Minnesota Activists to Protest Trump’s Immigration Plans at RNC
MINNEAPOLIS – This Sunday, dozens of Minnesotans for immigrants’ rights and other political activists are heading to the Republican National Convention to join a major protest.
The Minnesota organizers say they’re taking a nearly 12-hour bus ride from the Twin Cities to Cleveland, Ohio, to publicly reject what they’re calling Donald Trump’s “anti-immigrant agenda.”
To Brad Sigal, an organizer the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC), some of Trump’s proposals represent an attack on immigrant families.
“In terms of deportations on an even more massive scale than have happened over the last eight years, and a border wall beyond what is already one of the most militarized borders on the planet,” he says, “it compels us to do whatever we can to voice an opposition to that, and say that we are going to try to stop it.”
A recent NBC News analysis indicated that Donald Trump’s immigration plan would ban about one-third of the world from entering the United States.
The GOP convention officially kicks off on Monday morning. Trump is expected to speak on Thursday, the final day of the event.
Considering that Trump came in third during the state’s Republican caucus in March, Sigal argues that most Minnesotans do not want to see him become president.
“Minnesota says ‘Dump Trump’ – I think that’s clear even among Republicans in Minnesota,” he states. “I think it’s pretty much across-the-board that Minnesotans by and large reject the anti-immigrant politics of Trump and his overall agenda.”
Trump recently laid out new details for his counter-terrorism plan, which includes banning even legal immigration from countries known for extremist behavior. Trump said his plan would focus on countries known for “Islamic terror.”
MIRAC has posted its trip itinerary online.