By Peyton Haug, Minnesota Reformer
Demonstrators and a roving, makeshift rock band keep up feds at area hotels
If any feds currently in Minnesota are fans of Twisted Sister and Rage Against the Machine, they may not be for long.
That’s because of an ongoing effort to interrupt the sleep of federal officers and discourage local hotels from hosting the feds.
One recent night a make-shift rock band blared covers of “Killing in the Name” by Rage Against the Machine and “We’re Not Gonna Take It” by Twisted Sister at three area hotels — believed to be housing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol officers.
The band also accompanied obligatory anti-ICE chants.
Between midnight and well-past 2 a.m. early Friday, demonstrators sprawled across the metro, caravaning to establishments affiliated with companies known to have housed ICE agents: SpringHill Suites by Marriott in St. Louis Park, Sheraton Minneapolis West in Minnetonka and Home2 Suites by Hilton in Plymouth.
Minneapolis-based musician Daisy Forester, who played bass during Friday’s demonstration, said the purpose is bigger than a mere musical performance: “It’s to demonstrate the power of collective voices.”
Friday marked a new approach to what organizers are calling “noise demonstrations.”
Instead of making noise at a single location, demonstrators flocked to parking lots adjacent to each hotel property, where dozens quickly hauled band equipment, among “ICE OUT” signs and other noise-making instruments, onto surrounding sidewalks and boulevards.
A woman named Esther, who declined to give her last name given the Trump administration’s penchant for retribution, traveled to Minneapolis from Florida to support mutual aid networks and participate in protests.
“I don’t have any connections to Minnesota other than, well, I’m American,” she said.
Protesters spent fewer than 40 minutes making noise at each location, but enough time to cause some hotel guests to draw their shades and lodge complaints. There was no confrontation with ICE officers at any point on Friday morning.
St. Louis Park police were the only law enforcement to respond to the demonstrations. They told organizers they received multiple calls not from the hotel staff, but from individual hotel guests. They threatened citations just as protesters were about to disperse, but none were doled out.
None of the involved hotels responded to requests for comment.
Since ICE initiated “Operation Metro Surge” in December, crowds of dozens to hundreds have spent nights in subzero cold banging on pots and pans, blowing into whistles and screaming into megaphones outside of hotels believed to house ICE agents.
Some Minneapolis hotels have also seen an influx of people making and canceling reservations last-minute as a form of protest, according to organizers. Others are flooding travel sites with negative reviews of the hotels.
Local hospitality workers union Unite Here! wants to keep hotels from allowing ICE to conduct or stage immigration enforcement operations. In a press release, the union said the presence of agents invokes fear in their members who are “not trained or paid to manage.”
Late last week, a day after Border Patrol agents killed Alex Pretti, a demonstration grew tense at the Home2 Suites Hotel on University Avenue in Minneapolis when federal agents launched tear gas at the crowd after some participants damaged property — before Minneapolis Police and other local law enforcement had the chance to respond, according to a Facebook post from the state Department of Public Safety.
Caleb Batts, spokesperson for Sunrise Movement Twin Cities that organized the Friday morning protest, said the Sunrise Movement maintains peaceful and disciplined civil disobedience in “standing up to fascism.”
It’s unclear whether future noise demonstrations will take on a tour-like form, but Batts and other organizers said the Friday test run was successful.
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