Direct Action

Co-sponsored by the Friends of the RNC8

May 18 and 19th Walker Church 3104 16th Ave S. Minneapolis.

Opposition to War & Occupation stands in solidarity with those taking direct action to shut down the Immigration & Customs Enforcement headquarters in Bloomington today. For far too long ICE has been allowed to conduct violent raids of homes and businesses in Minnesota, spontaneously detaining and deporting undocumented workers, and leaving their children without care. For far too long the pursuit of stability across borders has been criminalized and those already at risk in the system are forced to endure protracted imprisonment and state violence.

There's a signless pinkish building at the corner of American and Metro in Bloomington Minnesota.  Like US immigration policy, this building is hidden in plain sight--visible to immigrants and their allies but ignored by the rest of the nation. This is the local Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility, anondescript place where deportees are held on the last night before they're driven to the airport and sent away.  Sometimes they leave behind families and children; sometimes they return to countries they last saw while still too young to remember.  One woman left her autistic and medically vulnerable son. 

"My father would never get to see me graduate high school," said Nick Espinosa, one of the activists who spoke at today's action in front of the ICE facility.  Espinosa's father came to the US at the age of 18.  Despite years of ordinary employment and participation in society, he was taken away by immigration agents in front of his family. ICE "sees immigration as a statistic," said Espinosa.  "Immigration has a human face."

"If people don't listen to these words then we must act," Espinosa continued.  He would later be arrested during a blockade of the facility.

MN Immigrant Rights Action Coalition | Related: Workday Minnesota Video | Photos from May 1 March for Immigrant Rights | Community Members Call for Protest at ICE HQ | Statement of Support from OWO Workday Minnesota: Supreme Court Bans Key Tool in Immigration Raids

Article and photos from Friday lockdown from Chris Steller/MNIndy

Mid-afternoon: The lockdown has still been going on with no police or recruiters on the scene; the Army and Navy stations have been shut down by Macalester SDS all day!

9:50am: U of M recruiting station still locked down.  Police were there but are no longer on the scene.  Support still needed.

9:00am, Friday April 24: And it goes on! Lockdown at Oak-Washington recruiting station by UMN campus.

Zero Recruitment Day saw at least five significant actions at military recruiting stations throughout the Twin Cities in addition to an action at the campus ROTC in Mankato.  In Brooklyn Center, four activists locked themselves to a station, disrupting business for over half the day.  Three Grandmothers for Peace were arrested after trying to enlist in St. Louis Park; afterwards, supporters continued to disrupt business.  At Lake and Lyndale in Minneapolis, a full day of action culminated in a redecoration of the recruiting station there, leading to a bizarre spectacle of fire trucks.  Actions also happened in West St. Paul and the University of Minnesota, where a lengthy rally closed the recruiting station there, while College Republican counter-protesters held signs--many racists and advocating torture--nearby.  TCIMC's dispatch is now off-line; read below for a play-by-play and check back for video reports in the next few days!

The radical, violent anti-capitalist protests that erupted at the G-20 and NATO summits last week underscore just how much Europe has slid to the left as a result of the global economic crisis.

The New York Times, in an April 4 story on the NATO protests titled "Riots erupt near bridge that links two countries", writes:

<strong>Australia and The Word of God
author: Bobby Meade
Mar 30, 2009 08:13

Since You Have Censored The Word of God, you have no rain!(Amos 4:17; Zech. 14:17) You have been serving sh*t-eating Nazis. I told you 7 years ago in "Fire! Rain! The Choice Remains!"; and that's not sunlight that fried your brains!

Nazis! Sweet and Kind!
Por Bobby Meade - Saturday, Mar. 30, 2009 at 5:49 PM

Under US law, the rich can “steal” cheap foreclosed houses. “People’s” historian Howard Zinn writes, “It is not easy to prove that protest changes policy.” This Monday, March 30th, Rosemary Williams is launching a protest that just might change things! She is refusing to leave her home at 3138 Clinton Ave. South in Minneapolis. It fell into foreclosure after having been refinanced once, and again two years ago to help make ends meet with an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM). Monthly payments shot up to $2,000! The community is rallying around her cry: STOP foreclosures and evictions!

Related: Picket of Foreclosed Home Auction at MPLS Convention Center Saturday | TCIMC Video of Hennepin County Sheriff's Sale Action