By Torin Record-Sand
Reporting for West Seattle Blog

What’s happened in Minneapolis the past few weeks poses questions that ask us about the strength of our local community. If the federal government sent a similarly sizable contingent of immigration-enforcement agents here on a long-duration operation, how would we respond? Do people here have the ability to endure as a community and protect the most vulnerable among us? What lessons can people here learn from the community organizers who have directly confronted ICE in Minneapolis?

These were the topics which Fauntleroy UCC Rev. Leah Atkinson Bilinski touched on in her nearly hour-long talk Wednesday night. As reported here, she recently returned from a brief trip to Minneapolis, along with more than 650 interfaith leaders from various congregations across the US. Together, they helped a variety of Minneapolis community organizers on the ground.

She was there on short notice. “This time [two weeks ago] I didn’t know I was going on this trip. The Thursday prior [Jan. 15th], an organization in Minneapolis […] said ‘We need help – can we put an event together quickly with interfaith leaders from across the country quickly to come?’ and they said, let’s do it. The next day there was a call out, and they sent it to [us] – I secured child care, got a plane ticket, and said I’d come.”

The gravity of the situation was immediate to her within her first day there. “[When we got to the church of the organization that was hosting us, it was obvious to us how tired they were, how exhausted they [were], because Minneapolis-St. Paul is truly a city that is under siege,” she said. After a brief training by the religious organizers, she was at first scheduled to go to a protest at a federal building, but this was immediately rescinded by the organizers due to the threat of federal agents’ presence. “They [the religious organizers] got the call that the temperature [of the situation] was not good, for five busloads of clergy to show up and even just engage in a prayer -they said it would not be safe.” she recalled.

Instead, she went on a patrol to watch for ICE activity in a close-by neighborhood. At first, nothing seemed off. The patrol finished with no events of note, and she returned to a nearby bus stop to go back and meet with the other organizers at the main church. But then others from their group on patrol in the same area came to talk to them: “Three clergy run up to us, they’re out of breath, and they share with us they had just interrupted an abduction. And where was it? It was right there, right behind us, it was in a strip mall right behind the bus shelter – and at the other end of the strip mall parking there was a van with a pregnant woman and her children. ICE vehicles surrounded it, 12 agents got out, and the clergy started blowing whistles and took video on their phones […] and after less than 60 seconds [the ICE officers left] – that is all it took for the abduction to take place. They are not sure if the ICE agents left because the woman produced the ’right papers’ or because the clergy were there, but the agents left.”

It stuck with her on how it seemed to occur both silently, literally behind her back, and quickly. “That is terrifying news – that it can happen within 60 seconds. That is how quick and sneaky this can be, and how hard it is for people to observe,” she said.

The next day, she chose to help an immigrant-focused church in the suburbs of Minneapolis. She talked about the sense that, during the time of crisis for the community, the church tried to look beyond a place of self-importance, and simply serve as an institution for the community to find peace. “They were doing things like opening the church up at night to be a place of healing, bringing in chairs for reiki and massage tables – people coming to just talk and to listen to those who needed an ear – having a nightly dance (with a disco ball) so that in the midst of a neighborhood where ICE is going door to door, they could be a place where there was joy that could be experienced in the midst of pain. That morning they packed meals. It’s said about 16,000 households in Minneapolis-St. Paul do not feel safe to leave their houses.” she said.

But even that concept of peace and sanctuary seemed short-lived in the face of constant siege. After being there only a short time, the church went into lockdown over federal activity nearby. “I was going down to the basement, where there are 3 rooms acting as clinics so people can come down here for treatment by volunteer professionals because it is no longer safe to receive care at other places – I was going down there to use the bathroom and there was a great hustle and bustle – and I heard, there was a completed abduction a block and a half away, and people were injured.” she said. “They rushed someone into the church, who was injured from a smashed windshield [during the stop], with her face being torn up.”

But even in the midst of chaos, the pastor found inspiration from the community’s resilience. “[As soon as the church went on lockdown], volunteers started opening the cabinets of the church kitchen, and taking down food so they could immediately make soup for all of us locked in there. They said they wanted something comforting for us to eat.” she said. “We all have a role to play. Everyone there had a role to play. Some of them are not glamorous or glorious – most of them aren’t. Some feel small. But they’re all connected, all important.”

From these experiences, she spoke about what she saw as the crucial infrastructure that helped Minneapolis stay so organized in the face of a seemingly omnipresent threat. A lot of it came down to the infrastructure of how community groups organized, and had been doing so since the days of the George Floyd protests in 2020. Local neighborhoods had their own independent, encrypted Signal chats, and these worked in tandem with larger cross-city political or non-profit organizations. She emphasized that the simultaneous decentralization and interconnection of power allowed groups to rapidly mobilize and respond.

“The single greatest lesson I came home with – what Minneapolis taught me – is that resisting authoritarianism requires training sustained resistance in cooperation with your neighbors. And so we need to get to know our neighbors, care for our neighbors, be a neighbor to one another, and engage in hyper-local community organization. If things can happen in 60 seconds, what matters most is the community you have right around you.” she said.

Rev. Atkinson Bilinski said she hoped her experiences, and the lessons she took with them, could help in the event that the same kind of federal deployment happens here. “I hope that you hear loud and clear, we are here, there is sustained resistance from communities against authoritarian systems, it’s not gonna be one march or one protest, it’s gonna be all of us doing what we can with each other, together, in order to be what we need to be. There is an increased ICE presence in Seattle, and we need the eyes to see it before it becomes worse.” she said.