Minnesota Freedom Fighters Organize Amid ICE Escalation and Racial Injustice
As ICE oversight intensifies and racial justice efforts face new challenges, Minnesota activists continue organizing through protests, mutual aid and community-led advocacy rooted in accountability and care.
As Operation Metro Surge unfolds alongside ongoing racial injustice and rollbacks of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, Minnesotans continue to organize through protests, boycotts and mutual aid. Residents across the state are resisting injustice through direct action, policy advocacy, healing work, and education.
Some of today’s local freedom fighters include civil rights attorney and Racial Justice Network founder Nekima Levy Armstrong; Trahern Crews and Monique Cullars-Doty, co-founders of Black Lives Matter Minnesota; Jaylani Hussein of CAIR-MN; Leslie E. Redmond of Win Back; and social justice activist Lavish Mack.
Many of these community leaders, while passionate about addressing various forms of injustice, have also been active in efforts to remove federal agents from Minnesota, related to the on-going escalation of Immigrant and Customs Enforcement (ICE) oversight in Minnesota.
“I believe in my heart that no matter what job title you hold, at the end of the day we should be standing as human beings … not as a title, not as a race, not as an ethnicity,” said Toshira Garraway Allen, founder of Families Supporting Families Against Police Violence. “It’s time for all of us to stand on the right side of history. It’s time for all of us to start treating each other as human beings.”
Allen said her advocacy began with a desire to provide others with what she did not have during her own experience with injustice: support and a voice. In 2009, Allen said her fiancé, Justin Teigen, was found dead in a dumpster after being stopped by St. Paul police.
“I wanted somebody to speak up and stand up with me and my family, me and my son,” Allen said.
Since then, Allen has organized peaceful protests, press conferences and rallies, while also working toward legislative change. She said her goal is to keep the names of those killed unjustly alive in public memory.
“Giving people a platform to have a voice, giving a voice to the voiceless, being able to march down the street and chant your loved one’s name, and having a big picture of your loved one to show the community as a way to remember them … That’s something so powerful,” she said. “That’s something the system or no one can take away.”
Through her work, Allen provides dinners, financial assistance, and support groups for families affected by police violence, including those still seeking answers about their loved ones’ deaths. That work, she said, has also come with serious threats and attacks, beginning when she first spoke out.
“I wanted to support families in the way that I did not have when Justin was taken from his life,” Allen said. “I didn’t have any support at that time. By coming alongside other families to speak up about the injustices, I began to be attacked.”
Allen said media outlets distorted Teigen’s story in ways that undermined her credibility. She also said she received threats and was followed after protests. “Yet I still move forward because it’s the right thing to do,” she said.
Allen said her belief that no one deserves unjust treatment has sustained her fight for equality and accountability, particularly against systems that allow those in positions of authority to remain above the law.
Sharing resources, whether labor, money or time, even when it is difficult, is a principle another Minnesota freedom fighter embraces. Elizer Darris, co-executive director of the Minnesota Freedom Fund, continues to organize and participate in public discussions, including the Jan. 27 Native Land Pod Live event in Minneapolis.
“I have an eight-day-old daughter, but this is so important to me,” Darris said during a panel discussion. “The environment that is cultivated is so important to me that I know I have to invest my time, my resources, my intellectual abilities, whatever it is that I have, because 20 years from now, I want her to inherit a certain type of America.”
The Minnesota Freedom Fund works “to end wealth-based detention and power-build with community to dismantle the systems that turn poverty into punishment while expanding access to freedom, safety and dignity for all Minnesotans,” according to its website. Since 2016, the nonprofit organization has paid $4,805,000 in immigration bonds and $20,412,236 in cash bail.
Over the years, Allen said she has noticed a shift in how communities respond when people speak out against injustice. What once felt like issues ignored or unseen are now gaining attention, she said, in part due to social media platforms that allow people to witness injustices directly.
“Our voice is our weapon against injustice,” Allen said. “If you’re able to speak up for people who may not feel like they have a voice, then I believe in my heart that it’s the right thing to do.”
Damenica Ellis is a staff writer for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder