Inside the movement challenging—and disrupting—ICE

It is 10am on January 28th in north Minneapolis and Will Stancil, a civil-rights lawyer and relentless social-media poster, is in a car chase. He and two passengers are following a black government SUV full of federal police officers. For the best part of 40 minutes the officers, assumed to be from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), have moved around a quiet residential neighbourhood, skipping red lights, making sudden turns and otherwise driving erratically. “I’m kind of excited,” Mr Stancil says. As it looks like the officers may get out and confront his group (with whom your correspondent is embedded), he says he is unworried. “What are they going to do? Pull me out and take me to Whipple? I don’t care.” (Whipple is a federal building and detention centre near the Minneapolis-St Paul airport.)

As the chase goes on, Mr Stancil’s car risks running out of petrol. He and other activists in the car call their colleagues, trying to get more vehicles to follow. A live audio dispatcher crackles through Signal, a messaging app on Mr Stancil’s phone. Mr Stancil chatters away in response, almost like a police officer himself, reporting his direction and cross streets as he swerves to follow the vehicle ahead. At the same time, reports crackle through about ICE vehicles in other parts of the city, and the “commuters”, as the activists call themselves, hop between various Signal groups.

Over the past few weeks, this sort of activism has grown into an enormous phenomenon. It is intended to both witness and disrupt Operation Metro Surge, the immigration-enforcement operation in Minnesota. Outraged by scenes of immigrants and citizens alike being dragged out of cars, pepper-sprayed and beaten, Minneapolitans have rushed to take part. Thousands of people have joined Signal groups to track federal agents; hundreds are dedicating time each day to chasing heavily armed masked men.

This style of disruption, which first emerged in Los Angeles and was honed in Chicago last year, has been perfected in Minneapolis. It is now spreading through liberal cities preparing for their own sieges. It is a sign of how the strategy of protesting against Donald Trump’s administration is moving away from rallies and electoral organising towards direct action. It is becoming one of the most significant civil-disobedience efforts in America since the civil-rights movement.

Tragedy has turned the situation in Minneapolis into a setback for Mr Trump. ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents killed two activists—Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both 37 years old—on January 7th and January 24th, respectively. The killings seem very difficult to justify. Both Ms Good and Mr Pretti were observing federal agents who then assaulted them. Videos of the killings taken by both activists and people who just happened to be on the street have shocked viewers across America and beyond.

In both cases Trump administration officials initially rushed to criticise the victims, referring to them as “domestic terrorists”. Their allegations that Ms Good was trying to run over an agent and that Mr Pretti was intent upon a “massacre” were contradicted by the available evidence. Ms Good was turning away from Jonathan Ross, the officer who shot her, and moving at slow speed. Mr Pretti was carrying a legally owned gun but had been disarmed when he was shot ten times. Agents fired repeatedly into his body when he was already prone on the ground.

On January 26th, as questions about the killings spread even among many Republicans, Mr Trump removed Greg Bovino, a senior Border Patrol officer, from the city, together with at least some of his agents. Mr Bovino, who likes to throw tear-gas grenades himself, had become the most visible face of the crackdown in Minneapolis. Mr Trump has also spoken to the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, and the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, and reportedly told them that he would de-escalate.

This represents a notable victory for activists, if a limited and possibly temporary one. Their effort is dominated by white people on the left, many of whom are older women. Dana Fisher and Arman Arzedi, scholars at American University who study community activist movements, surveyed some 7,500 people who signed up for the “Free America Walkout”, a national protest that took place on January 20th. The survey was self-selecting, so there is a response bias which probably exaggerates the results; older people, for instance, may be more likely to take the time to answer.

The scholars found that 84% of respondents were female, three-quarters were college-educated, and that the median age was 71 (see chart). Some 99% of these mostly ageing boomers said they supported non-violent civil disobedience, and 65% of them said they would be willing to take part themselves. “I call this the ladder of engagement,” Dr Fisher says. It is suggestive of an underlying demand for more forceful protest.

Julie Gann, a middle-aged bartender who works near where Mr Pretti was killed, is among those becoming more active. Before federal agents arrived in Minneapolis, the only protest she had ever attended was the women’s march in 2017, at the start of Mr Trump’s first term. Recently she attended an online training session with some 5,000 other activists to prepare for much riskier work. “Peaceful protest has just not worked as much as non-violent disruption,” she says.

Republicans have a pejorative nickname for women like Ms Gann: AWFULs, for affluent white female urban liberals. Their actions go beyond just “commuting”. Some activists have started delivering food to undocumented immigrants and transporting their citizen children to school. Others are organising blockades and sit-ins. On January 23rd around 100 clergy, mostly from liberal churches, blocked the entrance to the Minneapolis airport until they were dragged off and arrested by local police. There are also traditional protests—but these are hardly risk-free. Outside the Whipple building, Tim Lundell, a retired teacher, says he has come out eight times since the killing of Ms Good. He has been shot twice with pepper balls by federal agents. It has only made him more committed.

What can protest achieve? Despite the removal of Mr Bovino, it is unclear whether—and for how long—the federal government is retreating. On January 27th Mr Trump said Mr Pretti’s death was “very sad” but blamed him for carrying a gun. He said the changes he had made were not a “pullback” and again called the protesters “paid agitators” and “insurrectionists”. He promised an investigation, but it seems DHS will investigate itself, rather than the FBI or another outside agency. The CBP agents who shot Mr Pretti have still not been identified, but those involved in the killing have reportedly been placed on administrative leave.

For now, Operation Metro Surge continues, seemingly as before. Your correspondent’s car chase came less than 24 hours after Mr Trump’s comments. The day before at least one ICE spotter was knocked off her bike, punched and hauled away to the Whipple building. The etymology of the word “martyr” leads back to an ancient Greek word meaning “witness”. Unfortunately, unless Congress or the courts restrain Mr Trump’s immigration agents, there will probably be more like Ms Good and Mr Pretti. ■