocery Workers: ICE Out of Our Workplaces

Teachers, families, community groups, and grocery workers are calling for federal immigration authorities to stay out of their workplaces, and out of Minnesota, one day after an ICE agent shot and killed Minneapolis resident and mother Renee Good. 

“On the day of Good’s murder, federal agents deployed chemical irritants and abducted an educator overseeing safe dismissal from Roosevelt High School grounds (who has since been released),” reads a January 8 statement from Minneapolis Families for Public Schools, TakeAction Minnesota, Minneapolis Federation of Educators, and ISAIAH, a coalition of educator unions, workers, and community organizations.

“ICE is putting our freedoms, our futures, and our lives at risk,” the statement continues. “Immigrant families, allied families, and educators are standing together to say ICE OUT now,” continues the statement, which announces a press conference the following morning.

Laura Proescholdt, communications director for TakeAction Minnesota, emailed Workday Magazine a list of the coalition’s demands. They include, “ICE out of our schools, ICE out of Minnesota. The ICE officer who shot and killed Renee Good should be held accountable. All elected officials and decisionmakers must use the full power of their offices to get ICE out. Kristi Noem’s ICE is acting with impunity, violating human rights, and our neighbors. Their actions are now responsible for the murder of a mother standing up for her neighbors.”

Proescholdt told Workday Magazine, “Our families are seeing more and more ICE activity that’s near or around school grounds, and they’ve also been seeing for several weeks ICE activity escalate in our community. We’re seeing families torn apart, people who are afraid to leave their homes, people going hungry, people whose housing is at risk because they can’t go to work. We are really sad and frustrated, and we want to see ICE out of our communities. We know that ICE leaving is key to us being safe.”

United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 663, meanwhile, is calling on grocery stores in Minnesota to bar federal immigration agents from its properties. The union represents more than 14,000 workers in retail, meat packing, food preparation, manufacturing, and healthcare in Minnesota.

On the morning of January 8, UFCW 663 sent letters to all of its union grocery employers urging them to use their powers to protect workers, according to a statement from the union.

In one letter to UNFI Cub Foods, a major grocery employer in Minnesota, the union asked the company to “prohibit Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or other immigration enforcement agencies from using your parking lots or properties to stage, coordinate, or conduct enforcement operations, and deny entry onto the property unless required by court order.”

“This is a safety and wellbeing issue for our members,” the letter states.

Jessica Hayssen, communications director for UFCW 663, told Workday Magazine that the union is not aware of any incidents where federal immigration authorities entered the property of one of their union stores. But there are unconfirmed reports of agents going to non-union grocery stores in the suburbs of the Twin Cities, she said, and federal immigration authorities have such a huge presence in Minnesota that members deemed proactive action was necessary.

Since the letter went out this morning, a small handful of employers have started discussions with the union, Hayssen explained.

UFCW International President Milton Jones is calling for ICE to leave the area completely. “Communities and local economies cannot thrive unless people feel safe,” he said in a statement. “ICE must end the chaos, withdraw from Minneapolis and other cities and states, and allow people to live and work free from fear.”

This is a developing story and will be updated as more news comes in.