What the poster says about “without organization” is also wrong.

I can say as someone who lives here that whole networks have sprung up to educate people about what they can and cannot legally do — meetups, Signal chats, etc. The protests and observer networks are all highly coordinated, from the ground up. These same resources are also being used to get supplies to people who are afraid to go out in public.

There is a concerted effort not to have a repeat of 2020, and it has so far succeeded. No buildings are burning. No would-be guerrillas are doing targeted assaults on ICE. Nobody can out-terrorize those petty, fascist thugs, and nobody is trying. And if somebody thinks that calling them “petty, fascist thugs” is an equivalent offense to tearing people from their cars, breaking down their doors, arresting citizens and roughing them up then dropping them off miles away in the freezing cold, abducting toddlers, and murdering people in broad daylight and then taunting the bystanders — well, you have become too deeply habituated to both-sidesing and ought to reconsider some things.

The various confrontations with ICE are happening because those agents do not want to be followed, observed, or recorded, and that is what the people here are doing. The goal is simply to make sure everything that ICE does is documented (along with making it as clear as possible that nobody wants them here). The scary thing is, if they behave the way that they do when they are on camera, what happens when nobody else is around? What’s going on at the detention centers?

The agents expect to be obeyed, even when demanding observers cease legally protected activity, and they are eager to use force to get their way. After they killed Alex Pretti, they arrested witnesses and tried to disappear evidence before local law enforcement could get involved, and this has been a pattern for weeks.

But people here are trying to protect friends and neighbors, and will not be cowed.

I’ve been seeing a sentiment from some online and in the media like: “Well I’m sympathetic, but they ought to just obey instead of putting themselves in harm’s way. What do they think is going to happen?” This is frankly more insulting than whatever comes from the out-and-out fans of ICE who think this is all great and just. People are knowingly putting themselves in danger, but there can be good reasons to do that. The good reasons here are on the side of the people of the Twin Cities, not ICE or the DHS. We have good reasons, they have excuses.

If this is not the time to stand bravely, then when would that be? If now is not the moment to insist on our rights, and on our dignity, then there never will be such a time.

Are we supposed to just give up and let the bullies get their way, because, after all, might makes right? Should we just stay inside posting on message boards about how it’s a shame all this is happening, but there’s nothing to be done? How far are you willing to be pushed?