Randy Furst
HUNDREDS OF DEMONSTRATORS, mostly union members, rallied and marched through the streets of Minneapolis on Saturday, Oct. 3. The march was a show of support for 15 political activists who were indicted earlier this year by Donald Trump’s Justice Department for their organized opposition to the ICE assault on the Twin Cities known as Operation Metro Surge.
The remarkable show of labor solidarity was reflected in the endorsements from some of the city and state’s major labor unions. Union members carried banners and signs, supporting the Minnesota 15. About 400 demonstrators participated.
“When they injure one of us, they hurt all of us,” Brooklyn Cempasuchil, a board member of SEIU local 26, told the rally.
“Everyone’s rights are at stake,” said Tricia Ryshkus, a nurse and chair of the Minnesota Nurses Association at Children’s Hospital Minneapolis. “We demand the charges be dropped.”
“Minnesota strong and ICE out,” declared Marcia Howard, president of the Minneapolis Federation of Educators, the union representing Minneapolis teachers. “They don’t like the way union people come out for each other.”
Among the organizations endorsing the protest were the Minnesota AFL-CIO; the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation; the Minnesota Nurses Association; the National Association of Letter Carriers, Branch 9; AFSCME locals, 2822 and 7250; Communication Workers of America local 7250; Service Employees International Union local 26; United Food and Commercial Workers Union local 663; Unite HERE local 17; the two local teachers unions, Minneapolis Federation of Educators local 59 and St. Paul Federation of Educators local 28; Office and Professional Employees International Union local 12; and the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees.
Local community groups endorsing the protest included Black Lives Matter Minnesota, Minnesota Immigration Rights Action Committee, and the Twin Cities Chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America which joined the march at the conclusion of a membership meeting being held a few blocks away.
Isaac Sant, 36, one of the Minnesota 15, was among several defendants who joined the Saturday march.
“I am humbled and honored that so many of our brothers and sisters and so many from the community have come out to stand behind us,” said Sant, a nursing assistant at a local nursing home and a union member of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa.
“These charges aren’t just an attack on me and a group of friends,” he said. “This is an attack on the whole movement that rose up to defend our neighbors during the ICE occupation.”
In June, federal prosecutors announced the indictments, claiming the 15 defendants had organized militant protests outside a federal building aimed at physically assaulting agents from U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE). When reporters at the news conference asked Daniel Rosen, the U.S. attorney in Minneapolis, if any ICE agents were injured by the defendants, Rosen brushed aside the question, saying the protesters had planned violence.
Rosen added, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune, “Whether or not they actually at the end of the day caused bodily harm is not the measure of whether or not they committed a serious federal crime.”
The indictment does not indicate that any ICE agents were hurt.
The Justice Department has not had a good record of success in the recent ICE surge in Minnesota. Federal charges against others accused by Homeland Security have seen their cases collapse.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department has declined to press charges against the ICE and border patrol agents who in January shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two peaceful ICE observers in Minneapolis. Activists and local officials have described the killings as murder and many of the attorneys in the U.S. attorney’s office in Minneapolis have reportedly resigned over this issue.
Among the reasons the indictment of the Minnesota 15 has riled unions is that initial documents released to the defendants revealed that Homeland Security was spying on local unions, obtaining internal financial records, and offering false “evidence” to a local grand jury linking them to a conspiracy, purportedly aimed at attacking ICE
Ironically, local labor unions have been in the forefront of building peaceful, legal demonstrations in Minnesota, and the Minnesota AFL-CIO has played the central role in organizing large-scale marshalling forces to maintain the peaceful, legal character of the protests.
Kieran Knutson, president of CWA local 7250 and a principal organizer of the labor protest, said the Minnesota AFL-CIO, coordinated marshalling for the Saturday march.
Sant, the Minnesota 15 defendant, said an evidentiary hearing is scheduled in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis on Oct 20. The defense is pressing for release of documents from Homeland Security’s “Operation Keyhole,” an undercover surveillance operation by Homeland Security, the scope of which is not known.
Randy Furst was a reporter at the Minnesota Star Tribune for 52 years before his retirement in 2025. He was a former vice chair and chief steward for the Minnesota Newspaper and Communications Guild at the Star Tribune and a former member of the Guild’s executive board.
It felt great being back with community