Clergy-Community Group Hopes to Meet with Target CEO on ICE Staging
Clergy staged a sit-in at Target’s corporate headquarters in downtown Minneapolis on Thursday. Meg Daly

Clergy-Community Group Hopes to Meet with Target CEO on ICE Staging

Members want Target to prohibit federal agents from staging on the retailer’s store properties without a judicial warrant.

A group of over 100 clergy and community members say Target is listening to their calls to take a stance on ICE’s presence in Minnesota.

Target has remained relatively quiet on its position regarding federal agents arresting people across the state, including in its store parking lots.

On Thursday night, ISAIAH—a faith-based group made up of leaders from Minnesota child care centers, churches, and Black-owned barbershops—said Target’s CEO Brian Cornell agreed to meet with the clergy on Monday to listen to their demands.

Target has not confirmed the Monday meeting between Cornell and the clergy members. Similarly, the company did not respond to TCB’s request for comment on the staged sit-in.

Target has a large retail footprint across the United States, but it doesn’t own many of the buildings and parking lots where it does business. Management has taken a hybrid approach—owning some retail stores and parking lots and leasing others.

In an Instagram video from ISAIAH, they say they are asking Target to help “get ICE out of Minnesota… raise their voice and tell Congress to stop funding ICE altogether… and not allow ICE to stage on their property” without a judicial warrant.

RELATED: Should MN Businesses Take a Stand Against ICE Operations?

This all ramped up Thursday morning after the group walked through Nicollet Mall to Target’s corporate headquarters in downtown Minneapolis. The clergy peacefully protested in the lobby for multiple hours and began a sit-in. They sang songs including lyrics: “We can stay here all day, we shall not be moved.”

“Right now, for the Target CEO, in the state where his business has made him billions of dollars, the people demand for them to speak out,” says JaNaé Bates, Isaiah’s co-executive director.

Later in the afternoon, as seen on a livestream by Laura Messer, a pastor at Faith Presbyterian Church in Silver Lake, Cornell appears to later call one of the clergy. The person on the phone did not agree to meet with the group at that time, but Isaiah announced hours later that Cornell had allegedly changed his mind.

The group’s call for action comes days after ICE took two people into custody in the parking lot of a Richfield Target. Both people are believed to be Target employees, KARE 11 reports.

Minnesota law generally allows federal agents to conduct immigration enforcement actions in public areas. The state attorney general’s office says lobbies, a hospital waiting room, a church’s worship area, or a library’s reading room are public areas ICE can conduct their work.

However, non-public areas, such as a back office, patient care areas, and employee breakrooms require ICE to have a judicial warrant or permission from that business to conduct a search or investigation.