Since federal immigration officers began flooding Minneapolis-St. Paul weeks ago, faith leaders have been responding to an escalating crisis. After immigration officers fatally shot two residents — Renee Good and Alex Pretti — fear has spread through congregations and communities, and many faith leaders say they have felt called to respond pastorally and publicly to what many describe as a moral and civic emergency.
In a live, virtual conversation on Tuesday (Jan. 27) moderated by RNS Events Host Niala Boodhoo, Imam Mowlid Ali of Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center, the Rev. Ingrid Rasmussen of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church and RNS national reporter Jack Jenkins described how faith communities are responding on the ground — from protecting worshippers and paying rent on behalf of immigrant-owned businesses to organizing street-level monitoring. They reflected on the visible federal presence, the toll on daily religious life and how clergy are navigating fear, solidarity and faith amid what one referred to as “an occupation.”
Watch the full conversation, or read the transcript below, which has been excerpted and edited for clarity.
Niala Boodhoo: First, I want to check in. Imam, your mosque is close to where Renee Good was killed. How are you doing?
Imam Mowlid Ali: We’re doing OK. I’m OK. The city is in crisis, and my neighborhood is in crisis, but we have faith in God. Rev. Ingrid Rasmussen: Over these last several weeks — and in the months prior, since federal forces started occupying Minneapolis — a lot of us feel like our hearts are living up in our throats on any given day. There’s a strange mix of devastation and courage that arises in the midst of moral crisis. I think that’s what we’re experiencing in the city, both in our bodies and on the streets.
Jack Jenkins: By the time I got to Minneapolis, the response was incredibly robust. I had driven around with some folks who were spotting ICE in Chicago, and that was intense. In Minneapolis, you couldn’t miss ICE. They were everywhere, and so were the people responding to them. In one neighborhood where I was patrolling with a faith leader — the same neighborhood where Renee Good was killed — virtually every corner had someone with a whistle keeping an eye out for ICE agents, some with binoculars. I’ve never seen it at that level. This is one of the largest surges of faith-based organizing I’ve seen in years.
When did life in Minneapolis start to change?
Imam Mowlid: When the President called my (Somali American) community “garbage” and started dehumanizing an entire population, we had fear about what was going to happen and concerns that this would affect all of us. We hoped the President’s words would remain words, but now we see they turned into an ICE operation, affecting not only Somali Americans but all of us. Today we’re speaking as Minnesotans — not only as Somali Americans. We are one.
The president said “garbage,” and that was a word. Now people have been killed. Renee Good was my neighbor. Alex Pretti was also my neighbor. Our children are living in fear. This is not Minnesota culture. We are united communities. This came from outside; it’s extraneous to our culture as Minnesotans.
As a faith leader, when Renee was killed, I went to the neighborhood, spoke, gave a speech, and demanded justice for her. On Saturday (after the killing of Alex Pretti), we went to another neighborhood in St. Paul. I gave a speech in the church. We showed up. I think that’s what’s needed now: show up, show love, and take action — help the needy and those who cannot come outside.
I tell my community we have to respond with wisdom, not panic. We have to respond with courage, not fear. And we have to stay grounded in faith.
Hundreds of clergy descend on Minneapolis and go on lookout for ICE
How has day-to-day pastoral life changed?
Rev. Ingrid: Our first major federal raid on Lake Street — an immigrant-rich corridor where I serve — was back in June 2025. We’ve been preparing in earnest for this moment since then. What we’re seeing, as the imam described, is families living in fear and hiding. We see businesses that have worked hard to recover since 2020 and the fires that engulfed the city after the police murder of George Floyd.
Part of what we’ve been doing as a church is paying January rents for immigrant-owned businesses along the corridor so we don’t lose the economic center of the community — the cultural corridor. That has meant our pastor’s discretionary account — which is quite large because of the nature of our work — spent an entire year’s budget in the first 14 days of 2026. That gives you a sense of the magnitude of need right now.
It means accompanying people who have been unlawfully detained. We’re hiring attorneys as fast as we can to file habeas petitions before detainees can be moved across state lines.
Yesterday, here’s a joy story in the midst of all that: we picked up someone who had been unlawfully detained and brought him home to his family. There are moments of sheer joy in the midst of terror. We’re trying to determine how to keep the rhythms and rituals we depend on for our very life in the midst of federal occupation. We’re also trying to determine what parts of congregational and community life we can let go, so we can attend to the moral crisis we’re in.
What does life look like on the ground? Is ICE visible on the streets?
Jack: When you have 3,000 to 4,000 agents descending on one city that isn’t as large as Chicago, New York, or LA, the result is that you couldn’t avoid seeing them. The last time I was there for a faith convening — about 600-plus faith leaders trained on how to resist and push back against ICE in their own communities — they deployed roughly 200 of them to different areas to observe ICE activity. I was standing on the side of the road interviewing a couple of them, and in the middle of the interview, an unmarked car with two unclear federal agents drove by.
