MANKATO — Protesters chanting “ICE out now” gathered Saturday morning inside the Mankato Target store as part of a coordinated sit-in calling on the Minnesota-based company to bar U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from its properties and adopt what organizers describe as a Fourth Amendment workplace.
In a demonstration that lasted about 30 minutes, Faith in Minnesota community organizer Olivia Bergen addressed about 40 participants, demanding ICE leave the state and to put an end to the “spectacle of cruelty.”
The demonstration called on the company to protect workers and customers by becoming a Fourth Amendment workplace, ensuring staff understand and defend protections against illegal search and seizure.
“They could be literally saving lives and protecting our people, but they’re not choosing to do that,” Bergen said. “We are asking them peacefully. But it’s time to disrupt business as usual, because business as usual is clearly not working. It’s killing people.”
The sit-in was at the Target that anchors River Hills Mall and was organized in connection with ICE Out of MN, part of a national effort taking place at dozens of Target stores across the country.
“Target is a home-grown company,” participant Judy Schultz said. “But they just somehow lost their way.”
A Mankato police officer told demonstrators their continued presence on Target and River Hills Mall property was unlawful. He directed them to leave, saying failure to comply with the order would result in arrest.
“Apparently this is an unlawful assembly, but ICE agents coming into stores, abducting and assaulting people is not an unlawful assembly,” Bergen told the crowd who had begun to sing “This Little Light of Mine” as they dispersed.
The sit-in follows concerns raised about Target’s relationship with ICE after an incident Jan. 8 at the company’s Richfield store where two U.S. citizen employees were assaulted and taken from their workplace.
Jane Dow, an attendee, told The Free Press she brought petitions signed by about 50 people asking Target to keep ICE out of its stores and that a store manager declined to accept them.
Target representatives declined to comment for this story.
Mankato Director of Public Safety Jeremy Clifton said the department recognizes community members’ First Amendment rights and “appreciated the peacefulness and the nonviolent and nonconfrontational way that both River Hills Mall and Target spoke with our community members and how the community members acted in response.”
According to Faith in Minnesota, Target has not joined calls from community members to publicly support ICE leaving Minnesota or to oppose renewed federal funding for the agency.
The demonstration also comes amid broader pressure on corporate leaders to take a clearer public stance.
The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce released a letter Jan. 25 on behalf of more than 60 CEOs of Minnesota-based companies, including Target, calling for an “immediate de-escalation” of the violence in the state.
“The fact that they have refused, totally refused to take a stand has just been extremely disappointing,” Schultz said. “They have just been, unfortunately, revealing that their business matters more than us, their customers.”