Twin Cities teacher unions publicly called on Target to come out against immigration enforcement in Minnesota. Supporters say a company that markets itself as a neighbor doesn’t get to go silent when its customers are being detained; critics say a retailer that picks a side in immigration politics is just picking which half of America to alienate. Should Target say anything at all?
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Add your commentTarget spent years telling us they're part of the community. You don't get to trademark "expect more, pay less" and then go radio silent when that community is actively scared to leave the house. That's not neutrality, that's a choice.
The confidently stated "they have no obligation" argument misses that Target has accepted enormous tax incentives from Minnesota municipalities specifically because they promised to be a community anchor. You took the public money. You are now accountable to the public.
My kids go to school with kids whose parents are terrified right now. Real people. Real neighbors. And Target has a "community" section on their website. At some point the branding has to mean something or it means nothing.
Someone in an earlier comment said "let them sell dish soap." Sir this is the company that was donated millions in local tax abatements to anchor the Nicollet Mall corridor. They are literally a subsidized public institution at this point. They gave up "just a store" when they took the public money.
I started this thread yesterday firmly on the "companies should stay out of politics" side. Read through all of this. The tax abatement point, the 2020 precedent, the teacher with the student who wasn't picked up — I'm honestly less certain than I was. Still not sure Target *should* say something but I can no longer say they have zero obligation. That's a shift for me.
corporations are not your friends, they are not your neighbors, they are not your allies. they are entities that exist to generate shareholder returns. the sooner people accept this the less betrayed they'll feel every single time
Teacher unions calling on a retailer to take political positions is genuinely bizarre to me and I say that as a union member myself. Stick to bargaining contracts, not pressuring corporations on federal immigration law.
Corporations do not have morals. Corporations have risk models. The moment the risk model changes — boycott pressure, stock movement, employee organizing — the "moral" position will change with it. Stop expecting a values statement and start organizing economic pressure if you want results.
What exactly would Target even say? "We're against immigration enforcement?" That's a statement against federal law. "We support it?" Their customer base in the Twin Cities evaporates. There is genuinely no version of this that doesn't hurt them, which is why silence is the rational choice even if it's the uncomfortable one.
The "pick which half of America to alienate" framing in the topic description is doing a lot of work. Supporting due process and community safety is not a "half of America" fringe position. Polling consistently shows most Americans want enforcement to be humane even if they support enforcement in principle. Target could thread this needle if they wanted to.
Former Target corporate here (yes, really, left in 2022). The internal culture genuinely cares about these issues. Individual executives are personally anguished. The institutional answer is always the same: legal review, comms review, stakeholder matrix. Nothing comes out. The caring is real and completely ineffective.
Look, I'm pretty conservative and even I think there's a difference between a company making a Pride display and a company refusing to acknowledge that its own shoppers are being detained. One is a lifestyle statement. The other is a safety issue. I'm not sure Target's silence is defensible on purely practical grounds.
I work in retail management (not Target, similar company) and I can tell you from the inside: the legal exposure alone from taking a position on active federal enforcement operations is terrifying. This isn't cowardice, it's lawyers.
I drove past a Target in Minneapolis last weekend. Parking lot was noticeably thinner than usual. Draw your own conclusions about whether silence is actually protecting their business.
Hot take: companies that operate in a community have a stakeholder relationship with that community. This isn't radical theory, it's what business schools have been teaching for thirty years. Target knows this. They wrote it into their mission statement.
The teacher union angle is interesting to me because teachers are legally obligated to educate every child regardless of status. They have a professional and ethical stake in this that is directly connected to their students' home lives. Calling this a union overstepping is ignoring what teachers actually deal with every single week.
What I haven't seen anyone address: what would a Target statement actually accomplish? ICE enforcement doesn't stop because a retailer tweets. If the goal is protecting people, maybe the union energy should go toward the school board, the city council, the state legislature — bodies that actually have jurisdictional authority here.
So the same people who were furious at Target for the Pride display situation are now mad they won't denounce ICE? Pick a lane, America.
I'm a retired HR director and I'll tell you what nobody is saying out loud: Target has thousands of employees who are undocumented or have undocumented family members. Any corporate statement becomes a de facto HR policy. That's why legal is pumping the brakes.
The comparison to 2020 keeps coming up and it's worth being precise: Target didn't just tweet support for BLM, their own store got damaged during unrest and they still made public statements about racial justice. They have demonstrated they can take positions under pressure. The question is whether this community has enough leverage to recreate those conditions.
I notice people demanding Target take a stand are only demanding that on one side of the debate. Nobody's calling on Target to issue a statement supporting enforcement either. That asymmetry tells you something about whose political pressure campaign this actually is.
I used to think companies should stay out of politics entirely. Then I watched my cousin get detained at a bus stop two blocks from a Target in St. Paul and suddenly "neutrality" started feeling like a very comfortable position for people who don't have anything to lose.
that's fair but visibility and moral clarity also matter even when they don't change policy directly
If you disagree with the people saying Target should stay quiet, explain how you square that with the fact that they publicly supported Black Lives Matter in 2020. They already chose a side once. The "we're neutral" position is historically selective.
corporations respond to leverage not conscience, see above comment about risk models, it's all the same mechanism
I have a student whose parent didn't show up for pickup last Tuesday. That's not abstract politics. That's my classroom.
the person who said Target supported BLM in 2020 is correct and nobody has answered that yet. waiting.
my grandmother used to say that silence in the face of harm is its own statement. she wasn't talking about Target but she would've had thoughts
@the person saying it's legally risky — genuinely curious what the actual legal exposure is here. A statement expressing concern for employee wellbeing or customer safety isn't the same as obstructing an agency. What am I missing?
I just want someone to explain to me why we decided corporations get to have all the benefits of personhood — free speech, property rights, political donations — but none of the civic responsibilities that come with living in a society. Because that deal seems extremely one-sided.
the asymmetry comment is fair but also the people being detained aren't abstractions, so the stakes aren't symmetrical either
I don't think teacher unions have any business telling private companies what political stances to take. Full stop. The optics on this are not good for the union.
could they though? anything they say gets weaponized by someone within about six hours
tired of both sides using corporations as props for their culture war. Target sells dish soap. Let them sell dish soap.
"the caring is real and completely ineffective" is the motto of corporate America
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