Rev. Ingrid: I have been unable to make it to the church without ending up in the middle of a convoy. One day last week, I had just left home. I came to a four-way stop. I realized that I was in the middle of a convoy, and we were right by our neighborhood middle school. It was drop-off time. This was days after Renee Good had been killed, so I started to beep to warn the parents. Before I knew it, another car from the convoy had come around to box me in, and I kept beeping, and other people started beeping. While I was boxed in, the first convoy car sped away so that they could lose anybody who might be willing to tail them and observe their actions. This was all at 8:30 in the morning.
Imam Mowlid: If you come to South Minneapolis, you see ICE everywhere. It’s like an occupation of the streets. We pray that this chaos will come to an end.
Rev. Ingrid: This is an ecosystem. Each of us plays a role. Some work is public, some is not. Because of unearned privilege, as a white woman, I am called to show up in a particular way in this moment that has meant being arrested at the Minneapolis Airport alongside 99 other faith leaders. It means being public with my words or my presence in the community. I’m very aware that those opportunities are not afforded to all of my colleagues due to skin color, creed, or status.
Jack: There’s a very public part of organizing that faith leaders are involved in. But, there’s also a whole other level of organizing happening among vulnerable communities that is less public. Communities are protecting neighbors and congregations, often in coordination with public-facing leaders. I saw this in Los Angeles and Chicago. In Chicago, some pastors were very public, while others worked quietly behind the scenes. That partnership was common.
In Minneapolis, the federal presence is so widespread that people who might not otherwise go public are doing so. Hispanic churches were visibly packing groceries for families afraid to leave home. I saw one person in a hijab tailing an ICE vehicle, which was rare, but reflected the urgency. The response in Minneapolis is broader than anything I’ve seen elsewhere.
What about faith leaders who support the Trump administration in this?
Jack: They exist. They are hard to find in places like Minneapolis. They are significantly less vocal. Some pastors are uncomfortable with what’s going on, but still side with law enforcement or the Trump administration. There are also self-described advocates of Christian nationalism who have been vocally supportive of ICE’s efforts. We saw a protest inside a church under allegations that one of the pastors also heads up an ICE field office. While that protest made some pastors uncomfortable, I was told that it also provided an opportunity for them to note that the Trump administration rescinded an internal policy that discouraged ICE and DHS from conducting immigration raids at hospitals, schools, and churches.
There has been frustration from faith leaders who may otherwise be supportive of the Trump administration. One of the pastors I spoke to said–I’m paraphrasing–either houses of worship are sacred, or they’re not.
Churches have seen reduced worship attendance. So have mosques. There is concern about whether people can even attend worship.
What has been happening with Friday prayers?
Imam Mowlid: First, I have to appreciate our neighbors. Every Friday, we have neighbors coming out and protecting the mosque. They surround the mosque every Friday, regardless of the cold. Yes, there is a drop in attendance, mainly because of a lack of safety.
The people who are afraid are not only people without documents. These are American citizens afraid of what they see on the streets. Most of our congregation are American citizens. Parents are saying, “I don’t want my child to be killed.” These are people born and raised here in Minneapolis. We also have a weekend school, and that has been disrupted because of safety concerns. We had to cancel everything because of the killing of Alex Pretti and because we felt a lack of safety. Every time a human being is killed on our streets, it increases fear and frustration. Anyone could have been Alex.
There has been a bipartisan outcry since the killing of Alex Pretti, and ICE commander Gregory Bovino is leaving Minneapolis. What are you seeing?
Rev. Ingrid: What we’re talking about is much larger than one person. As leaders of faith, we don’t want simply the 3,000 agents to disperse from Minneapolis and then go to other communities across the country. We want this type of enforcement to end. What we are seeking is an end to the terror that we see playing out on our streets. And the departure of one and the replacement with another is not going to do that.
Imam Mowlid: We’re not really safe until we see that this whole thing come to an end completely.
As ICE moves into other states, what do you think we will see? More faith-based responses?
Jenkins: I am working on a story about Maine. It’s a more rural state, and so they have had difficulty mounting the same level of rapid response that you see in places like Minneapolis. When people hear that DHS is somewhere, it takes longer to get there.
A faith leader told me detainees were being held at a county jail, and faith leaders were holding vigils there and writing letters to detainees. After an influx of DHS agents, those detainees were removed overnight. Most of them don’t know where they went. That’s different from places like Minneapolis or Chicago. There are sustained protests against ICE in front of a federal building in Minneapolis and the facility in Broadview, Illinois, just outside Chicago. Minneapolis also has existing community infrastructure from past organizing, including after the murder of George Floyd. That history matters.
As a reporter, it is fascinating to see how quickly faith leaders are leaning on each other to learn ways to push back against ICE. In Charlotte, for instance, within 48 hours of ICE agents arriving from Chicago, hundreds of people were in churches for training. The trainings were set up months in advance. I see that all across the country.
Faith leaders from across the religious spectrum are collectively organizing in a way that I haven’t seen before. As one faith leader told me yesterday, “This is not what I was trained to do, but it’s what I feel called to do.”
One year after she urged Trump to have mercy, Bishop Budde leads clergy protests in Minneapolis
