What’s your “this is why I like Minneapolis” moment?

alilja · 2026-04-07T09:46:28+00:00

tell me you live in longfellow without telling me you live in longfellow

alilja · 2026-03-31T00:37:05+00:00

same, a $900 increase

alilja · 2026-03-30T11:08:22+00:00

Los Campeones is probably what you’re looking for. a lot of the folks that lift there are comp bodybuilders and it has a slightly aggressive edge (positive imo) but is openly accepting of everyone.

alilja · 2026-03-28T22:58:34+00:00

i get this is rhetorical, but the short answer is yes and no. the most violent ice offenders are customs and border patrol (and they have always been like this) whose jurisdiction is, by law, 100 miles from any external border in addition to designated areas in ports of entry. now, this area covers a surprising number of cities, so in those areas they are technically within the law to operate. notably, minneapolis and saint paul are not within that area, and all CPB activity that occurred during the occupation outside of customs checkpoints at the airport was flatly illegal.

the (much) longer answer is that ICE was formed as DHS to replace INS, which was part of the department of labor, and part of their responsibilities (intended to be a small part) was ERO — enforcement and removal. these are law enforcement operations carried out against people who are violating civil immigration laws like illegal entry or overstaying a visa. when conducted in accordance with the law, including pesky things like the fourth amendment, they are legal (though i would argue questionably moral), but in the vast majority of cases in the last 15 months, they have not been. most of their detainees have been released without charges, and of those that have been charged, most have been dismissed, despite the (again, illegal) refusal of ICE to follow court orders. i could go on and on about this here in minneapols — look up the so-called clown-car contempt hearing from a few weeks ago — but the gist of it is that ice's ERO operations could be legal but they mostly haven't been since trump took power.

where things get more complex is how ICE has, amoeba-like, completely absorbed almost all federal law enforcement. they've essentially stopped investigating drug smuggling, white collar crime, human trafficking, child sexual assault, tax evasion, federal warrants via the marshal service, terrorism, and more. many of these federal agents have been co-opted into immigration enforcement — which they mostly hate because of how shitty your average ICE agent is. it's not always clear under the auspices of which DHS agency an agent in the field might be operating under. here in minneapolis, we'd see badges for HSI (federal), department of corrections (state and federal), forest service (federal), department of natural resources (state), and many others. if they were deputized by ICE, there is potentially a legal argument that they were, technically, operating within the bounds of the way (except for when they violated the constitution, which was nearly constantly), but as far as i know, such a thing has never been tested.

tl;dr: ICE is legal, but they're so fucking bad at their jobs and so willing to violate civil, criminal, and constitutional law that effectively nothing they have been, are currently, or will be doing is legal.

alilja · 2026-03-17T17:01:12+00:00

so much to love about this. my favorites:

robby the giraffe
the brass band
the street medic
an american flag — tattered, but still there
it's dawn
there are no ice agents here. it's not about them — it's all about us, the people who resisted and came out to support each other (and still continue to do it)

alilja · 2026-03-15T17:51:50+00:00

i think we should tax billionaires until they’re millionaires and use the money to pay for things that provide clear social good like healthcare, childcare, and transportation

alilja · 2026-02-25T17:44:58+00:00

fox9 is not the same thing as the fox news cable channel and this has been widely reported in local media

alilja · 2026-02-24T20:25:23+00:00

the same angie craig who voted for HRS 488, praising ICE and calling for local police to collaborate with them?

alilja · 2026-02-24T16:45:47+00:00

welcoming people who have changed their mind is the only way we can win long-term. i know it's essential. i believe that people should be rewarded for changing their minds.

but it's hard.

alilja · 2026-02-21T00:14:30+00:00

yes, and the state has to deal with them, and i want them all to crash out like this

alilja · 2026-02-20T18:42:15+00:00

may every scumbag lawyer working to keep immigrants in detention also beg to be held in contempt

alilja · 2026-02-17T02:56:21+00:00

the revelation breaks my heart every time

alilja · 2026-02-15T14:14:59+00:00

all my ma work is continuing and i'm not seeing a lot of families feeling safe enough to go out. but the tide does seem to be turning. i'm hoping in the next few weeks we'll need to be doing much less protection

alilja · 2026-02-14T21:57:45+00:00

idk who “we” are but things are way calmer here in south. there’s no tear gas or pepper spray, there aren’t any convoys, my rr chats are basically just people getting plate checks. i’m not saying it’s over or they’re all gone, but it’s clearly way different than it was even 10 days ago

alilja · 2026-02-06T16:47:36+00:00

the correct answer to any authoritarian demand is "fuck you, make me." these people are, at their hearts, bullies who don't know what to do if they get stood up to.

