January 28, 2026
We Make Us Safe: What I Saw in Minnesota
Small children used as pawns by ICE to access their parents. Elderly people yanked from their homes without due process. Refugees – highly vetted, welcomed immigrants to the U.S. – suddenly treated as threats to national safety. Community members like Alex Pretti and Renee Macklin Good murdered on the street by federally deployed agents. This is what happens when immigration enforcement agencies operate with no oversight or accountability. This is the human cost of immigration enforcement with no guardrails. But even in this moment of complete uncertainty, our voices and actions matter. Now is our time to come together to protect our communities. Read more from HIAS’ VP for Community Engagement, Merrill Zack, after she reports back from traveling to Minnesota to protest against ICE.
Last week, I traveled to Minneapolis along with hundreds of clergy and faith leaders from across the country. We went to stand with Minnesotans — to march, pray, and bear witness to what’s happening in their communities every single day.
What is happening in Minneapolis breaks my heart and fills me with rage. And what I saw while I was there gave me hope.
The heartbreak and rage: families torn apart, elderly people arrested in their homes without warrants, high school students detained outside their schools, refugees who fled persecution now being targeted again. Multiple people have been killed. ICE and CBP actions that make none of us safer.
The hope: Minnesotans showing up for each other. While warming up from the cold, I met a mother whose teenager’s school had been targeted by ICE. She was providing food for five families too scared to leave their homes, and when she learned we’d flown in from other cities to march, she and my colleagues all cried together, hugged, shared hand warmers, and went back out into the cold to keep going. Over and over, I heard the same commitment: We make us safe.
Give today
Not armed militia. Not violent enforcement. Us. Community.
This is what HIAS believes in our bones. Immigrants and refugees make our communities stronger. Due process is the law. Every human deserves dignity. And when we see injustice, we show up.
Right now, HIAS and our partners are on the ground in cities and states around the country supporting families facing enforcement actions, defending legal rights, strengthening the communities that protect each other. This work takes resources. It takes lawyers and organizers and emergency funds and people willing to stay in the fight for as long as it takes.
No matter what obstacles are thrown in our way, HIAS will never stop doing this work. Fighting toward keeping families together. Toward defending the rule of law. Toward the kind of community that makes all of us safer.
I don’t know what the coming weeks will bring. But I know this: we have a choice about what kind of country we want to be. Minnesota is showing us the way.
Thank you for being part of this community. For not turning away. For staying connected, even when it’s hard.
