Dozens if not a hundred or more people were turned away from an at capacity training for rapid response to ICE activity Saturday afternoon in Springfield.
The training was hosted by a group called Southern Missouri Immigration Alliance at the Schweitzer Brentwood library in Springfield.
SMIA Community Engagement Director Dominique Moore said the meeting was held to bring visibility to local ICE activity and proactively prepare the community for responding to ICE enforcement. The content covered rights and prepared people to act in what the training described as a support and oversight capacity in response to ICE enforcement.
SMIA Community Engagement Director Dominique Moore said her organization doesn’t want people to be prepared to intervene or be “heroes,” they emphasized a documentation role. Moore explained, “we know that laws are being broken and that the Constitution is not being followed, and if we don't document it, no one is held accountable.”
Moore said ICE activity may not be visible in the area, but it is happening. Goals of SMIA over the last year have included informing people of what that looks like and what local law enforcement partnerships are in place. They’ve petitioned Greene County to end its contract to hold ICE detainees in the county jail.
The training received heightened attention after it was scrutinized during a discussion on radio host Nick Reed's show earlier last week. Reed and his guests homed in on the library, whose community room was used for the meeting. The event was not affiliated with the library and appeared to follow its community room use guidelines. The library did prepare with heightened security and additional staff during the meeting. There were minor disruptions from just a handful of the 100 or so in attendance, including during introductions. No one was asked to leave at that point, but later, after multiple and escalating disruptions, one individual was essentially escorted out by library staff and security, with some active response from the crowd.
The event capped a week of local activity in line with a national heightened response to ICE following aggressive and fatal tactics employed in Minneapolis in the last month.
Local activity last week included a walkout of over 100 students at Kickapoo high school Thursday; a fundraiser for SMIA in support of its work; and participation and acknowledgement by at least a few local businesses and workers of a national strike and economic shutdown that had been called for largely online Friday.
SMIA plans to follow up Saturday's event with a virtual training February 10.