Minneapolis is a precursor—and an opportunity

The first time I encountered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) face to face was Wednesday, Jan. 7, less than an hour after Renee Nicole Good was murdered by President Donald Trump’s deportation force, and just a few blocks away. 

I didn’t know it at the time, but this would be a turning point in my experience of federal agents’ siege of Minneapolis. 

I plugged into a neighborhood rapid response group in early December, while also caught up in my own personal and family crises. I felt I could only bear witness and express gratitude for those who had capacity to do something. But Jan. 7 became the moment I could no longer float alongside, and I was tipped into the fast moving current of resistance. 

Returning from errands that day, I was just a few blocks from home when I stopped behind Green Central, a dual language immersion elementary school where a majority of the student population is Spanish-speaking. I saw at least five ICE vehicles and twice as many agents cordoning off the block and staging behind the school. Alongside some neighbors, I stepped out of my car to observe and document. I sent a message on the neighborhood rapid response chat asking for backup, not knowing at the time that Good’s blood-soaked car was still parked on Portland Avenue just a few blocks away, where neighbors were already amassing to protest her execution. Someone approached me in distress, saying, “They shot a woman over there. I think she’s dead. I am a doctor. I tried to help her but they wouldn’t let me near her.” He repeated, “I think she’s dead.” Our numbers in the area quickly grew, even as agents deployed tear gas and pepper spray and pointed guns at the crowd. We stayed until ICE left, shouting invective as they drove away.

As I write this, we remain under occupation by a federal law enforcement agency that, dangerously racist from its 2003 inception, has been transformed into a rogue militia by the sitting president of the United States. As terrifying as this moment is, I feel profoundly honored to be a part of it and committed to playing my part. 

Minneapolis sits on the land of the Dakota and Anishinaabe people. It is the place of Bdote, “where two waters come together,” the sacred confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers, known in Dakota cosmology to be the center of the world and the place from which life springs forth. And the world is being remade before our eyes. 

Amid the horror that has been visited on our city, something else is also happening. Minneapolis is prefiguring the future, and its citizens are building the skills needed to survive the societal and institutional collapse that is coming. I would not wish these conditions on anyone, but I do wish these skills on everyone.

A moral obligation 

The occupation that began last year has seen federal agents representing ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), newly supercharged with billions of dollars in federal funding through the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), descend upon and terrorize communities. Armed with AR-15s and handguns, tear gas, pepper spray, and flash-bangs, they roll through neighborhoods in unmarked vehicles, targeting and abducting people from the street, their homes, and workplaces, under the pretense of “immigration enforcement.” The people of Minneapolis—a sanctuary city that as a matter of policy does not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement—have fought back since day one. Armed with whistles, gas masks, and courageous hearts, community members have poured into the streets, in many cases successfully interrupting abductions and documenting incidents so that the individuals targeted can be identified and supported through legal aid and community resourcing.

Through hyperlocal rapid response networks, some that were created during the 2020 uprising following the murder of George Floyd, neighbors are organizing block by block, school by school, and neighborhood by neighborhood. The nature of the organizing is far-reaching and completely decentralized. We are patrolling the streets to identify and follow ICE agents, alerting neighbors to their presence, and monitoring and documenting abductions. We are organizing foot patrols at local schools and day cares, food and supply drives for families sheltering in place, mutual aid funds to cover rent for families unable to work or impacted by detentions, and legal representation for people who have been detained. We are organizing accessible health care for people who cannot go to the hospital, and rides to school for children whose parents cannot leave the house. 

The speed and decentralized nature of these efforts have not been seen in my lifetime. As of this writing, more than 80,000 neighbors are organized into rapid response networks across the city, over 30,000 people have been trained as legal observers, and over 11,000 people have completed ICE Watch training. But perhaps the most surprising feature of our resistance is the joy, hope, purpose, and aliveness we feel—and the incredible courage we are demonstrating despite the abhorrent violence we are being subjected to. While two of our neighbors have already been executed on the street for documenting and standing up to ICE, it has not deterred us. Thousands more have joined the effort.

The conditions are terrifying, of course. Our own government is targeting, abducting, and killing us. We see the historical antecedents to this moment in the tactics that are deployed, and we know that while this began with immigrants, it is not about immigration. 

