I.C.E. Crackdown in Minneapolis and Beyond: Nonviolent Responses of Northern Yearly Meeting Friends

Compiled by Robin Greenler, Clerk, Northern Yearly Meeting, February 2026

Another couple of Friends go weekly to their small-town vigil, reaching out to everyone who passes with messages such as We are not enemies, We are neighbors, Forgiveness and, How have you used your voice today?  as they try to promote community in their own way.

In response to our government’s violent ICE assault in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Friends there and across Northern Yearly Meeting, like those in many other places in the United States, are being called to engage in Spirit-led action in ways small and large, public and private, individual and collective.  Our work is grounded in faith of God’s will, and we are learning to engage with these issues with guidance from the Spirit. We yearn to find concrete ways to meet the moment, and the paths given us are as diverse as the needs present and as the gifts we carry.

​​Minneapolis is certainly the current center of the assault (and as of mid-February there is still a substantial presence of federal troops in Twin Cities and surrounding suburbs, despite waning national attention and news coverage.)  Minneapolis Friends relay that the federal government has “created a masked army that is literally terrorizing our cities, attacking migrant populations and peaceful protesters and disrupting our economic life.”   The assault is terrifying, raw, unpredictable, deadly and urgent. Residents are responding with broad, disciplined, courageous, and effective non-violent resistance.  Their resistance has become a continual battle, not letting up regardless of the ebbs and flows of national and international attention. They protest in numbers small to very large, provide aid to their neighbors in a myriad of ways, open their homes to neighbors, and their meetinghouses to worship, trainings, and coalition building.

One of the powerful weapons of the assault is fear.  Fear pins immigrants and people of color to their homes, afraid to send children to school, to go to work or buy groceries.  Its force is felt everywhere, and the threat of deportation is so egregious, that mere rumor is often enough to traumatize or sometimes retraumatize individuals and their families.  And the fear is pervasive across our region.  In many cities, small towns and rural areas in the region and across the country are seeing local attacks on their migrant populations, seizures of individuals, some targeted and others indiscriminate and many not adhering to the rule of law.  And in our Yearly Meeting region, many cities prepare for possible full assaults to their cities. We stand in solidarity with our Minneapolis neighbors; we hold them in prayer and support them in ways we can.  And we actively protect our own neighbors, protest ICE activity in our region, and ready ourselves.

Individuals in the Yearly Meeting are involved through immigrant justice networks and rapid response teams; refugee aid and support initiatives; hosting neighbors in our homes;  participating in many and varied protests and vigils sometimes harnessing a growing singing resistance component; public outreach and education, including to political representatives; and explicitly drawing on our worship-based faith practices to offer support, sanctuary, and interfaith coalitions. Stories below help bring life to this otherwise academic list of possible forms of non-violent resistance.

Immigrant Justice Networks, Coalition Building, and Rapid Response Teams

Many Quaker rapid responders in Minneapolis regularly witness and film when ICE descends on households, businesses, or schools.  Meetings are also collaborating with immigrant justice organizations that provide trainings to prepare Friends and community members for rapid response roles including Verifier, Court Accompaniers, Know Your Right educators, Immigration Counselors as well as marshals, peacekeepers, and observers.  Friends are active in these roles.  Meetings seek out broad collaborations with other community organizations and congregations.  Interfaith coalitions such as with ISIAH, MOSES, Palm Sunday and others are common as friends of faith find commonality and community in their collective resistance.  Meetinghouses around the region are opening their doors to meetings of Indivisible and other activist organizations. One meeting collected funds for sound equipment for use by those organizing outdoor rallies. 

Refugee Aid and Support Initiatives

The needs for refugee aid and support are as widely varied as are the responses. Friends are very aware of the many refugees from Central and South America, Africa and Asia living as their neighbors. Friends accompany and transport refugees to workplaces and grocery stores and bring children to school and daycare. Volunteers serve as guards at public middle school and daycares, alerting of ICE presence.  One Friend relates, “There is a dear member of our meeting who stands outside in the bitter cold with a whistle and bright vest, letting the school children that attend his local elementary school know that they have someone looking out for them; someone they can run to if frightened or approached. …[T]his dear elder, stand[s] guard over our city’s children.”

Food, hygiene products and other supplies are solicited, packed, and sorted at local places of worship, food pantries or delivered to known neighbors.  One Friends sees building a network of food deliverers and workers as a way to strengthen community ties and hopes to explicitly grow such a mutual support network that can bring people together in a safe setting with folks they have learned they can trust. 

And unsurprisingly, many Meetings and individuals donate financially to food pantries, to cover rent for those who cannot work or refugees facing homelessness, to community organizing initiatives, to immigrant support Networks and other places as needs arise. One meeting has committed to paying some of the legal fees necessary to file a habeas petition when someone who meets criteria is detained by federal authorities to prevent them from being held in detention and moved out of state.  Much of this support has been ongoing for a long time, but of course the need has sharpened considerably in the last months.

Hosting Refugees in Our Homes and Meetinghouses

Friends have supported asylum seeking individuals and families by opening their homes. Some have done this for days, some for months or even years, opening their lives to these relationships.  This often involves financial, legal, translation, logistical, advocacy, documentation and material assistance.  Some provide offers of hosting to their rural immigrant dairy workers, should need arise, easing fear and letting workers know that compassionate support exists in their rural community.  Some Quaker Meetings and Worship groups have, or are looking, into ways to become sanctuary congregations.

