Protestors were out in force in Richfield on Saturday afternoon, standing up against Trump administration deportation policies and in solidarity with the large Latino immigrant community living in the city, according to the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC).

“The reason that I’m here is just to speak up for my people,” said protestor Beto Villanueva.

“A lot of people are undocumented that’ve been working here for years and years and years and paying taxes, being mistreated.”

Villanueva is an immigrant and a U.S. citizen. He said that because of his citizenship, he felt inclined to stand up for others who are not, adding that the path to citizenship is not easy and the cost can be a burden.

“It’s just really sad, you know, because I escaped from my country, came here for a new opportunity, things were going good, and now, for some reason, they really want to go backwards. And I don’t think that’s okay,” he said.

“I think it’s just very clear right and wrong, you know. It’s just stirring up racism against these communities is so wrong,” added fellow protestor Tom Henry.

MIRAC community organizer Kellie Rock said the protest was against “the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on immigrants, his calls for mass deportations, the workplace raids that we’ve started to see happening this week in Duluth and in St. Louis Park, here in Minnesota…”

“We see that the Trump administration has simply been striking more fear into immigrant communities, separating families and trying to restrict immigration. So we’re here to say ‘no’ to all of that,” Rock added.

When asked, Rock was unsure of the number of immigrants who have been arrested and/or deported from Minnesota.

“But yes, we have heard from people who are being deported, people who do not have any criminal record, who are part of this community, and it is happening,” she said.

Federal officials have made more than 20,000 arrests nationwide in the last month, according to a post by U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem on “X” earlier this week.

President Donald Trump has said his administration is going after the worst of the worst when it comes to illegal immigrants in this country.

“We’re getting the bad, hard criminals out. These are murderers. These are people who are as bad as you get,” he told reporters recently.

Rock pushed back.

“Even under ICE’s own data that they have released since Trump took office, we’re seeing at least half of the people who are being picked up by ICE have no criminal records.”

The protest followed threats from President Trump to withhold federal funding from St. Paul and other so-called sanctuary cities. Mayor Melvin Carter responded this week by joining other cities in a lawsuit, arguing the administration cannot withhold money from St. Paul taxpayers who paid into the federal government.

Catch Tom Hauser’s full interview with Mayor Carter Sunday morning on At Issue.