The Trump administration consistently cites a goal of between 15 million and 20 million deportations, a number that far exceeds the undocumented population in the country. The Trump administration also plans to use a portion of the billions drained from the health care system and funneled into DHS to build new “detention centers.” We know of the horrific conditions in detention centers, where at least 32 people died in 2025 alone. And since June, we have seen the federal government deploy thousands of law enforcement agents onto residential streets, armed with the weapons of war. 

We have a moral obligation to see the broader strategy and predict the outcome. 

Apocalypse makes fugitives of us all

What is happening in Minneapolis is a civil conflict and a precursor to a much more evil plan, a vile national operation that is eugenic and supremacist at its core. What are now called detention centers are already becoming death camps. What is being described as federal law enforcement is already behaving as a modern gestapo. Jill Garvey, co-director of the organization States at the Core that provides resources to communities facing authoritarian violence, recently pointed out in an interview that authoritarian movements aren’t simply trying to strip power from a few select groups; they are trying to strip power from almost everybody.

“They need to consolidate power into the hands of a very, very few,” Garvey said. “They have to move through their groups of scapegoats. So right now it’s immigrants. Tomorrow it’ll be another group. …This is systemic. And it will destroy our democracy. It will take down most of the freedoms that a lot of us take for granted.” 

The Trump administration is acclimating U.S. citizens to the loss of civil rights for immigrants in order to set the stage for an erasure of democracy and a regressive remaking of society. We must all—regardless of citizenship status, political orientation, and previous organizing experience—let go of long held assumptions and beliefs about our place in the great fabric of change. The implications of the rise of fascism and the collapse of the global world order are far-reaching. For many of us, our worldview is falling apart, and we are stepping into the present with eyes newly opened. 

The conditions are terrifying, and yet when I look into the eyes of my neighbors, I can see something that I have not seen before. We feel alive and connected to one another. We are remembering how to be with one another. On the night of Alex Pretti’s murder by CBP, which happened less than three weeks after Good’s killing, neighbors across Minneapolis stepped outside into the bitter cold with candles lit, and it seemed the entire city stood vigil. On our block, we gathered and walked together singing resistance hymns. At one point, one of our Indigenous neighbors leaned out of a window on the top floor of his home and began drumming and singing in his language. We stopped and listened, then called out to him that we loved him. This is our resistance. This is the new world we are building.

I have spent many years studying apocalypse and fugitive freedom movements. I can see now that apocalypse will make fugitives of us all. The time in which our world comes apart forces us into the darkness of not knowing by destroying the systems and structures that organize our lives. Apocalypse requires that we find ourselves fugitive to engage in acts of creation. Whether we are climate refugees, war refugees, or embattled communities fighting to protect what we have, we will find ourselves on the run. We will have to escape what is known for what is unknown. 

Here in Minneapolis, we have been pressed into one another, required to rely on each other in ways that are ancient but feel new. It is this healthy mutual reliance that makes us more alive. We are remembering the skill of how to be together. We understand that the feeling of belonging—something we all long for—actually arises when we become responsible for others. We belong to one another when we protect each other. Just like the survivors of any natural or manmade disaster, we are coming to know the incredible joy of aliveness and connection that comes with caring for the whole: a joy we can feel even within despair and anguish. We have been forced into connection by the most grueling circumstances, and now, with our most basic needs being met through reciprocity, we can encounter our neighbors more fully than ever before.

It is this gorgeous opportunity that I wish to impart to those who are watching what is happening in Minneapolis with awe and wonder. I want you to know what is coming for you, and I want you to choose courage, which you can only feel from within fear. Because in the sustained chaos of falling apart, together, we have no choice but to belong to one another. We are not bonded by ideas, but by our shared commitment to life. No longer isolated from one another in our homes and jobs, we can meet this terrifying breaking open together, united in sorrow and awe. We can learn how to take care of one another and weave an imperfect wholeness from the fracture. 

Through this terror, we will create a new commons and break ground on a new world. 

Editorial Team:
Tina Vasquez, Lead Editor
Lara Witt, Top Editor
Stephanie Harris, Copy Editor