Minneapolis Park Board passes anti-ICE resolution after feds stage at rec centers, arrest parkgoers

The newly elected Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board opened its first business meeting of the year on Wednesday evening, Jan. 7, with a moment of silence for Renee Good, who was shot and killed by ICE in south Minneapolis just hours before.

Commissioners then approved a slate of measures denouncing ICE and distancing the parks from federal immigration activity, matching recent orders passed by the city of Minneapolis to strengthen its separation ordinance and prohibit agents from using Park Board parking lots.

“The ripple effect throughout the community has been terrible,” said Commissioner Jason Garcia, whose partner taught at a south Minneapolis school last year where Good had a child enrolled. “I wish that we could go further.”

Federal agents have repeatedly parked at recreation centers and used park property to stage raids leading up to this week’s surge led by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who quickly framed Good’s killing as an ICE agent’s self-defense against “domestic terrorism” in media statements.

In St. Paul, ICE staged in the parking lot of Newell Park before its raid on the Bro-Tex paper distribution company in November and used the Conway Recreation Center parking lot before raiding a residential home on Rose Avenue last month, prompting a cease-and-desist letter from the St. Paul city attorney.

In Minneapolis, vehicles with ICE decals have been photographed at Powderhorn Recreation Center.

MPRB Superintendent Al Bangoura emailed park employees on Dec. 5 that the parks would fully adhere to Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey’s recent executive order banning ICE from using city-owned or controlled parking lots to stage immigration enforcement operations. MPRB lawyer Brian Rice sent ICE a letter on Dec. 26 informing them of Frey’s executive order, and MPRB created an online form for employees to report ICE encounters.

And while the city would take legal action to address reported violations of the order on city land, Frey spokesperson Ally Peters said Minneapolis parkland does not count as city-owned or controlled land. (MPRB is a semi-autonomous branch of the city government with an elected body that manages parks.)

ICE activity has escalated this week, with 2,000 agents reportedly pouring into Minnesota. Commissioner Kay Carvajal Moran, a community organizer who has been active in the rapid response groups of the South Side, said federal agents detained people at Powderhorn and Phillips Parks on Wednesday, and harassed her earlier in the week at Phelps Park.

And park maintenance worker Mitch Clendenen said he witnessed ICE detain someone while he was working in a park on Friday.

“I didn’t know what to do,” he said. “I just froze because I was worried about my job, but at the same time, I’m worried about someone ... it was probably a dad or someone’s brother or family member that just got abducted, and I froze.”

Three first-term commissioners, Carvajal Moran, Kedar Deshpande and Dan Engelhart, sponsored the resolution Wednesday to clarify Minneapolis parks’ posture of non-cooperation with ICE. Unanimously approved, it included directing Rice to research legal avenues for protecting park users, and developing training for park employees on what they can or cannot do in response to federal agents on parkland.