Among my New Year’s resolutions was to write and post at least twice a month for this website, but for the last two months, there has really only been one topic in Minnesota dominating not just our attention, but our lives: our state, and the Twin Cities in particular, became ground zero for the next phase of President Donald Trump’s effort to transition our government to a fascist dictatorship. As everyone here living thought it has experienced, it’s been a second horrible reality imposed on us to run on top of the first horrible reality of tRump’s tumultuous and cruel second term—instead of a multiverse, it’s just a shit sandwich.
Under the guise of a fraud investigation, ICE agents descended en masse (2,000 to start, then grew to more than 3,000) on the Twin Cities, most heavily in Minneapolis to start. Then, on Wednesday, February 4, after several weeks with this masked, armed paramilitary storming through clouds of teargas, physically assaulting—and twice killing—citizens that preserved their violence on smartphones or protested their unconstitutional actions, a promise by “Border Czar” Tom Homan of a 700-troop “drawdown.”
The reason the drawdown was possible, Homan said, was “unprecedented” cooperation from local authorities. That cooperation is largely what already existed: state prisons routinely handed communicated with ICE when the sentence of a convicted inmate who was eligible to be deported, was set to expire. ICE could pick them up and deport that inmate. Or, if an arrest warrant was issued by a judge.
The Trump administration must always push a narrative of success, no matter the failure. The reason for the drawdown is because the American people are horrified by what they see, and for the lizard-brained tRump, he sees declining poll numbers. The true success goes to Minnesotans. The continuing campaign of documentation and peaceful protest is proving stronger than the Trump administration’s efforts to break the state.
It’s important to not forget why thousands of hastily recruited (without vetting) and poorly-trained ICE agents were sent to Minnesota, a place with few illegal immigrants—especially compared to Florida, Texas and many other “red” states. The current invasion has never been about fraud. There was actual fraud in Minnesota, involving food programs funded with Federal and state grants (and did involve Somali Americans) during the pandemic. This fraud has been under investigation since 2022 by state and federal law enforcement, with 70 people charged, including the ringleader, who is white.
This invasion by ICE was triggered by a video from right-wing YouTuber Nick Shirley alleging daycare fraud within the state—notably he visited several run by Somali Americans, who, like any normal person with children in their care, refused to let a stranger with a camera enter the facility. Never mind the allegations were baseless, it was enough of an excuse for the tRump and top advisor Stephen Miller to attack another ethnic group and branch out to persecute others to meet their deportation quotas. It’s been about intimidation and political retribution against a state that has repeatedly rebuked Trump in its elections and government policy. (Trump claims to have won every election in Minnesota, which hasn’t voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 1972. He’s tested troops-on-the-ground in other Democratic-led states, too, including California, Illinois and the nation’s capital, Washington DC.)
Proof the ICE invasion was an excuse for the larger aims of the administration was US Attorney General Pam Bondi’s letter to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz which demanded that the state “allow the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice to access voter rolls,” a demand that violates current law and likely the US Constitution.
There isn’t anyone in the Twin Cities metro area—and now across much of the state—who has not been impacted by the ICE occupation. I work within various immigrant communities, and simply scheduling a meeting these last two months became a task that I can imagine residents of some countries must do to avoid marauding gangs or a rogue military: check your smartphone for updates on the whereabouts of hostile forces. I arrived at one client’s home in south Minneapolis (we couldn’t meet where we had planned initially) at the moment when Renee Good was murdered by an ICE agent barely a ten-minute walk away.
We all know how ICE leadership, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Border Patrol “Commander-at-Large” Greg Bovino, President Trump, and the ghoulish Miller (and everyone with a voice in the servile administration and “conservative” media) leapt to smear Good and her wife, and justify the actions of her killer, ICE Agent Jonathan Ross. But all the video captured by brave observers clearly debunked those lies.
No effort was made to recalibrate tactics. ICE serves up indignity to everyone, at every opportunity, but with particular scorn for those with brown or black skin. Anyone can be dragged from their car, harassed on the street or detained. “Do you have proof of citizenship?” is a question asked of everyone stopped by these thugs. After Good’s killing, a man was shot in the leg in North Minneapolis.
A disabled woman was dragged from her car by agents while attempting to pull into a parking lot for a doctor’s appointment and detained.
A Hmong immigrant who’s been a citizen for decades was pulled from his Saint Paul home in only his underwear in subzero temperatures.
Taking young children and detaining them in another state is a feature, not to mention the daily trauma of those not swept up and away.
Abducting those legally in the country, sending them to a squalid holding center in El Paso, Texas, for days or weeks, then releasing them (if they aren’t murdered) to find their way back to Minnesota on their own is also a tactic.
And, in general for those detained, murder and ongoing cruelty.
Those are but a few examples of harassment and assault by ICE.
There have been countless canisters of teargas thrown at observers across the Twin Cities who gathered to record the evidence (including by Bovino, who dressed in full tactical gear with his gang, casually lobbed a billowing canister into a crowd). Chemical irritants sprayed at close range into the faces of protesters, including those pinned to the ground. Raids and harassment spread into the outer suburbs, rural areas and mid-size cities Duluth, Rochester and St. Cloud. Plus other indignities, people walking in their neighborhood or driving to the store, getting blocked by ICE agents, questioned and sometimes beaten and detained, then released far from home without a ride.
