Ann Wright reports on how Minneapolis neighborliness is organized, block-by-block, to mobilize and defend communities from a deadly immigration crackdown.
A memorial to Renee Good in Minneapolis last week. (Ann Wright)
By Ann Wright
in Minneapolis, Minnesota
CommonDreams
Last week I was in Minneapolis to observe and learn from those who have attempted to protect members of their community from the brutal assaults by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other government agencies and hold those agencies accountable for the violence they are wrecking on the community.
The Trump administration’s decision to surge 2,000 ICE and Border Patrol agents into Minneapolis to uphold White House Deputy Chief of Staff Steven Miller’s directive for the arrest in the U.S. of 3,000 persons each day to teach immigrants, and everyone in the U.S. a lesson, backfired as the actions of the federal agents in Minneapolis outraged the city, state, and nation.
Due to community pressure and noncompliance with the violent attempts by ICE agents to force capitulation by the community and the lawlessness of the masked agents, caught on video by bystanders in busting doors to homes, smashing car windows, and beating up and murdering two Minneapolis residents eventually forced the Trump administration to replace the well-known, mean-spirited U.S. Border Patrol officer Gregory Bovino and bring in “Border Czar” Tom Homan who very quickly reduced the number of ICE agents in Minneapolis by one-third and required the agents to wear body cameras.
Organizing After Horrific Murder of George Floyd
Community organizing began six years ago with the community response to the horrific murder of George Floyd. The protests and vigils for Floyd in Minneapolis and around the world brought attention to the continuing targeting of African Americans for minor incidents that the police escalated into “I Can’t Breathe” and death.
To this day, each day for six years, a group from the community meets at 8:00 am at George Floyd Square located across the street from the memorial to him over coffee to discuss the previous day’s events and the organizing needed for that day.
There are several persons who are at the Square each day who can provide to a newcomer the historical context for the treatment by police of African Americans, Native Americans, and immigrants in the Minneapolis area.
Others arriving may be unhoused who are needing a cup of coffee and a doughnut for breakfast or some “new clothing” from the donations that are located inside a city bus stop shelter located at the square.
By 9:30 am, the group has disbursed: some left quickly after 8:00 am to take kids to school or to go to work, others to continue work on community mutual aid projects.
A memorial for George Floyd in Minneapolis last week. (Ann Wright)
In speaking with residents in several parts of Minneapolis, beautiful stories of organizing on a block-by-block level emerged. Residents got to know those who lived on the same block. Everyone had a whistle to alert the neighborhood that suspicious cars were in the area.
Those residents who were not targeted by ICE, generally Caucasian, came out on the streets to find out what was happening and ready to record ICE actions. They began doing grocery shopping for those fearful of leaving their homes, taking kids to school, picking them up from school, and taking people to medical appointments.
The Minneapolis friend who housed us for this visit usually has at least two things per day that she was doing for immigrants in her neighborhood. Others in teams of two or three stand outside businesses that ICE might target, with the businesses thanking the volunteers by providing coffee and snacks.
Other volunteers in their personal cars follow vehicles that they suspect may be driven by ICE agents. Many of these volunteers have been physically assaulted by ICE agents who stop the volunteers, damage their cars, take their license plate numbers, find out the addresses of the volunteers and then harass them at their homes.
While ICE raids are the main focus of citizens of Minneapolis-St. Paul, they are still active in other issues. They have not forgotten Cuba and Palestine, among many issues, with weekly bridge bannering on Wednesday and Friday afternoons… after a day filled with protest of ICE.
People in Minneapolis hold up a banner in support of Cuba last week. (Ann Wright)
The Veterans For Peace (VFP) chapter in Minneapolis has a Rapid Response team composed of veteran volunteers from around the country that has provided a presence in various parts of the city. In an article by VFP board member Gerry Condon, he relates:
“Younger Post-9/11 veterans have taken the lead. They have been patrolling in at-risk neighborhoods, monitoring for agitators, deescalating situations at protests, and training people how to stop bleeding. At least four veterans have been arrested while peacefully protesting but have been released without charges.”
These types of community volunteering happen every day all over the city, including a team of carpenters who replace doors that ICE has knocked down when entering a residence, to a team of tow truck operators who return a vehicle that occupants have been kidnapped from to the residence of the person — free of charge.
Many of these stories, organizations, and actions are chronicled in the website Stand With Minnesota.
Keeping Whipple Building Watch
Veterans for Peace mobilize against ICE in Minneapolis last week. (Ann Wright)
Every day hundreds come to the B.H. Whipple Federal Building, which houses immigrant court and detention facilities in south Minneapolis. ICE agents mobilize in the huge parking lot with hundreds of rental cars and drive out to terrorize the community and bring those arrested into the Whipple facility before sending them to other detention locations.
