Derek VanBuskirk
Reporter
January 28, 2026 5:49 PM ET
Leftist religious leaders are planning to export Minnesota’s anti-ICE activism to congregations nationwide.
More than 600 clergy from various faiths gathered in Minneapolis on Thursday and Friday for what amounted to a resistance training conference, according to Religion News Service. Clad in “Abolish ICE” T-shirts, rainbow stoles and watermelon yarmulkes, attendees traded tactics for obstructing federal immigration enforcement between songs and prayers.
“We have no doubt that there will be plenty of opportunity for ICE to show up in our community soon,” Unitarian Universalist Rev. Elizabeth Haralam Shuba of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, told RNS as she joined roughly 200 clergy marching through Minneapolis streets. “Part of why I answered the call was that there was a significant element of training to take back into our own communities.”
Rev. David Wheeler, senior minister of New Covenant Christian Church, told the United Church of Christ he’s returning to Oklahoma with a “determination to build connections and systems” to “protect our neighbors” from the “lawless, violent oppression of ICE.”
The conference coincided with a broader “no work, no school, no shopping” blackout Friday organized in part by interfaith leaders. Thousands participated, more than 700 businesses shuttered, and cultural institutions including the Minneapolis Institute of Art and the Science Museum of Minnesota went dark, according to The Guardian and Morning Brew. The Minneapolis City Council endorsed the strike.
more
https://dailycaller.com/2026/01/28/liberal-churches-expand-ice-resistance-minnesota/
