You might be thinking that this is some unusual incident, that the press is cherry-picking and dramatizing the most sensational events.
I live in Minneapolis. The location in this article is pretty close to me. And I am telling you:
The press is •under•-covering what’s happening here. ICE is doing absolutely batshit stuff all the time, every single day, all over the city.
It is exhausting. 🧵
This happened when the temperature (actual air temperature, not “feels like”) was around -4°F / -20°C.
Just to be clear.
Feven Gerezgiher writes, 'State Rep. Alex Falconer, DFL-Eden Prairie, joined demonstrators around 10:30 a.m. on Saturday. He said it was “reprehensible” and “immoral” for ICE to strand workers on a roof. '“These are people here building a house in the frigid Minnesota weather for other people to live in. These aren't dangerous people. They're trying to make a buck in this economy,” he said. “I just can't fathom how we got to this point as a society.”' https://www.mprnews.org/story/2025/12/13/ice-agents-corner-chanhassen-construction-workers-amid-frigid-temperatures #uspol #Minnesota #UncheckedAggression
Here’s a condensed version of a letter I sent to the Star Tribune last week.
I know that the editorial staff was considering publishing it, because they contacted me about it. Ultimately, however, they opted not to.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
News spreads like wildfire via private messages from neighbor to neighbor, and there’s •so• much that’s no making the news:
Person abducted on this block. Convoy of ICE vehicles spotted on this street. Observer shoved by ICE. Person abducted on that block. Observer threatened with a weapon by ICE.
ALL DAY EVERY DAY
And also, again and again — people need to know this! — I get these messages too:
ICE started to gather, but dispersed when too many observers showed up.
ICE vehicle headed back to base after being tailed in circles for an hour.
ICE started abducting someone, but let them go as the gathered crowd got larger and larger.
These people •really• do not want to be observed. Typical bullies: they cosplay tough guys, they waggle their gear around, but they •behave• like they’re afraid.
Feeling helpless? Don’t. All of this resistance makes a real and concrete difference. Honestly, the fact that this huge chunk of local residents is giving a visible, sustained “HELL NO” all the time is basically the •only• thing holding them back at this point — but it •is• making a difference.
If there were a sense of blanket permission, a sense that nobody is watching and nobody cares, a sense that there will never be consequences…we’d be in a whole different circle of hell right now.
Local community groups? Busting their asses, but they live and die on volunteer support. Legal system? Too slow, too compromised. City, county, state elected officials? Grasping for something they can do. Local police? Useless or worse than useless, of course.
BUT…all the above are formed by, shaped by, and constrained by popular sentiment. An active, defiant citizenry changes how all these institutions behave. Police know, politicians know, and yes, even judges know: they can only stray so far from what people will tolerate.
This active resistance? Hell yeah, it matters. It’s the short-term •and• the long-term.
Some of the little things that don’t make the news really get under my skin.
ICE agents blow through stop signs, speed, drive recklessly.
They take off their license plates (illegally), cover their license plates (illegally), •swap• license plates (illegally). We’ve seen the same vehicle show up with different plates on different days There are photos circulating of the •same• license plate number on multiple ICE vehicles side by side.
Illegal. Completely illegal. But everyone agrees: nobody’s allowed to stop ICE from breaking state and local laws, only issue citations afterwards.
To mismarked vehicles. With masked drivers who refuse to identify themselves. How do you cite •that•?!
ICE eats at restaurants I know and love, nice comfy meal before going back out there and destroying more lives.
It’s weird how much this enrages me. I hope the restaurant staff knows who they’re serving. I hope ICE knows they know. I hope ICE officers eat with nagging doubts about food safety.
I heard a rumor — this one not well-substantiated — that they ate at a restaurant and then come back and raided it the next day.
ICE assaulting a pregnant woman.
Covering their license plates with fake spray-on snow to hide the numbers.
Getting pelted with snowballs by the crowd and responding with pepper spray — which only increased the snowballs.
Just this afternoon’s local news.
Video of the snowballs (CW: person being assaulted, dragged)
(UPDATE: video attached in case FB blocks; source URL is https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1ZaUBtkGCZ/)
A request for everyone: please don’t be this person. We’re going through a miserable time here in MSP, and reply guy snot does not make it better.
A •lot• of replies I got are about what is illegal, or should be illegal, or must be illegal, and…yeah, we know, believe me, we know. If what you’re offering is commiseration — as with most replies — I welcome that wholeheartedly! This sucks, and it’s nice to hear people say, “Yeah, that sucks.”
But please don’t come into my mentions to argue. Wrong time, wrong target.
The thing this reply guy doesn’t get, the thing that’s so crucial to this moment, is that being correct about the law counts for absolute diddly shit in the moment. The law is slow. The law comes later…if ever. With these people on our streets right now, the only thing that matters in the moment is what people believe: what they believe the law is, what they believe is safe, what they believe they can get away with, what they believe they are capable of doing.
The law is slow. The law catches up later. Belief is •now•.
Right now, belief — legally correct or not, morally sound or not — is keeping an authoritarian bubble inflated. Belief.
You can yell that it’s wrong, you can be correct, and…you’ll be yelling into the wind.
•Belief• is what’s creating MSP’s current reality.
@tarheel
Walz has made some similar efforts. However, the power and reach of state & local gov seems to be limited legally, and even more severely so in practice: they already do a bunch of illegal stuff with impunity, so it’s not clear how much it helps to make even more things illegal.
P.S. That Google AI text is pretty hilarious. (Is “Pritzker license plate” a special kind of license plate, it assumes we’re asking, like a “Veteran’s plate” or something?)
Yeah, that's how I searched, just a bunch of terms jumbled. Didn't feel like pretending to be a "prompt engineer."
I had the impression Pritzker gave a fire and thunder speech, which Walz doesn't seem to have done, unfortunately.
Paul Cantrell
John Lusk