Volunteers with megaphones speak their minds to the departing ICE agents with the most “F” words I have ever heard in all my life! Spontaneous “Fuck ICE” chants erupt everywhere — from the entire audience in a recent Minneapolis hockey game to whenever Minneapolis residents meet on a street corner.
ICE put up tall fences on both sides of the roadway used for departure. In one remarkable action, community members threw dildos over the fences at ICE cars because they were such “dicks.”
Due to AI and facial recognition devices used by ICE, most who go to Whipple wear masks and leave their phones in their cars.
Another group of volunteers formed “Haven Watch” to provide 24-hour-a-day coverage for those who have been detained and subsequently allowed to leave Whipple.
Generally, they are released from the detention facility at night, with no coats and sometimes no shoes, in the bitter cold with no phones to call for help. The volunteers provide warm drinks and food, clothing, a phone, and a ride home.
ICE Retaliation Can Be Swift & Brutal
Hundreds of people visit the memorials each day of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. New flowers, photos, poems and statements are placed at the site where each was murdered by ICE agents.
We have all seen the videos of ICE agent Jonathan Ross shooting mother of three Good in her car on Jan. 7, and of Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez murdering Veterans Affairs ICU nurse Pretti on Jan. 24, as five of them pinned Alex on the ground.
President Donald Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other administration officials’ attempts to characterize both Good and Pretti as terrorists backfired badly as videos of the federal agents murdering them emerged.
The allegations against four others shot by federal immigration agents unraveled in court with little publicity.
Before Trump officials declared Good and Pretti at fault for instigating violence before they were killed, the administration’s allegations against four others shot at by federal immigration agents quietly unraveled in court.
There have been 16 shootings by on-duty federal immigration agents patrolling in US cities and towns over the past year, including those that took the lives of the Minnesota protesters.
Missing Indigenous People
Crowd outside the Minneapolis American Indian Center on Feb. 14. (Ann Wright)
While ICE raids are the main focus of citizens of Minneapolis-St. Paul, they are still active in other issues. On Saturday we went to the Minneapolis American Indian Center to participate in the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives Day of Remembrance, which is held each Feb. 14, to bring awareness to the epidemic of Indigenous people who have gone missing or have been murdered.
Startling data collected by the state of Minnesota is evidence that Indigenous people are a high percentage of the state’s missing person cases.
The Minnesota state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension reports that 732 Indigenous persons went missing in the state in 2025, more than 64 percent of whom were women. In 2025, the average number of Indigenous people in Minnesota who were missing on any one day was 63, according to the BCA.
According to 2024 data, American Indians accounted for more than 4 percent of all reported victims of homicide or non-negligent manslaughter in Minnesota, despite American Indians making up only a little more than 1 percent of the population.
Ann Wright served 29 years in the U.S. Army/Army Reserves and retired as a Colonel. She was a U.S. diplomat for 16 years and served in U.S. embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. She resigned from the U.S. government 22 years ago in March 2003 in opposition to the U.S. war on Iraq. She is a member of CODEPINK, Veterans For Peace, Women Cross DMZ and many other peace groups. She is the co-author of Dissent: Voices of Conscience.
This article is from CommonDreams
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Ann, thank you for this wonderful article.
I appreciate how you used just the first two paragraphs to provide the context before relating the wonderful stories of support and solidarity which you experienced in Minnesota.
Root cause: White House Deputy Chief of Staff Steven Miller
[his ‘directive for the arrest in the U.S. of 3,000 persons *each day* to teach immigrants, and everyone in the U.S. a lesson’]
Sounds like a criminal conspiracy to me, and in a place that has been a center of far left thought for many many decades. And there have been some very depraved people at the top of the far left food chain. You could make yourself useful and riot over the genocide in Gaza, but you would rather do that for illegal aliens.
Stunningly good work!
Inspirational, practical, and effective community organizing.
And great reporting by a vet who is herself exemplary.
The entire disaster was the result of Biden’s failure to protect our borders, who is ultimately responsible.
Hank, do you really think Biden’s failure to protect your borders is to blame? At present there are 123 MILLION forcibly displaced people worldwide, due to conflict, violence and persecution. And who is responsible for most of the conflicts worldwide?
By 2050 it is estimated that there could be 1.2 BILLION climate refugees. How do you think we will be able to deal with that catastrophe? By securing all borders? Marika
Well said Marika. Since the end of WW2 the United States has overthrown more than 50 governments most of which ere democratically elected, has attempted to supress populist or nationalist movements in 20 countries and interfered in democratic elections in over 30 countries and meddled in at least 69 countries and the estimated body count is over 25 million, mostly civilians. The consequence of all this activity is called blowback or the boomerang effect. Where are all the terrified migrants supposed to go? The North Pole(Greenland perhaps)? No. They go the Home of the Brave and Land of the Free, except that US citizens are not free, as this article ably demonstrates.