By Rev. Dorothy S. Boulware
Word in Black
Overview:
In various corners and sacred spaces across Minneapolis, people of faith are making themselves available to support those targeted by the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Residents can connect or find care at one of several areas or sacred spaces.
The scenes unfolding during the Trump administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdown in Minneapolis during the past few weeks are viscerally disturbing and hard to watch.
Masked, heavily armed agents, many in body armor, pounding on doors, barging into schools, and stopping people on the street, demanding proof of citizenship from people they believe are in the U.S. illegally. Neighborhood residents honk car horns or blow whistles to alert migrants to ICE’s presence as protesters clash with agents in the snow-covered streets.
The tension is unfolding as the community continues to grapple with the killing of Renee Good, a Minneapolis resident whom an ICE agent shot in her car on Jan. 7.
Amid the chaos, anxiety, and violence in the Twin Cities, however, a loose coalition of clergy and lay people is creating a version of what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., has called “the beloved community”: a place founded on justice, equity, and love.
In various corners and sacred spaces across Minneapolis, people of faith make themselves available in myriad ways to support those targeted by ICE. Residents can connect or find care at one of several areas or sacred spaces: The Streets, The Square, and The Stable.
The Streets
From the streets come boxes of food for people too frightened to leave the house to shop. From the streets come homework packets for children whose parents won’t send them to school for fear they’ll be grabbed.
“My congregation has a longstanding food shelf, and we’ve increased our home deliveries because our people don’t want to leave their house,” said Shari Seifert, a member of Calvary Lutheran Church.
Preaching has become fuel, she said — a call to be “prophetic” and pursue justice.
After services, congregants organize resources and responses: where to do ICE watch, where to donate, who needs groceries and medicine delivered.
Seifert, the author of “Ashes to Action” about the Minneapolis uprising after the murder of George Floyd in 2020, recently joined an event led by San Pablo, a Latino congregation she said has been “spreading hope.”
“They had a Posada (procession that memorializes Joseph and Mary’s search for shelter on the night of Jesus’ birth) and tons of people showed up, and together we processed through the streets of Minneapolis,” Seifert said. “We stopped at places that had been hit by ICE in June, up on Lake Street, and just cultivated a lot of joy.”
The congregation also sent people out singing in the streets, she said, offering a message meant to cut through fear: “We’re not just tragedy. We’re joyful people. We can be hopeful people.”
The Square
Inside and outside the movement are chaplains trained to meet physical needs — and to respond to trauma that has compounded over years, from the pandemic to the murder of George Floyd.
“They’re doing rapid response, court support and street medic work,” said Dr. Kelly Sherman-Conroy, a Native American theologian and professor at Augsburg University and St. Olaf College. “They’re helping with language interpretation, food and childcare. They’re holding families. They’re planning strategies and groups.”
But she said the work required structure — and boundaries rooted in lived experience.
“We built this fast structure and people were trained before they went out onto the streets,” Sherman-Conroy said. “At one point we were doing five trainings a day. No one goes out alone, and no one goes out as a chaplain if they weren’t trained.”
Chaplains also learned they would not always be welcomed, she said — and that their presence could cause harm if it centered volunteers instead of the community.
“There are places where you might not be welcome,” she said. “During that time, if you were White and you walked into some places, it wasn’t about you.”
Presence, she said, is not neutral.
“If you don’t understand the history of George Floyd — the trauma in the air, the power you carry in your body, the color of your skin — you can do real harm with good intentions,” Sherman-Conroy said. “We had to learn what it means to be a guest.”
From the Square comes that lesson — and the strength of a community built over decades and hardened by each onslaught: COVID-19, Floyd’s murder and now ICE.
The Stable
People also find new life from The Stable — theology, ideology and survival skills — through the teaching of its founder and ordained pastor, the Rev. Dr. Jia Starr Brown.
“It’s like three full-time jobs in terms of caring for the congregation,” Brown said. “My work is for those pockets — the people not part of the status quo. I’m always at the intersection of faith, education and justice.”
Brown created The Stable because she said it meets the needs of the moment.
“We do decolonizing work,” she said. “People can deconstruct their theology — all the biblical learning they’ve carried for years. And this isn’t only for White folks.”
“All of us have been taught through this conditioned lens,” she said. “So how do we deconstruct it to look at Jesus’ way, and how it applies to our current experience? We’re decolonizing grief, decolonizing Jesus.”
She said the weekday schedule allows her to partner with congregations that don’t have similar resources. People tune in from around the world, she said, and she views The Stable as a “net” for those considering leaving — or who have already left — traditional church settings.
Brown is also disturbed by what she called the silence of Black faith leadership during this political moment, especially around immigration enforcement.
“ICE isn’t coming for one particular group,” she said. “We should be equipping our own people with information — what to do if stopped. That is a huge piece that needs to happen.”
