Minneapolis rally demands ICE off post office land; Ilhan Omar says agents pulled over son

Sofia Barnett and Eleanor Hildebrandt, The Minnesota Star Tribune on Dec 14, 2025

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Postal workers rallied Sunday outside the Lake Street post office in south Minneapolis, calling on Immigration and Customs Enforcement to stop using postal property as a staging ground for enforcement operations.

Members of the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 9 said ICE agents used the parking lots of two local post offices last week while carrying out arrests in nearby neighborhoods, raising safety concerns for workers and the public.

“A couple weeks ago, ICE used the Lake Street post office parking lot here a couple times as a staging ground for their operations,” said Chris Pennock, executive vice president of NALC Branch 9. “That same week, they used the Powderhorn post office parking lot to arrest somebody right in the middle of where the carriers are returning.”

Pennock said the presence of ICE agents created unsafe conditions for letter carriers as they finished their routes.

“At the end of the day, the manager told them to get out of the way, and they threatened to put him in handcuffs,” he said. “It’s not safe for them to be using federal property — post offices — as a staging ground.”

The Department of Homeland Security has defended recent immigration enforcement actions in Minnesota as part of what it calls “Operation Metro Surge.” In a statement, DHS said ICE has arrested more than 400 people statewide during the operation, which it said includes individuals with convictions for sex offenses and violent crimes.

DHS said the arrests were intended to improve public safety, a characterization that state and local officials have disputed.

The rally was held at the Lake Street post office and was followed by a roughly 1.5-mile march to the Powderhorn post office. Postal workers said the demonstration was meant to show solidarity with immigrant coworkers and residents in the neighborhoods they serve, and to make clear that they do not want to be associated with immigration enforcement.

“I mean, we go out in the community every day, and we do not want to be associated with ICE, and we want them off postal property in Minnesota,” Pennock said. “We want to tell people that we’re supporting our immigrants, our neighborhoods and our coworkers.”

Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar said her son was pulled over Saturday by federal immigration officers.

While she was on WCCO Sunday morning, Omar said the ICE officers asked her son to prove his citizenship. Her 20-year-old son “always carries” his passport with him, Omar said, even to the Target store where he was before being pulled over.

“I had to remind him just how worried I am because all of these areas that they’re taking about are areas where he could possibly find himself in,” Omar said. “And they are racially profiling, they’re looking for young men who look Somali that they think are undocumented.”

She said her son has had multiple run-ins with immigration officers, including while he was praying at a local mosque. Omar came to the U.S. from Somalia as a child and has been a citizen since 2000. Her son was born in the U.S.

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