In January, Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush flew to Minneapolis with a group of clergy in a show of solidarity against ICE. He had one big takeaway from his visit: “ICE will not win there.”

The out gay president and CEO of Interfaith Alliance – a progressive religious organization working to challenge Christian nationalism and religious extremism – told LGBTQ Nation that he was utterly blown away by the determination of those protesting the Trump administration’s brutal Operation Metro Surge, which resulted in the deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good and in the suffering of countless others.

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Indeed, the entire nation has been astonished by the ferocity with which Minneapolis residents have protected one another. Their peaceful and relentless protests threw the current administration for a loop, with officials scrambling to handle a pushback they didn’t see coming.

“There’s a certain grit in the Twin Cities that is not going to give in,” Raushenbush said. “They are organized, and they are committed, and there is so much love there. It’s all rooted in love.”  

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A feeling of siege

Sure enough, White House border czar Tom Homan announced this week that after six weeks brutalizing the city, Operation Metro Surge was coming to an end. Gov. Tim Walz (D) said he is “cautiously optimistic” that most ICE agents will soon be leaving the state.

While the news is a victory in many ways, Walz remained sober in his response, reminding America what the city endured.

“Our sense of normalcy was shook to the core,” he said. “The trauma that’s been inflicted, certainly across the immigrant community but to every single Minnesotan, is unlike anything we’ve witnessed. We’ve been through natural disasters, we’ve been through COVID, but this is something I don’t think any state has ever experienced.”

Raushenbush’s account of his time there corroborates that feeling. He traveled to Minneapolis from his hometown of New York City after the organization March Minnesota invited clergy from around the country to join them. Raushenbush said they expected about 200 people to answer their call. Instead, about a thousand showed up.

Raushenbush said MARCH was founded “as a queer liberation group of faith,” but after the murder of George Floyd, they expanded their mission to include racial justice as well.

“They’re the key to this story,” Raushenbush emphasized. “It’s not about me being brave. It’s really not. People are doing that every day there.”

Raushenbush said he went to Minneapolis to learn and support, and one thing he learned was just how much it felt like a war zone.

“The numbers of ICE there created a feeling of siege and occupation,” he explained. “I live in New York City, and we have lots of ICE here, but we’re so huge and widespread that you don’t day-to-day feel it. There, you feel it day to day. It feels like the threat is all around you at any time.”

While there, he joined the famed January 23 anti-ICE march, which involved an estimated 50,000 people resisting the occupation in temperatures that reached as low as negative 20 degrees Fahrenheit.

“It was really serious, but it was so amazing,” he said.

Raushenbush also participated in a sing-in at Target, which has been slammed by activists for staying silent while ICE uses its parking lots as staging areas. He called the event “an incredible gathering of clergy that were combining a history of being pro-queer with anti-racist and pro-immigrant.”

“It’s part of an ongoing invitation to Target to recognize who they are actually beholden to,” he said, pointing out that the company also capitulated early on to the federal crackdown on DEI programs.

He also took part in a “spiritual pilgrimage” with about 35 other clergy from George Floyd Square to the site where an ICE agent shot and killed queer wife and mother Renee Nicole Good. He called the experience “deeply meaningful,” but then it turned out ICE agents were following them.

The clergy hid in a church for an hour until the coast was clear. Later, they learned the agents who’d been trailing them had attacked two legal observers in the process.

“For us, that underscored the daily violent attacks in Minnesota neighborhoods,” Raushenbush wrote in a piece recounting the experience, aptly titled, “For the love God, get ICE out of Minnesota.”

What faith groups can do

Faith groups have played a large overall role in the resistance to ICE in Minneapolis, but Raushenbush said he has noticed a shift in how they show up.

“From my observance of the folks on the ground there and the way that faith communities are talking about this all across the country, is that for us to be effective, it doesn’t mean we have to always lead. We can come up alongside other groups and say, how can we support what you are doing and be good partners to you without having to take the limelight or even make the strategy?”

“What faith groups can do,” he continued, “is help with the message and take away the power of religion from the administration to legitimize this in the name of religion… They’re putting Bible verses on DHS ads, Bible verses on ICE stuff. It’s lies, lies, lies. It’s, you know, perfume on the stench of an oppressive policy, and they’re trying to pretend like it doesn’t still stink, and everybody knows it does.”

Even the Catholic Church – which does not often mix in to political controversy – has spoken out against ICE’s actions, Raushenbush emphasized.

“Because what is happening is the faith communities are under attack. If you have a primary Latino faith community, people aren’t going to church. They’re scared to go to church… Our [faith] community is being decimated.”

“You can’t argue it’s a freedom of religion thing because people are scared to go to worship, so you are seeing a wider range of folks showing up in all different ways.”

What it will mean

Upon hearing the news that ICE was withdrawing from Minneapolis, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) said the state “has shown the world how to protect our democracy and take care of our neighbors.”

Raushenbush echoed a similar sentiment after witnessing it all firsthand.

“This,” he said, “is in some ways the front lines of what it will mean to organize in this time in America’s history.”

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