While the Rev. Rebecca Gant took the seven-hour drive by herself to Minneapolis to join a faith-based protest against enhanced immigration enforcement, a part of the congregation was still with her.
“Last week, I asked them to write their names on a piece of fabric that was sewn into my stole that I wore so that I could carry them with me,” Gant said on WGLT’s Sound Ideas.
Gant, a minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Bloomington, was among the more than 1,000 clergy leaders who gathered in Minneapolis on Thursday and Friday to protest the Trump administration’s stepped-up immigration crackdown.
Clergy spent Thursday participating in a series of education events and preparation for Friday’s protest, which was conducted in sub-zero wind chills. It came weeks after ICE's fatal shooting of Renee Macklin Good and one day before another fatal shooting by immigration officers in that city.
Gant says she responded to an appeal from faith leaders in Minneapolis to join the rally.
“It wasn’t hard to make that decision. My faith teaches that we are all connected and we are all dependent on one another and that what hurts on person hurts all of us,” Gant said.
Gant was not among the 100 clergy who were arrested at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. That group tried to shut down the airport to push back against all the deportation flights coming from that airport.
Gant says protest organizers cautioned they did not know which police agency would be handling arrests, so protesters from out-of-town may have a difficult time getting an immediate release.
“Some [agencies] are predictable and gentler, and some are unpredictable and dangerous,” Gant said the protesters were told.
Gant says she instead joined some of her colleagues for a rally outside a Target store. They urged the Minneapolis-based company to resist immigration enforcement in their stores.
Gant says her congregation is "dismayed and disgusted" following two fatal shootings of U.S. citizens by federal immigration agents. The federal government has said both shootings were justified. State and local officials have objected to how the federal government has characterized both incidents, citing video evidence that fail to support their claims.
Gant describes the experience as “heartbreaking,” noting that clergy saw one person get taken off the streets by immigration agents and a church of mostly immigrant congregants go on lockdown.
Gant says she also left with a sense of optimism.
“It made me feel hopeful to see how that city’s resistance movement has grown and how they work together and how they care for one another,” Gant said.
Gant says one protest alone may not make substantive change, that it will require a “long haul” effort.
Gant adds she hopes there are lessons for Bloomington-Normal also “if things get terrible here.”
