Minneapolis teachers union chief admits elected officials in anti-ICE Signal chats

Marcia Howard tells Al Jazeera that government officials participate in Signal groups coordinating ICE resistance activities

The head of the Minneapolis teachers union said in a recent interview that elected officials are involved in anti-ICE agitation in the city.

"The notion that people that are actively engaged in ICE watch, in being vigilant in protecting our neighbors, in Signal chat groups, running plates, in their cars doing patrols — that somehow we're ashamed of that activity, that somehow you can call our bosses and show our faces and then we would be shunned by our community..." Marcia Howard told Al Jazeera in an interview that aired last week.

Marcia Howard (C), an activist and teacher, stands with other community members at George Floyd Square before the start of a candlelight vigil on May 25, 2025, marking the fifth anniversary of George Floyd's death in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  

Howard is the president of the Minneapolis Federation of Educators, and perhaps best known for her role in championing the 2020 riots in the city over the death of George Floyd. She was also an English teacher for 25 years, including during the riots. She has been described as a "steward" of George Floyd Square, a memorial area where Floyd was killed. She meets there with local activists every morning.

"Our bosses are in the Signal chats with us," she said. "Our elected officials are in the chats with us."

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Local teacher and activist Marcia Howard (C) speaks with demonstrators who traveled from around the country outside the Hennepin County Government Center on Dec. 23, 2021, in Minneapolis, Minnesota during jury deliberations in the trial of former Brooklyn Center police officer Kim Potter, who was charged with manslaughter in the April 2021 shooting death of Daunte Wright. Potter says she thought she was using her Taser when she shot Wright with her handgun. 

Howard also said that local "nanas," hockey coaches and soccer moms are participating in the pushback against federal immigration enforcement, as ICE and Border Patrol attempt to arrest illegal aliens, many of whom have further criminal histories in the United States.

"Everybody that's anybody is doing the work of protecting our neighbors, because that's how we show up in Minneapolis and St. Paul," she said.

She also said that teachers are involved in the attempts to subvert federal law enforcement.

A Border Patrol agent chatted with a protester in Minnesota on Thursday, finding common ground over military service. 

"We're armed with whistles and our phones making sure that students are safe going to class," she 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."

She also said federal immigration officers have, "declared war on my state, they have declared war in my city," and compared them to slave catchers and the Ku Klux Klan. 

https://www.foxnews.com/us/minneapolis-teachers-union-chief-admits-elected-officials-anti-ice-signal-chats