Hi, I’m Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou, president of the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, and I want to thank Progressive Change for the chance to speak to you about what’s been happening on the ground in Minneapolis under ICE occupation.

For more than 50 days, ICE’s ‘Operation Metro Surge’ has created fear, instability, and violence in our community. Minnesotans have watched our neighbors disappear in front of us, and we have come together to protect each other.

Let’s be absolutely clear on this point: Minnesota and its neighborhoods are under attack from our own federal government.

That’s why on January 23rd, in -20 weather, 90,000 Minnesotans took to the streets peacefully, in solidarity, to demand ICE OUT of our communities. Labor has played a key role in this resistance.

Minnesota Labor is stepping up to keep the resistance going. Can you join us by splitting a tax-deductible donation with the Minneapolis Regional Labor Fed’s Working Partnerships fund and the Progressive Change Institute to build local rapid response networks that are meeting the needs of workers in Minneapolis?

Every single one of our unions have a story about a member, whether they were at work or not, who have been illegally detained―folks who are here working legally with their papers.

Some of the folks that are being arrested work at workplaces that have significant background checks that require all of your paperwork to be absolutely impeccably in order to work, and yet they are still being arrested and whisked away to a camp in the middle of Texas within hours of being arrested.

And then they're in these facilities for days, detained illegally for weeks on end when they've had every right to be working here. And it's just causing havoc and fear, widespread fear across all kinds of industries.

Teachers are teaching to half-empty classrooms. Restaurants are having to close. Peaceful observers have been gunned down in the street. This is what a community under siege looks like.

Acts of solidarity puts all our collective muscle together to say: This has to stop.

It's a message that resonates beyond Minneapolis and beyond the state of Minnesota. It's a message where our entire country has to take this very seriously, and we all need to work together to make what is happening in our community and this occupation of our community and other communities stop immediately.

Specifically, your donation will be used for:

Mutual aid supporting families who can’t safely work with food, rent relief and rides
Legal defense for the detained workers and constitutional observers
Rebuilding our communities vast organizing networks

Even if ICE leaves Minneapolis tomorrow, rebuilding our communities could take years. Your tax-deductible donation today will make sure we are able to respond and rebuild. Rush a donation today!

We’ve been overwhelmed by the outpouring of solidarity throughout the nation. Minneapolis thanks you. I thank you.

In solidarity,

– Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou, President, Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation

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