Minneapolis Discovered Its Own Strength Fighting ICE Tyranny
Donald Trump is a symptom more than he is a disease. Any healthy republic faced with a leader who threatened to use military force against its own treaty allies to conquer a mostly worthless piece of ice would immediately throw him out. America has mechanisms to do just this, and in fact has removed a president within living memory. Richard Nixon was hounded out of office for a scandal that was not one-thousandth as bad as what Trump did to Greenland, nor as what’s easily 50 other Trump scandals besides. Multiple times per week, he does something that makes Watergate look like a cashier pocketing 50 cents from the cash drawer.
Yet there is no sign of even a serious attempt to get rid of Trump. A critical mass of Americans, particularly those in positions of power, have become morally corrupt. On the one side, the Republican Party has become a fascist cult of personality, completely in thrall to Trump no matter how mentally unwell he acts in public or how badly he harms American society. On the other, the Democratic Party, along with numerous leaders in business and academia, has repeatedly caved, appeased, or otherwise failed to confront him, exemplified by former Attorney General Merrick Garland dithering away half a presidential term during which he failed even to prosecute Trump for a televised insurrection.
Today, however, Minneapolis is showing America how to resist Trump’s intolerable tyranny—and perhaps more importantly, what this country could be, if we allowed our belief in free institutions to guide our action.
As we’ve been reporting at the Prospect, ICE and CBP are running a campaign of terror and ethnic cleansing in Minneapolis. Convoys of criminal thugs—there is no other way to describe them—are driving around the city, looking for nonwhite people, preferably, out by themselves to kidnap.
These men are evil in a biblical sense, as in actual demons from hell. By now, most people are familiar with Jonathan Ross, the ICE goon who mercilessly gunned down Renee Good, while his colleagues then prevented a nearby doctor from assisting her. But here’s another blasting pepper spray directly into the eyes of an unarmed protester while he is held down by two other ICE goons. Here’s some more forcing a five-year-old boy named Liam Ramos to act as bait in an attempt to get into his house, and then kidnapping him and his father and taking them to Texas. It’s “unclear when or whether Liam will be able to return for his stuffed turtle, his hat, and his W worksheet,” as a local reporter bleakly observed.
“Churches and schools have closed under threat of violence. My neighbors have correctly assessed that it is no longer even safe for them to walk down the street to the store,” said Erik Hane, a Minneapolis literary agent (who, full disclosure, happens to represent me). “Every minute here, a thousand hidden tragedies like this play out. ICE is rolling back people’s basic freedom and security.”
In reaction, ordinary Minneapolis residents from all walks of life have, practically overnight, mobilized themselves into an effective opposition force—adapting traditional techniques of nonviolent resistance on the fly. According to residents, virtually every street has some observer on it watching for ICE during daylight hours, and often more than one. Those observers are coordinated, mostly using encrypted Signal chats, and any ICE activity is immediately communicated so observers can show up to document and impede the goons.
They can’t stop ICE entirely, but they can throw as much sand as possible into the gears of occupation. Observers film what is happening, try to get the names of anyone being taken, and in general make themselves a nuisance. “There is nowhere ICE can go in this city where they won’t soon be met by a dozen locals ready to record and impede their actions, and the whistles we’re all wearing mean that many other people will soon be at that location too,” Hane said. Like all criminals, ICE prefers to operate out of public view, and if they draw enough attention, they frequently give up.
Other residents have organized tailing operations to follow ICE vehicles around and keep tabs on them. In a recent podcast interview, I spoke with Will Stancil, who has become something of a minor celebrity for relentlessly bird-dogging ICE convoys in his Honda Fit. “The reality is that what they’re doing here—they’re jumping out, they’re abducting people, they’re tear-gassing crowds, all that stuff—it is so aggressive, and so outside the bounds of the law, and commonsense notions of how law enforcement ought to be conducted, that they can’t really operate if they’re being observed closely.”
Still others have organized to protect day cares—day cares!—schools, and churches. Yet more have organized food delivery for residents who are liable to be kidnapped if they leave their homes.
The consequences for resistance can be serious. Illegal arrests and savage beatings are commonplace. People have seen their homes trashed, their property stolen, their bones broken, their eyes ruined. But the abuse only strengthens the city’s resolve.
Make no mistake: What is happening in Minneapolis is vile in the extreme. But it’s also teaching some important lessons. By forcing city residents to fight for their security and their very lives, ICE has taught them their own strength. It is very, very difficult to subdue a large city that has risen in disciplined anger. ICE would need at least ten times the manpower, if not more, and be willing to stay indefinitely.
ICE’s terror campaign has also revealed what is at stake. America in 2024 had many problems, but on the whole it was one of the most wealthy, privileged societies that has ever existed. Things can get a lot worse than having a dysfunctional health care system or bad public transit. For instance, a flourishing city could be occupied by thousands of fascist thugs.
Speaking with residents, over and over again I heard a sense of blistering outrage at the utter gratuitousness of it all. Things were more or less fine until ICE showed up and started snatching random civilians off the street. It turns out that regular people will put their bodies on the line to defend their communities from fascist terrorism. To quote Samwise Gamgee: There’s some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.
The rest of America can learn from that example. As Stancil emphasized to me, anyone can and should start building the bones of a rapid response network, right now. Your turn in the barrel is likely coming, sooner or later. And who knows—it might even be good for you. “There is joy in this. I know my neighbors better than ever before. I have started friendships that will last long after we remove ICE from our city,” Hane said.
A previous generation of elites reacted with shocked outrage to Nixon’s relatively minor misdeeds because they felt a modicum of pride and dignity in the ongoing existence of American law and Americans’ rights. The president directing a bunch of criminal scumbags to rummage around in his opponents’ papers? That is simply not done.
Over many years, that pride and dignity has been dissolved in a culture of corruption and elite impunity. As the rot spread and deepened, it was only a matter of time until something like Donald Trump wormed its way to the top of the heap.
But Minneapolis reminds all Americans that the old ways still have much to recommend them. Look at what MAGA is trying to take from our fellow citizens—their freedom, their prosperity, their families, their basic way of life—and look at how hard they are fighting in response. These are the stakes. We don’t have to tolerate a criminally insane president, nor his criminal occupation force. We’ve done better in the past and we can do so again.
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