Several Iowa communities are holding what are billed as training sessions designed to teach people how to respond to ICE activity.
A recent meeting in Cedar Rapids drew nearly 600 people. It included information on documenting arrests and developing rapid response strategies.
Reverend Jonathan Heifner at St. Paul’s Methodist Church, where the training was held, says the event had two main goals: building relationships, and making sure people know their rights.
“We don’t want anybody to get hurt,” Heifner says. “We didn’t want anybody to be in a situation they didn’t want to be in, and so the education of this is about knowing what we can do and knowing what the limits are.”
One attendee said she feels tremendous empathy for Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two Minnesota residents who were shot by federal immigration officers last month. The training comes after weeks of protests across the country in response to the Trump administration’s heightened immigration crackdown.
Heifner says people told him they felt more informed about their rights after the training.
“I think the biggest learning was in the debrief after the first simulation,” Heifner says. “We asked, ‘Pay attention to your behavior. What is it that you did in these moments, and then consider who you want to be in these moments, and let’s live into that the second time.’”
Videos of the training circulating online have prompted calls from conservative social media influencers for the church to lose its tax-exempt status. Heifner says nothing in the training threatened the church’s status.
The training session in Cedar Rapids was hosted by the immigrants’ rights group Escucha Mi Voz, or “hear my voice.”
