MSP Airport unions lead march on ICE terminal as labor shows solidarity with Somali community

December 3, 2025 by

Local 17 organizer Geof Paquette speaks to the crowd of activists outside Signature’s terminal at MSP.

One day after the Trump administration announced it would target the local Somali community with immigration raids, two airport unions led a march on the company that operates Minneapolis-St. Paul International’s charter terminal, where local detainees are being flown in shackles to deportation hubs.

More than 200 activists from labor, community and faith groups gathered Dec. 3 at the Terminal 2 light-rail stop and marched together to the Signature Aviation terminal. There they rallied with speeches and chants, and later tied red ribbons of remembrance to the iron fence that separates the terminal from the public road.

Speakers called on local officials, including the Metropolitan Airports Commission, to find ways to stop the deportation flights.

“These deportations create terror in our neighborhoods and are ripping families apart,” said Geof Paquette, an organizer with UNITE HERE Local 17 who works with immigrant workers at MSP’s bars and restaurants. “They do nothing but sow fear and anxiety in our community. We’ve got to demand better.”

Another union speaker, retired airport janitor and Service Employees (SEIU) Local 26 member George Mullin, offered a firsthand account of the squalid, dehumanizing conditions detainees face in the privately owned holding centers to which they are flown from Signature’s terminal.

George Mullin, a retired SEIU member, traveled to deportation hubs in Louisiana earlier this year.

Mullin joined a delegation, sponsored by SEIU, that traveled to remote detention hubs in Louisiana earlier this year. Those sprawling private prisons, like Signature Aviation and the charter airlines that use its terminals to traffic ICE detainees, are “making money off of cruelty,” Mullin said.

“I’m here today because one of the bright spots of our trip to Louisiana was seeing detained women reacting to us for showing up where no one comes,” he said. “They waved like crazy the whole time.

We got to show them that they are not alone. We see them, and we are with them. Today we’re doing the same thing. To our neighbors who are being put on these planes in chains, likely with no idea where they are going, we see you.”

Labor’s leading role in the march on Signature Aviation illustrates how unions here – and across the U.S. – are showing solidarity with immigrant communities under attack, while also working in coalition to defend people’s rights and hold the Trump administration accountable.

Demonstrators tie ribbons to the iron gate outside the Signature terminal.

Local SEIU unions were among those that reacted swiftly after President Trump began spewing hateful rhetoric at Somali immigrants. In a Cabinet meeting, Trump called them “garbage” and said they “contribute nothing” – an insult belied by work local SEIU members do as school employees, health care workers and property-service workers.

“We could not be prouder or luckier to have many Somali Minnesotans as coworkers and courageous leaders in our struggle to end poverty wages for everyone,” Minnesota’s SEIU locals said in a statement. “As usual, Trump is saying things that aren’t true and claiming powers he doesn’t have. We will make sure all our members have the tools they need to protect their rights.”

To that end, the state’s labor movement has been helping stage training sessions in nonviolent, direct action, supporting immigrant-rights and progressive groups as they brace for an increased federal presence in the Twin Cities. The first session in November drew an overflow crowd, prompting the groups to schedule another for Dec. 7.

Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham said that solidarity demands labor mobilize to meet the moment.

“Union members refuse to let anyone, even the President of the United States, divide us based on what we look like, where we were born, or how we pray,” she said. “President Trump and his cronies are hoping that working people will forget that immigrants aren’t standing between us and a better life – billionaires are. We refuse to let them break our solidarity.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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Tellers, teachers, Somali immigrants take on big banks during St. Paul rally

April 14, 2015 by

web.CWA-banks-sceneBeen targeted with a high-pressure sales pitch at your bank recently? You’re not alone, according to a report released earlier this month exposing a “new era of predatory lending” in the industry.

But Wells Fargo employee Michael Lewis offered this plea to frustrated customers yesterday: “The average bank workers, they want to work with you,” he said. “We don’t want to sell you products you don’t need.

“Don’t hate the average worker; hate the banks please.”

And that’s just what activists did during a demonstration downtown St. Paul, outside the Wells Fargo building. Minnesotans for a Fair Economy organized the rally with the Committee for Better Banks, a national organization, backed by the Communications Workers of America and other labor groups, that seeks to improve working conditions at big banks, which raked in more than $100 billion in profits last year.

Marquez asks the public to support bank workers looking to improve their wages and conditions.

Diego Marquez asks the public to support bank workers looking to improve their wages and conditions.

“Every time I see the profit report from these banks – from my bank – I get upset,” bank worker and Better Banks supporter Diego Marquez said. “Why do I have to wear a tie to work and a suit if I can barely make above minimum wage?”

But bank workers like Marquez and Lewis weren’t the only ones with grievances to air against the big banks.

St. Paul Federation of Teachers President Denise Rodriguez called on U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo, which do business with the St. Paul Public Schools, to commit to limiting foreclosures on families that have school-age children during the academic year.

Rodriguez and SPFT member Lily Tharoor, a social worker, described abruptly losing students from their classrooms or school buildings after their families received foreclosure or eviction notices.

“Academically, the kids don’t just stay where they are if they have all these disruptions; they actually fall back,” Tharoor said. “As a member of SPFT, I’m really very proud of the stand the union has taken on this subject. It’s very forward-thinking and really looking out for our students.”

Said Rodriguez: “This is a problem that adults created and that adults can fix.”

Meanwhile, representatives of Somali immigrant groups accused Wells Fargo and other big banks of refusing to work with community leaders on methods for sending financial support – via “remittances” – to family members in East Africa.

New federal regulations prompted U.S. banks to halt money transfers to Somalia in February. They cited concerns remittances might fund terrorism – concerns Sadik Warfa, a local Somali leader, called shortsighted and off the mark.

“I’m a proud American, and the thing is if you stop remittances, you are helping the terrorists because they will tell (people) that America hates us,” Sadik said.

Remittances from Somalis living abroad inject more than $1.2 billion into the country’s economy annually, more than foreign aid and investments combined.

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