Minneapolis teachers’ union chief says bosses and officials join anti-ICE Signal chats

Minneapolis Federation of Educators President Marcia Howard said that teachers along with their “bosses” and elected officials are present and active in anti-ICE group chats.

Howard, an outspoken leftist political activist since the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, shared in an interview with Al Jazeera that she and other teachers-turned activists are undeterred in participating in anti-ICE protests and watches because leadership stands behind them.

“The notion that people that are actively engaged in ICE watch, in being vigilant, in protecting our neighbors in signal chat groups, running plates on their [ICE] cars, doing patrols that somehow we’re ashamed of that activity, that somehow you can call our bosses or show our faces, and then we would be shunned by our community,” Howard said.

“Our bosses are in the signal chats with us. Our elected officials are in the chats with us.”

“Our nana’s, the hockey coaches, the soccer moms. Everybody that’s anybody is doing the work of protecting our neighbors, because that’s how we show up in Minneapolis and St Paul,” Howard continued.

Following the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer six summers ago, Howard, an English teacher of 25 years, became a leading voice in the summer protests, which turned into riots. She played a prominent role in the creation of George Floyd Square, which marked where Floyd was killed.

Howard criticized the federal immigration agents which have overtaken Minneapolis over the past month, accusing the agents of being agitators.

“We’re armed with whistles and our phones making sure that students are safe going to class,” Howard said. “And then they escalated the brutality. Every single day they taunted us. From their rental trucks, they would do things like — the agents that they brought to the Twin Cities — these hapless, untrained, overly-militarized agents, were in hotel rooms where they did not detain the workers in those hotel rooms because they wanted to be served by immigrants.”

The growing involvement of members of teacher unions and the unions themselves in political movement has garnered greater scrutiny in the past few months. Last month, it was reported that the National Education Association, one of the largest teacher’s unions, funneled millions of dollars into left-leaning organizations.