Trump needs to end his assault on Minnesota

Our daughter and her young family live in Minneapolis, and we are horrified at what they are living through. People in her circle have begun carrying their passports in case ICE stops them, because they are a little too brown. Small businesses in her neighborhood are closed because customers are afraid to come out and shop.

Mornings, our daughter goes to the bus stop to see that high school kids are able to get on the bus and go to school. She and her husband give what they can afford to help neighbors like the children of a young woman, legally in the U.S., who was dragged from her car and taken away as her kids watched helplessly. Many schools are now offering the option of attending by Zoom, but as a result, children in the classroom have actually witnessed ICE raiding their classmates’ homes. There is no way to assure those children that they are safe and that uniformed adults can be trusted.

This is not immigration enforcement; this is a theater of terror. These roving bands of masked bullies are endangering citizens, not making us safer. Moreover, they are betraying core values of the United States: civil rights and due process. We have gone beyond partisan differences; this is an existential struggle for the character of our nation.

Our elected representatives are failing us. They need to stop obfuscating and worrying about polls or antagonizing the president, and act decisively. They must get ICE out of Minnesota and other communities across the U.S. and reduce its funding back to something proportionate to its mission. They must investigate every instance of violence perpetrated by ICE agents, most especially the heinous murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. And they must impeach and convict Kristi Noem, head of the Department of Homeland Security, who has unleashed this horror on us.

I want my grandchild to live in a safe neighborhood, attend a preschool with brown and Black classmates, enjoy the innocence of childhood protected by a responsible government where such brutality and terror are unheard of. If we can’t do that for our children, what good is our government?

Julia Rendon is a board member of the Iowa CCI Action Fund and the Fighting Oligarchy leadership team. She’s a retired pastor who lives in Des Moines.