Rev. Jo traveled to Minneapolis January 21–24, 2026, with more than 600 clergy from across the country to witness ICE operations firsthand. What she found: ICE agents are snatching people off the streets within minutes, regardless of documentation, and flying them to concentration camps in Texas. Black and brown bodies are being targeted in their own neighborhoods, outside churches, even in hospital NICUs. But she also witnessed something extraordinary: the most powerful mutual aid networks she’s ever seen. Communities organizing 24/7 patrols, feeding neighbors, moving people to safety, and refusing to cooperate with injustice.
This is Jo’s testimony about what’s happening right now and her call for us to organize before it comes here.
I want to start by saying this reflection is not polished. It’s going to be rambly and disjointed. I’m probably going to cry. We might all cry. That is good and whole and holy.
I want you to know that I am okay. You do not need to take care of me. But this is an open wound for every single person in this room. I’m thankful you’re here to witness the reality of what so many people in Minneapolis are experiencing. If we don’t share this story, the media will keep spinning whatever they want to spin.
I also want to say that I do not need thanks for answering the call to Minneapolis. My white, privileged, able-bodied, powerful body moving to Minnesota wasn’t heroic. I was called by my values, my Unitarian Universalist values, to be present, to witness, to learn. The call was obvious and undeniable in my soul.
If you want to express gratitude, express it for those with their boots on the ground every single day. For those who created space for more than 600 stranger clergy to show up and be taught and shown and fed and included in neighborhood patrols so that I might bring this learning back to you.
The organizers in Minneapolis, who are beautifully queer and transgender and rainbow and beloved, put out a call on Friday. By Wednesday, more than 1,200 people answered. They had to cap it because they couldn’t safely hold more. Churches all over Minneapolis opened their doors. They fed us. They welcomed us with winter clothing and snacks. In four days, these people who are exhausted from daily patrols and fighting ICE constantly created a welcoming space for us to exist in.
ICE agents are everywhere. About 3,000 agents in Minneapolis, patrolling neighborhoods. They focus on neighborhoods where brown and black bodies continue to be terrorized.
When ICE detains somebody in Minneapolis, they hold them for three hours or less, then fly them to a concentration camp in Texas. Sometimes ICE will surround a person and ask for papers and let them go. Sometimes ICE will just snatch people. Sometimes ICE will take somebody who produces papers and ship them to Texas anyway.
They recently shipped a five-year-old to a concentration camp in Texas.
If you are listening to the news and hearing that ICE is here to take the criminals and rapists and murderers out of our country, that is simply not what is happening.
These abductions happen in minutes, friends. Two minutes. It takes two minutes for an ICE agent to get out of their car, snatch a body off the street, throw them in the car and drive away. They don’t care who the body is. Is it black or brown? Great. It checks the box.
We helped patrol the streets of black and brown neighborhoods. That means we walked around looking for ICE vehicles. ICE vehicles have tinted windows, usually SUVs or vans, men inside with face coverings and wraparound sunglasses. ICE is getting sneaky. They’re starting to put “Coexist” and vegan bumper stickers on their cars to outsmart people watching for them.
When an ICE agent is spotted, people get loud. Whistles. Horns. You follow them around. You try to block them from going to neighborhoods. These are legal observers. It’s the same as walking into a courtroom to observe.
The noise alerts the whole neighborhood that ICE is there and calls other patrollers to the scene. The more witnesses there are, the less likely an abduction is to take place.
While Laura and I were out patrolling, a big white pickup truck with dark windows and out-of-state plates pulled over near a brown-skinned woman. We walked back and stood across the street and stared at them. Eventually they drove away.
We witnessed an attempted abduction outside San Pablo Lutheran Church. ICE agents surrounded a brown woman in her car with her babies and demanded her papers. In America, we are demanding papers of brown and black people. That’s what’s happening.
There were hundreds of clergy inside the church. Observers in their car were blowing whistles and honking horns, legally observing. ICE agents surrounded the observers’ vehicle, smashed in the driver’s side window even though her hands were up and she said, “I’m legally observing.” They tried to pull her out. She had been assaulted, her face was bloody, windshield in her eyes. The abduction did not take place.
A Robust Mutual Support Network
The mutual aid, the mutual support, the mutual networks in Minneapolis are incredible. San Pablo Lutheran Church, where most of the congregation does not speak English, welcomed us. They told us they pack food boxes monthly. Once a month they have free acupuncture and reiki for community members who need healing. They sneak them into the church. They have medics on site who also provide security and patrol neighborhoods.
While 200 clergy were sitting in this sanctuary, the priest said, “Oh, by the way, my folks just decided they want to feed you lunch.” For 200 people, they made soup for us. These people who are literally under siege made soup for us.
One of our Jewish colleagues was late that morning because she was taking breast milk to a woman caring for a baby. The baby’s mother was snatched out of the NICU. They don’t know where she is.