Protests and Vigils

We have seen images of frequent and sometimes massive vigils and public protests in the streets of Minneapolis, at the federal detention center where ICE agents gather, and in cities all over the world.  These events occur on a daily basis throughout our region in rural townships, small towns, cities, senior centers, on bridges and in churches. In some rural areas, Friends attend numerous rallies at multiple nearby small towns, supporting what are often the first rallies ever seen in these rural communities. One very small worship group sits together in silent worship at their city’s weekly rally, a tiny, grounded circle of Friends, inviting Spirit into the midst.  Another couple of Friends go weekly to their small-town vigil, reaching out to everyone who passes with messages such as We are not enemies, We are neighbors, Forgiveness and, How have you used your voice today?  as they try to promote community in their own way.

Many Friends serve as marshals, peacekeepers, legal observers at larger events.  Some are bringing food to those engaged in front line work who feel they cannot take time to prepare food for themselves.  One Friend put her dog and 200 handwarmers and drove four hours to Minneapolis, to witness, support and provide aid.  Giving our presence allows us to know we are not alone.  

One particularly moving form of resistance in Minneapolis has been the singing demonstrations, sometimes over 1000 people strong and occurring in meetinghouses and churches, in the streets and through immigrant neighborhoods to convey solidarity.  One demonstration visited several hotels known to house ICE agents and sang songs “inviting them to rejoin humanity.”  A Friend shared that “we sing courage and support to neighbors who are living in fear (Keep hope alive; keep hope alive. We see you. We love you; We’re here with you.)” and “invitation to ICE agents who want to leave their jobs (We walk the same ground, but we got torn apart. Lay down your weapons, Come sing your part).”  A Friend experienced that the singing demonstration “knits us together in beauty rather than fear, offers encouragement to those at risk – that they are seen and not forgotten or forsaken, and makes a statement to those we face that we are not to be feared; we see their humanity and ask them to see ours.” Many Friends are involved in local Resistance Singing group startups.

At the Heart, this is Spirit-Led Work

One Friend reminds us that “[I]n a world that cries out for care, our inner life can become a sanctuary and a source for strength and increased resolve.”   Friends have created space for special Called Meetings for Worship locally and Yearly Meeting-wide, to hold the concerns of immigration enforcement, to hold our at-risk neighbors, ICE agents, and our city in prayer, to worship together, for lamentations, and to support one another.   There have been numerous worshipful meetings to discuss emotional/spiritual needs around the political environment and what is asked of us in this moment.  One Worship Group made a special invitation to their community neighbors to join them for meeting for worship with attention to ICE enforcement. Meetings have sent representatives and joined interfaith and multi-faith coalitions that provide leadership in response to the Minneapolis invasion and in long term thinking about how to maintain democracy. As one Friend notes, “Quakers all over the world are responding to events here as they often do: creating a place of quiet and rest in the midst of worry and chaos; facilitating a connection to the peace that passeth understanding.”  Many talk about feeling Spirit moving in their communities, in the actions, in the gatherings.

Public Outreach

Friends write and call the press and government officials with messages of support, requests, calling for compassion, asking for and shepherding legislation to protect citizens from ICE and to keep up pressure on our elected officials. They work through FCNL as well as other local, statewide and national groups. They reach out to at-risk neighbors about their rights and to all neighbors about agreements that local law enforcement can sign with ICE.   They speak at community meetings, trainings, and rallies. In Minneapolis, the Meeting responds to 8-10 messages daily offering links to groups providing food and rent assistance to local immigrant families and the Clerk has written and shared an epistle with over 20 Friends meetings in the USA, UK, and Canada highlighting some of the events in Minneapolis and sharing hope.

For some Friends, immigration concerns and activism are long held.  Some have been hosting refugees, writing regularly about immigration for local outlets, giving presentations and engaging in public education on immigration issues all over the region for years.  Relationships born of this work can be mutually transformative.

In Summary

A Friend said that in Minneapolis, it is “fair to say that concern over the invasion of Federal agents in Minneapolis and its effects on immigrants and families of color has become a part of daily life for most of us.” And all over the region, Friends act in solidarity with Minneapolis as we also act for our own neighbors and communities, for justice and democracy.  We are all connected and we will respond, as we can best discern, to promptings of the Spirit. We can nourish and inspire one another. 

There are so many more stories.  One Friend could tell how it felt to be on the streets of Minneapolis with 15,000 people on a January day when it was 9 below with a wind chill of nearly 20 below!  Sharing how all those people kept one another warm, the energy lifted them up and they were safe together or how extra cars were added to the light rail trains, they were completely full for hours, and there were cars behind the march route which opened up to provide warming houses for the marchers. 

For many Friends, their call is to “show-up”.  One Friend shared that when she learns of friends in need the “most I have to offer is my compassion and presence.   I believe this matters.  Service becomes obvious when you are at someone’s side, in person.”  As we reach out and comfort one another, we are reminded that fear is the point of this assault, that love overcomes fear, and that ICE agents are human beings with that of God in them.  As one Friend shared, “Our goals of peace, justice, and nonviolence cannot be achieved by seeing others as irredeemable.”

The Minneapolis Meeting Clerk reminded us how, “In one of his visions, George Fox, living through a period of civil war and persecution against early Friends, saw an ocean of darkness and death, but he also saw an ocean of Light and love flowing over and through it.  So too, Friends here are filled with gratitude and even joy at the outpouring of love as people all over our cities organize to care for others threatened by this darkness. As John wrote in his gospel centuries ago, ‘The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.’  All of this gives us hope as we live through the darkness around us.” 

We are the faces of hope for each other.