If one is fortunate to not have any direct contact, ICE’s impact on the area still disrupts. I had an early morning meeting at one multicultural market in Minneapolis. I arrived to find areas gated off where they used to be open, and heard stories of ICE agents harassing and kidnapping people from the market’s aisles. Security was stepped up to prevent ICE from harassing vendors, but agents persisted, going so far as to nab people from loading docks.
After this meeting, I drove further west into the city and onto Lake Street, and ICE agents were active in the area. Minneapolis Police Department officers were, too, and the difference in how they navigated the roads was obvious. The MPD vehicles operating in the area where ICE was active would flash lights and sirens, and wait for motorists to do what we’ve all been trained to do since driver’s ed: pull to the shoulder at the safest opportunity. The ICE agents simply pulled out into oncoming traffic and swerved wildly past other drivers, gunning their rental SUVs like teenagers out for a joyride, putting everyone at risk. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t encountered agents or their vehicles during their commutes to work or life’s errands.
None of this should come as a surprise as we learned more about Noem’s recruitment efforts to meet Trump’s and Miller’s demand to add thousands more ICE agents: dog-whistle racism and Halo-gamer slogans coupled with fewer physical requirements and massively truncated training. A perfect job for those Proud Boys pardoned for their crimes committed at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Minnesota continues to step up—we’re a hearty folk. As ICE spread across the state, we’ve met every escalation with observers pouring from their homes to blow whistles, alerting those in the area, and recording with smartphones. We responded with a small-business shutdown on Friday, January 23 to show solidarity against the occupation and tens of thousands of Minnesotans gathered at events across the state. The largest group assembled in Minneapolis, where more than 50,000 gathered at Commons Park adjacent to US Bank stadium and marched to Target Center for a rally.
As if in response to that first statewide effort, Bovino and Noem’s paramilitary force stepped up activity the next day, Saturday, and, by roughly 9:30am, another bystander, an ICU nurse at a VA hospital, Alex Pretti, was executed—10 bullets in the back as he was on his knees in the street. And the Trump administration did the same thing to Pretti as they did to Renee Good: blamed the victim for their own murder. We all saw the video evidence to the contrary.
Noem and Bovino did their best to demonize the Pretti. Noem called him a “domestic terrorist” who was “brandishing” a gun. He had arrived at the scene to inflict “maximum damage and massacre law enforcement” agents, Bovino said. “The victims are the Border Patrol agents.”
Thanks to the observers on the scene recording, we again saw the truth. Pretti lived in the neighborhood and had come to the defense of a woman who had been shoved to the ground by a rag in ICE agent. In one hand was his phone, and the other hand was empty. He was he was carrying a weapon, for which he had a permit, which was holstered at his back underneath his jacket. He never reached for it. The brutality was just too clear, and from too many angles. He was pepper-sprayed. He was forced to the ground on his knees. An agent took his gun from him. And then he was executed.
Bovino, of course, doubled down just the day after Pretti’s murder, despite video evidence undermining his narrative circulating for a full 24 hours, with a menacing “speech.” People make “choices,” Bovino hissed through his sadistic toothy grin. His view: If you choose to (legally) protest, his ICE agents can choose to kill you. While it surely made Miller smile, was delivered too Goebbels-like for public consumption. The blowback proved too much for Trump’s narcissism: things look bad for him. Bovino was removed from his position by Tuesday.
Enter Tom Homan. Is it an improvement? Considering the entire administration is otherwise staffed by cosplaying clowns, yes. Homan, who is a career administrator, and who was President Obama’s ICE honcho, will bring a degree of professionalism. He did, after Renee Good was killed, say to CBS News the correct (and easy) thing for an agency head to say: “It’d be unprofessional to comment on what I think happened in that situation. Let the investigation play out and hold people accountable based on the investigation.” That statement, of course, was swamped by irresponsible vitriol toward Good by Noem, Vice President JD Vance, Bovino, and the rest the administration’s sycophants.
But, make no mistake. Homan is an immigration hardliner. He was the architect of Trump’s family separation directive during his first term, which did not go well (Homan proposed that policy to Obama, who couldn’t be persuaded). The FBI has a tape of Homan accepting in late 2024 a paper bag loaded with $50K in exchange for steering business contracts in a new Trump administration to an undercover agent posing as a businessman. (It’s a grift that almost prompts a wistful, nostalgic smile for old-school bribery when compared to Trump’s multi-billion-dollar-and-counting corruption during this second term.)
It’s a low bar. If Homan can prevent people being murdered by ICE and Border Control agents, that will mean something. During that first press conference, he spoke of the “drawdown,” but also used the term “theater” for Minneapolis, a term heard for military incursions. The day after a press conference, an arts high school in Saint Paul was raided during classes by agents in full tactical gear. (As of this posting, while there might be fewer boots on the ground, there doesn’t appear much of a drawdown. This morning, however, Gov. Walz reported that after conversations with President tRump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and Homan, a “bigger drawdown” could come within days.)
Minnesota continues to resist. Another massive March on January 30 brought out tens of thousands, and was joined by other marches across the country. Bruce Springsteen penned a song to highlight the crimes and resistance, The Streets of Minneapolis, and performed at First Avenue with Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello last Thursday. More are speaking loudly in Congress—including some Republicans.
But the overall policy won’t change as long as Miller remains—he seems to be running the country, shouting as irrationally on foreign policy in addition to his sick ideas at home. Noem is guilty also—empty vessels can also be exceptionally cruel. As the journalist Adam Serwer wrote during Trump’s first term, The Cruelty is the Point.