Protests were taking place across the country in solidarity with demonstrations in Minneapolis calling for ICE to leave the city. Recent events involving ICE agents in Minnesota have become a flashpoint for those opposed to ICE, and the solidarity with those in Minneapolis extended to parts of th e Bay Area. Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of San Francisco and Oakland in solidarity with groups in Minneapolis calling on ICE to leave the city. “We thank Minnesotans for showing the whole country. You are the flashpoint of how to organize and answer the call,” said Olga Miranda, with SEIU Local 87. “ICE has been terrorizing the community in Minnesota and people are standing up and saying they’re not ok with this,” said Sonya Karabel, with the Democratic Socialists of America. Minneapolis has been the center of ICE operations over the past month, with immigration enforcement in the spotlight, following the deadly ICE agent shooting of Renee Good, and most recently, with 5-year-old Liam Ramos being taken into ICE custody. This is why thousands of anti-ICE protestors braved the cold conditions in downtown Minneapolis  Friday as a part of a statewide boycott on work, school, and shopping calling on ICE to leave the city. In the case of Ramos, the DHS says officers were targeting his father, who was in the country illegally and had a deportation order; however, a family attorney says he came to the U.S. lawfully and applied for asylum. DHS says there’s no record of his asylum claim, adding the father ran from officers abandoning his son and that Liam’s mother refused to take custody. “Over the past four years, hundreds of thousands of children were trafficked across that border,” said Gregory Bovino, border patrol commander. “We are definitely the experts at dealing with children. Unfortunately.” And as ICE operations in Minneapolis continue to create tension in the community, demonstrators in the Bay Area are staying prepared for the possibility of ICE coming to Bay Area cities. “They’ve done it in cities all across the country, so we have to know the Bay as a famously left-wing area could be a target and we have to and we have to get organized,” said Sonya of Oakland. ...read more read less