These people have the most extensive mutual aid support networks. They’re getting food to people. They have telemedicine appointments for people who absolutely cannot leave their house. People pick up prescriptions and drive them to homes. They help with child care. They educate children who can’t leave the house. They help with transportation, moving people in secret cars, under blankets in the back.
We patrolled neighborhoods, just clergy singing on sidewalks. People were opening their window shades and waving to us. They were calling out their doors: “Thank you.” They were thanking us for walking on the street, for just being there to keep them safe.
Cars patrolling would pull over and ask if we needed snacks or hand warmers. When you ask them if this is organized, they say no. Well, kind of.
They have so many Signal chats. When somebody is out patrolling and sees ICE, they call in to the dispatcher. There’s a dispatcher 24/7 on Signal. They have a log of license plates. They check to see if they can identify it as an ICE vehicle. If confirmed, a signal goes out to everybody about exactly where ICE is located. People start following them. The community comes out. People blow whistles and tell their neighbors: ICE is here. Do not come out. Do not risk your life.
What We Can Do in Syracuse
We need to be better about alerting the community to ICE. We don’t post on social media “ICE is in Syracuse” without verification. We don’t build fear. We need to be more direct with our actions.
The acronym is SALUTE:
- Size: How many officers exactly?
- Activity: What are they doing? Has anybody been detained?
- Location: Where did you see them exactly and in what direction are they heading?
- Units: What type of officers? What markings or uniforms?
- Time: When exactly did you see them?
- Equipment: What are they wearing? What are they holding?
If you can verify that ICE is present, post it on your social media and then go to where they are. Honk your horn. Follow them with your car. Get your whistle. Blow your whistle. Be loud. They operate in secret, friends. They are slinking around and that is how they’re able to abduct people.
Be loud about what’s happening. Tell the neighborhood what’s going on. If somebody’s mad at you for honking your horn, who cares? Because honking your horn or blowing your whistle is going to keep somebody else safe.
It’s Not Just in Minneapolis
This is happening right now, every day, every minute. It is happening in Minneapolis. It is happening in Maine and in Dallas. It will come here whether we do something about it or not. The question is, how organized are we going to be before it comes here and is out of control?
The people I met in Minneapolis are not superheroes. They are just people. They are people who decided that their values demand action. They figured out how to organize with each other. They figured out how to spot ICE vehicles. They figured out how to alert entire neighborhoods. They are feeding their neighbors and keeping them safe every single minute of every single day.
They did what needed to be done because there is no other choice.
The first principle of our Unitarian Universalist faith reminds us that every single person has dignity and deserves respect. Every one of them, no matter what papers they have, no matter their skin color or their accent, the size of their body, the ability of their body.
Our values as Unitarian Universalists call us to justice, equity, and compassion. They demand that we are accountable for the ways we treat each other and show up for one another, especially those who are marginalized.
Right now, our government is breaking families apart moment by moment. They are holding humans in cages. They are murdering people simply for exercising their rights to be legal observers. They are murdering people because they have black and brown skin, because they speak with an accent.
We Have a Choice
Friends, we have a choice. We can pretend this is not happening. We can look away because I am a comfortable, warm, safe, white, able-bodied person in my home. I don’t see it happening, so it’s not happening.
Or you can act in the way that your values demand of you.
I’m not going to lie and say it’s not going to be hard. This is going to be hard, and it’s going to be a long time. ICE is snatching legal observers off the streets who aren’t doing any crimes. That is exactly what the Nazis did.
Friends, we must learn from our Jewish beloveds who were taken. Their bones hold resilience for us. If trauma is epigenetic, resilience is also epigenetic. We have learned that, and we must carry that forward.
We can learn and organize and show up. We can make noise, and we must refuse to cooperate with injustice.
If somebody pulls you over and you are a white, able-bodied person, you need to resist. You do not need to give them information. You do not have to comply with police because you’ve been taught as a white person to comply. You say: “Am I free to go?” Those are the only words. Then you leave. Get far enough away where you can continue to observe and videotape.
We need to protect our neighbors in danger. I’m asking you to get organized.
Be intentional about getting to know your neighbors. Start a mutual aid network. I don’t care if you don’t know your neighbors. I don’t care if you think it’s weird.
Write a letter. Take it to all the houses in your neighborhood, in your one-block radius. Say: “Hey, I’m Jo. I think mutual aid is really important. If you’re concerned about what’s happening in the world, I hope you’ll send me a text and I can add you to the network we’re starting in this neighborhood to keep everybody safe.”
You might think it’s weird. You’re not going to think it’s weird when we need it and you don’t have it.
Participate in CNY Solidarity. Participate and know what’s happening with the Syracuse Immigrant and Refugee Defense Network (SIRDN). Get on their newsletters. Know what is happening in your community and how you are connected to the resistance. We all must be a part of it.
Beloved community is a daily practice that we must choose every single time we wake up.
My friends, the practice starts now. Will you answer the call?
