Immigration Advocates Bracing For ICE Crackdown
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Immigration advocates in Minnesota are bracing for what they believe could be widespread raids and arrests by immigration agents.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested more than 600 people in more than 10 states last week.
And the president Sunday said on Twitter that "the crackdown on illegal criminals is merely the keeping of my campaign promise."
Here in Minnesota, ICE says nine people were arrested last week, most of them at an Apple Valley mobile home complex.
Independent estimates put the number of undocumented immigrants living in Minnesota at 95,000.
An ICE representative told us Monday that the arrests of nine men in Apple Valley and Burnsville last week are not part of a national crackdown.
But immigration advocates here see it differently.
The images of arrests by ICE agents have sent shockwaves through the estimated 11.4 million people the federal government says are living in this nation illegally -- including those here in Minnesota
"The community is scared," Catalina Morales, the immigration organizer for ISAIAH, a faith-based group that provides services for immigrants, said.
She was among the advocates and faith leaders who rushed to ICE offices in the Twin Cities after the arrests at the Apple Valley complex in an unsuccessful attempt to get information on those arrested. ISAIAH says in the aftermath of the arrests, some local undocumented workers are in hiding.
"The people that were able to leave or go to work or even the people that are in construction workers right now are not showing up to work, they are just there inside of their homes," Morales said.
With the president promising to deliver on his campaign promise to deport those here illegally, ISAIAH says more than 20 churches across the state, including Macalaster Plymouth United in St. Paul, have agreed to be sanctuary churches.
"I would say that with the recent election it has woken us up," Reverend Adam Blons said.
The church and other sanctuary churches say if necessary they will allow people trying to avoid deportation to live in their churches.
"There is a sense that we need to be resisting what sounds like threats to a community of immigrants, including undocumented people particularly," Blons said.
ICE has a general policy not to make immigration arrests or take actions in so called sensitive locations, which include houses of worship.
ICE maintains there are exceptions, including an operation that has prior approval or if the person being sheltered is deemed dangerous or a threat to national security.
