Approximately 100 faith leaders were arrested on Jan. 23, at a protest at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) organized by the multifaith social justice organization ISAIAH; among them were three Macalester faculty and staff.
The protest, which was held as part of the larger general strike that day, referred to by organizers as the “Day of Truth and Freedom,” was organized to call on airlines, like Delta and Signature Aviation, to end their alleged cooperation with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in transporting detained individuals on deportation flights.
Rabbi Emma Kippley-Ogman, a chaplain at Macalester’s Center for Religious and Spiritual Life, was one of the faith leaders arrested that day.
According to the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, Signature Aviation facilitates deportation charters at MSP, often doing so discreetly by bypassing standard airline security.
Reverend Kelly Stone, a former Macalester chaplain and current associate development officer at the college, was also arrested that day.
“We achieved the visibility desired — capturing national attention — if only for a moment,” Stone wrote in an email to The Mac Weekly. “In the days and weeks following, I have felt kinship with fellow religious leaders across the country who are stepping into moral leadership denouncing ICE’s practices.”
Chair and Professor of American Studies Karín Aguilar-San Juan is a novice priest in the Zen Buddhist tradition at Clouds in Water Zen Center in St. Paul. She responded to the initial call from ISAIAH requesting the multifaith clergy’s contribution at the MSP protest.
At first, Aguilar-San Juan was hesitant to engage in an organized arrest, but ultimately joined and was arrested alongside the other leaders at MSP.
They attended a meeting held by ISAIAH a week before the protest, where nearly 300 faith leaders were in attendance. At this meeting, leaders of ISAIAH explained to the faith leaders what they were requesting, spending nearly an hour citing the context of why they deemed their ask necessary, according to Aguilar-San Juan.
“I want people to know [that] this event was very well planned. It was organized,” she said. “We had time to think about what we were going to do. It was not a spur-of-the-moment, ‘let’s jump in and get arrested kind of thing.’”
Aguilar-San Juan had never been arrested before, but said they had many encounters where they could have been. They avoided arrest because of their race.
“I feel like as a person of color, there’s like an extra level to [being arrested],” they said. “My own freedom struggle history goes back to the Philippines, where people were killed during martial law. That’s, for me, the scale of where this goes.”
ISAIAH’s call for clergy at MSP centered around bearing what Aguilar-San Juan described as “an act of holy witness of the atrocities that are happening.”
In other words, she recounted ISAIAH asking for faith leaders to use their positions of moral authority “at a time when there is no moral authority,” as Aguilar-San Juan said.
Stone echoed this message in her writing to The Mac Weekly, saying ICE’s “occupation in the Twin Cities is morally reprehensible and a violation of human rights and dignity.”
After explaining their call to action, ISAIAH leaders requested that a “red team” be formed of faith leaders willing to be arrested, or rather, bear holy witness.
This messaging appealed to her, given her role as a Macalester professor.
“I see teaching as bearing witness to the experience of students,” Aguilar-San Juan said. “But this is something that I could do that’s even one more thing … that I couldn’t do before, that would put my own vow as a priest into some kind of action.”
Despite the appealing framing of the action, Aguilar-San Juan still felt hesitant. It wasn’t until a “red team” training with ISAIAH on Jan. 22, the night before the protest, that she made up her mind.
The original “red team” request outlined a need for 30 faith leaders. Nearly 100 showed up to the training meant to prepare them for arrest at MSP, according to Aguilar-San Juan.
It was the experience of watching these hundred faith leaders — many of whom, according to Aguilar-San Juan, were older than her — that solidified her determination.
Particularly, Aguilar-San Juan recounted, it was seeing an elder at the event whom they knew well and respected that “tipped it over the edge.”
“I thought, wow, her resolve is 110 percent,” Aguilar-San Juan described.
This feeling only increased as the faith leaders entered the coldest Twin Cities temperatures since 2019, as a part of ISAIAH’s training, meant to prepare them for the dangerous cold the next day.
“I was standing next to this elder, and I put my arm around her, and she was literally shivering,” she said. “And I thought, she is not going to break, I’m going to do this with her.”
Arriving at the protest the next day, “red team” members were instructed to bring their driver’s license and medication for three days, and leave any additional belongings at home, Aguillar-San Juan said.
The leaders then lined up in the road outside of MSP Terminal One passenger drop-off area, blocking traffic. Some of the clergy members chose to kneel on the road, while Kippley-Ogman, for instance, chose to stand alongside a Jewish elder, as kneeling is more of a Christian custom, Kippley-Ogman said.
“I was humbled by the bold witness of not only my peers who were arrested alongside me, but also by those who gathered to protest peacefully,” Stone said in an email to The Mac Weekly reflecting on her experience at the protest. “I remember looking into the eyes of those who faced me while I knelt to pray — knowing arrest was imminent — and felt their strength sustain me.”
All 99 clergy members were dressed in the clerical garb of their faith traditions, bearing holy witness and waiting for the moment when they would be arrested by MSP police.
“We don’t know each other, but we all know the intent, the training,” said Aguilar-San Juan, remembering being in line with other faith leaders. “So there’s a commonality, but we don’t all have the same faith backgrounds or the same clerical garb.”
The police gave three warnings before arresting the faith leaders. The last warning, Aguilar-San Juan recounts, blared “I declare this ‘trespassing.’” The faith leaders stayed in line as approximately 50 police officers with what Aguilar-San Juan described as “big, white batons” unloaded from a van in front of them.
Different faith leaders had different experiences with the officers, said Aguilar-San Juan. She described the officer who arrested her as more confrontational, noting that he asked questions about whether their group had weapons on them, and told her to keep her hands by her knees.
According to Aguilar-San Juan, the officer then held their elbow in a pressure point while they escorted them to a bus to be handcuffed with zip ties and processed.
Aguilar-San Juan described the experience of praying for “boundless compassion” as they stood with other leaders that day, awaiting arrest.
Kippley-Ogman echoed similar sentiments in an opinion article she wrote describing her experience of getting arrested. There, she spoke about the law enforcement officers’ ability to see “dwellings full of light” instead of darkness. She pointed to the Jewish tradition of Teshuva, which means repentance or return that is always available, inviting ICE agents to stop harming the Twin Cities community.
“Together we will fight the plague of narrow sight, instead creating dwellings of warm light where we hold and honor the fullness of humanity of each and every one of us,” Kippley-Ogman wrote in their article.
Kippley-Ogman spoke about how inspired she felt by the actions of Twin Cities’ residents supporting their neighbors. She particularly highlighted the Singing Resistance, which was inspired by the non-violent Serbian movement from the early 2000s, ‘Otpor!’.
Singing Resistance, which was formed four days after the killing of Renée Good by an ICE agent, gathers crowds of people who, among other places, sing outside of hotels, encouraging them to stop housing ICE.
“They walked through a neighborhood [with] lots of hotels where ICE officers are staying, and [sang] to [them]: ‘You are our last siblings. You have walked away from humanity. You are welcome back at the table anytime you want. You can transform. You can be part of the story,’” Kippley-Ogman said. “[There is] power [in] inviting that defection, of inviting that imagination of ‘you’re not actually lost. You too can be part of the world where we recognize each other’s humanity.’”
Stone felt similarly, underlining the Christian values that are central to her identity and motivation to attend last month’s protest.
“I am called to love my neighbor,” Stone wrote. “I was proud to be part of this action alongside fellow religious leaders; including those that are part of the Macalester community.”
