ICE Staging at Target Parking Lots Condemned by Local Leaders

Community organizations and civil rights leaders gathered Thursday outside the Lake Street Target to demand accountability from the retailer after reports that ICE used the store’s parking lot as a staging area for an enforcement operation in South Minneapolis and Richfield.

On the backdrop of the Trump administration deploying ICE agents to target the Somali community in the Twin Cities, home to the largest Somali population in the country, community groups in Minneapolis are calling out Target after reports that ICE used the Lake Street Target parking lot to stage an operation threatening to separate families.

"Our community and our state is under attack," said Jaylani Hussein, executive director of CAIR-MN and a Target boycott co-founder. "The Somali American community has been invested in this great state—they are our neighbors, friends, colleagues and teachers. We are Minnesotans. 
And we say to President Trump, and to others, who come for us: We are our neighbors. We stand with each other, and we will not be divided.
"

Black Lives Matter Minnesota, CAIR-MN, Racial Justice Network and Unidos MN criticized Target for allowing federal agents to operate on its property and called for the company to adopt a nationwide ban on ICE staging, surveillance, or enforcement activities at any of its stores.

Luis Argueta of Unidos MN said the incident represented a breach of trust between Target and the communities it serves and said Target crossed the line.

"We are not here to whisper. We are here to demand accountability," said Luis Argueta of Unidos MN. "Target must ban ICE from every property, reinvest in the communities that have kept its stores open, follow through on its diversity commitments and stand with its community, not with this administration."

Civil rights attorney and co-founder of the National Target boycott, Nekima Levy Armstrong, reminded the crowd that Target has a record of siding with the Trump administration. She pointed to Target’s $1 million contribution to the Trump/Vance inauguration committee and the company’s announcement earlier this year to roll back DEI efforts.

“It’s really disheartening to see that Target Corporation has chosen the side of the oppressor,” she said. “It is unacceptable, unconscionable, inhumane and we will not tolerate it.”

Organizers said the boycott will continue unless the corporation adopts clear policies prohibiting ICE activity on all Target properties nationwide.

"Target has already suffered,” said Jaylani. “But in this moment, as this president comes for our neighbors, mostly U.S. citizens, if that is what Target wants to be known for, then they will expedite in its process of being a bankrupt company."