What is Happening in Minnesota: A Report from the Ground

Local organizers in Minneapolis extended an invitation to clergy from across the country to come, witness, and learn from what is unfolding on the streets of the city.

Their goal was simple and urgent to share firsthand experiences of intensified immigration enforcement and its impact on local communities.

What does the situation in Minneapolis signal for cities like San Francisco?

What should Bay Area residents, faith leaders, and organizers be paying attention to now?

How can communities prepare for what may come next?

Following the midterm elections, $45 billion is expected to be released to recruit, train, and deploy immigration enforcement agents across the United States.

Rev. Emily McGinley and Rev. Tyler Sit will share key insights, observations, and lessons from Minneapolis to help Bay Area residents understand what this expansion could mean locally and how communities can prepare, organize, and respond.

Rev. Emily McGinley

She became a Christian in the non-denominational evangelical tradition before entering ordained ministry in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Prior to her role as the Senior Pastor of City Church, she was the Executive Pastor of Urban Village Church and the founding pastor of UVC’s Hyde Park-Woodlawn site, located on the South Side of Chicago. Emily has extensive experience working across diverse networks and Christian traditions. She has preached and presented nationally on a variety of topics, including vocational discernment, preaching, church planting, social media in ministry, inclusive evangelism, and anti-racist church leadership and is the recipient of several grants to support her efforts to explore the role of design thinking in ministry. I In addition to having coached pastors and congregations, she is a contributing writer to the books, Inter-Cultural Ministry: Hope for a Changing World and Finding Peace in an Anxious World. Rev. Emily is committed to building gospel-shaped inclusive spaces that nurture, challenge, and practice radical hospitality at City Church and beyond!

Rev. Tyler Sit

Is the founding pastor of New City Church, a church in Minneapolis that is led mostly by queer people of color. New City became the first 'built from scratch' church plant to charter in Minnesota United Methodism in decades. And in 2022, New City launched its second branch, Northeast United Methodist Church. Sit is a second-generation Chinese American, and he focuses his racial justice work into Intersect, a church planting network that he co-founded during the pandemic. Sit has been featured in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Minnesota Public Radio, and more.