Hello from federally occupied Minnesota
Hello from federally occupied Minnesota. If you're not here that may sound dramatic but there's not much other way to describe it. I'm not sure what is breaking out of MN other than "immigration crackdown" and "protestors" so thought I'd share some perspective.
Thousands of masked and armed federal agents are driving around our state, not for the stated purpose of "immigration enforcement" against illegal migrants (there's not that many of those here), but rather to cause chaos and terror however they can. They are grabbing people at work, at bus stops, from out of their cars, and from out of their homes without a warrant. I say "grabbing" because there is no due process or warrant. If you happened to see something like this happen where you live you'd rightfully call it kidnapping. They're ramming vehicles through intersections and causing accidents, or stopping people in their cars, cutting their seatbelts and pulling them out, leaving abducted person's car running in the middle of the street after they drive away for other people to deal with.
In many, many cases it's been shown later on the facts are not inline with what the government claims: These are not "the worst of the worst" criminals but rather every day people just trying to do their jobs, live their lives, and do their errands. In many cases they're US citizens and, if not, most other cases these people appear to have legal status to be here. The indiscriminate nature of how they stop and detain people (randomly!) guarantees that this is the outcome.
Beyond any actions they are labeling as immigration enforcement, they're also doing whatever they can to terrorize neighborhoods of normal people. Just the other day they tear gassed the park where I walk my dog just about daily, for no real reason. They do this repeatedly (and also pepper spray people for no other reason than maybe saying something from afar). There's an other example of the day they killed Renee Good with ICE showing up to a high school at dismissal time and tear gassing students and teachers on school grounds.
How do we know all this? People are legally observing these masked agents in public by taking video of their actions. These people are being labeled protestors but I don't think that's the right word. They're parents just trying to make sure their kids can go to school safely, they're my neighbors out to record what is being done in their neighborhood by these violent outsiders. Just normal everyday people that ICE is retaliating against with pepper spray and threats. If these observers weren't out recording these agents and getting the names of those detained, so many of those detainees would be shipped off and never heard from again, separated from their kids, parents, community. ICE is often defaulting to moving detainees across state borders with no trial or other process. They don't WANT to know whether the person they've picked up is a citizen or legal resident. They have a quota of people to deport and they're trying to meet that.
These aren't cherry picked examples. There's more and more cases like this every day. They're not one off examples of a bad agent or a situation being out of control. This is how they're being told to operate. They're being told they don't need a warrant(!) to enter homes. They're being told they have immunity for any action they take. It is not illegal to video federal agents in public. It is not illegal to observe what is happening on public streets. Yet these masked ICE agents are afraid of people with cameras and whistles and retaliate against observers by later their homes or verbal threats because they know that what they are doing is wrong and is deeply unpopular and don't want the world to see the way they operate.
All of this amounts to violations of constitutional rights many times over, is deeply illegal, and runs against so many of our country's purported societal norms. We don't need anonymous agents moving city to city, town to town, doing whatever they want to. If they can do it here, they can do it anywhere though I hope you never see it. They cannot be seen as legitimate for so many reasons, least of which being that this gives other people cover to mask up and go around brutalizing people -- and who will stop them for fear of obstructing a federal agent?
As if all this weren't enough, today, for the 2nd time in as many weeks, ICE agents tackled, beat, and then shot and killed a civilian. Regardless of what you think about illegal immigration, that's not what this is about. We cannot have a free society with a "papers please" secret police. We cannot have a free society when you might be gunned down by the federal government and labeled an agitator or domestic terrorist. This must be stopped.
Here's a well known local news outlet covering some of this in more detail: https://minnesotareformer.com/2026/01/23/8-weeks-under-siege-in-minnesota/
And here's something another local wrote that includes many videos at the end, if you want to see this brutality with your own eyes: https://wburdine.substack.com/p/letter-from-an-occupied-minnesota
Thousands of masked and armed federal agents are driving around our state, not for the stated purpose of "immigration enforcement" against illegal migrants (there's not that many of those here), but rather to cause chaos and terror however they can. They are grabbing people at work, at bus stops, from out of their cars, and from out of their homes without a warrant. I say "grabbing" because there is no due process or warrant. If you happened to see something like this happen where you live you'd rightfully call it kidnapping. They're ramming vehicles through intersections and causing accidents, or stopping people in their cars, cutting their seatbelts and pulling them out, leaving abducted person's car running in the middle of the street after they drive away for other people to deal with.
In many, many cases it's been shown later on the facts are not inline with what the government claims: These are not "the worst of the worst" criminals but rather every day people just trying to do their jobs, live their lives, and do their errands. In many cases they're US citizens and, if not, most other cases these people appear to have legal status to be here. The indiscriminate nature of how they stop and detain people (randomly!) guarantees that this is the outcome.
Beyond any actions they are labeling as immigration enforcement, they're also doing whatever they can to terrorize neighborhoods of normal people. Just the other day they tear gassed the park where I walk my dog just about daily, for no real reason. They do this repeatedly (and also pepper spray people for no other reason than maybe saying something from afar). There's an other example of the day they killed Renee Good with ICE showing up to a high school at dismissal time and tear gassing students and teachers on school grounds.
How do we know all this? People are legally observing these masked agents in public by taking video of their actions. These people are being labeled protestors but I don't think that's the right word. They're parents just trying to make sure their kids can go to school safely, they're my neighbors out to record what is being done in their neighborhood by these violent outsiders. Just normal everyday people that ICE is retaliating against with pepper spray and threats. If these observers weren't out recording these agents and getting the names of those detained, so many of those detainees would be shipped off and never heard from again, separated from their kids, parents, community. ICE is often defaulting to moving detainees across state borders with no trial or other process. They don't WANT to know whether the person they've picked up is a citizen or legal resident. They have a quota of people to deport and they're trying to meet that.
These aren't cherry picked examples. There's more and more cases like this every day. They're not one off examples of a bad agent or a situation being out of control. This is how they're being told to operate. They're being told they don't need a warrant(!) to enter homes. They're being told they have immunity for any action they take. It is not illegal to video federal agents in public. It is not illegal to observe what is happening on public streets. Yet these masked ICE agents are afraid of people with cameras and whistles and retaliate against observers by later their homes or verbal threats because they know that what they are doing is wrong and is deeply unpopular and don't want the world to see the way they operate.
All of this amounts to violations of constitutional rights many times over, is deeply illegal, and runs against so many of our country's purported societal norms. We don't need anonymous agents moving city to city, town to town, doing whatever they want to. If they can do it here, they can do it anywhere though I hope you never see it. They cannot be seen as legitimate for so many reasons, least of which being that this gives other people cover to mask up and go around brutalizing people -- and who will stop them for fear of obstructing a federal agent?
As if all this weren't enough, today, for the 2nd time in as many weeks, ICE agents tackled, beat, and then shot and killed a civilian. Regardless of what you think about illegal immigration, that's not what this is about. We cannot have a free society with a "papers please" secret police. We cannot have a free society when you might be gunned down by the federal government and labeled an agitator or domestic terrorist. This must be stopped.
Here's a well known local news outlet covering some of this in more detail: https://minnesotareformer.com/2026/01/23/8-weeks-under-siege-in-minnesota/
And here's something another local wrote that includes many videos at the end, if you want to see this brutality with your own eyes: https://wburdine.substack.com/p/letter-from-an-occupied-minnesota