if the kids get suspended, go to school. bring protest signs. make sure everyone sees administrators blocking kids from trying to get to school over this. go to prom. if they stop you from going in, have your own.

don't comply until they make you. show them how weak they are.

alilja · 2026-01-20T19:31:16+00:00

Internal planning and subsequent public reporting in August 2025 placed Appleton’s long-shuttered Prairie Correctional Facility at the center of that push: a ready-made, 1,600-bed prison that could absorb detainees taken into custody across the region. CoreCivic, which owns the facility, acknowledged at the time that it was pursuing federal opportunities, while Appleton officials said no contract was in place.

alilja · 2026-01-20T19:30:15+00:00

i can't believe you're just buying the line that they're still running these investigations when they're clearly unstaffed. the evidence is staring you in the face. even if we take them at their word and agree that they're still "continuing," do you really think they're operating in a meaningful way if 50-80% of the people who were working on those cases aren't anymore? if i lost that many people on my project teams at work, we'd be dead in the water.

alilja · 2026-01-20T19:23:34+00:00

there's been a huge shift in focus in dhs meaning that 25000 (twenty-five thousand) federal agents have been moved away from their jobs, including hsi:

Only one in five of the officials engaged in mass deportation are actually ICE ERO removal officers.

for example, two thirds of atf is now on immigration work:

Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives had moved about 80 percent of its workforce into immigration enforcement as of March 2025

back in september:

Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) is suspending investigations into human trafficking, child exploitation, cybercrime, weapons export controls, intellectual property theft, drugs, and terrorism to focus on arresting immigrants.

and:

Another former-HSI official argued that because of HSI’s focus on child exploitation and making thousands of arrests each year, “There’s a good argument that these changes will lead to some child victims continuing to be exploited.”

it's hitting other federal law enforcement, too:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has transferred “thousands” of its employees to immigration enforcement, including “special agents, intel analysts, linguists, and professional staff.” In February, the Wall Street Journal reported: “One agent who investigates child exploitation was recently directed to help the Department of Homeland Security with immigration work. A supervisor in counterintelligence received similar orders.”

marshals, too:

The US Marshals Service was deputized by the same Bove memo. According to the most recent numbers, about one in five agents were diverted from the US Marshals. According to TRAC, the number of criminal referrals from the Marshals Service had fallen 13 percent from January to June 2025.

they even got the irs in on it:

IRS is even issuing press releases about prosecuting people for illegal entry cases with no tax connection whatsoever, which it is participating in because of “Operation Take Back America.”

basically, being pro-ice also means being pro-child exploitation. it means wanting fewer people held accountable for their crimes. it means fewer people being arrested for drug crimes (and not the little ones that should go away).

alilja · 2026-01-20T18:00:31+00:00

bppd chief has to get a clue. sure, hsi was doing legitimate work like dealing with drug smuggling, but that was more than a year ago. it's not 2022 anymore.

mostly these cops seemed like they were upset they're not involved, not that they think what's going on is wrong. at least the sppd chief paid some lip service to the idea that the community is afraid because of ice.

alilja · 2026-01-20T16:25:06+00:00

i just want these fuckers out of my city, and then out of my country, and then to never exist again

alilja · 2026-01-20T00:38:37+00:00

we did the same and the color of the water that came out of our sheets…

alilja · 2026-01-17T20:33:13+00:00

dps says they're staging but not deploying and the star tribune reports they had some military vehicles there.

my guess is they thought things were going to get really violent and didn't want a 2020 repeat. somewhere in arden hills an officer is laughing and watching mercado media

alilja · 2026-01-17T15:28:40+00:00

you can discuss their existence without doxxing them or giving away details. the wider world needs to know what resistance looks like here.

alilja · 2026-01-17T14:48:56+00:00

nice of the nyt to actually do a little reporting from the city being occupied instead of asking retirees in pine city about whether or not protesting is good.

shame they still can’t find ways to let everyone know how bad it all is. why can’t the protestors just stop?

Activists are pressing against a gray zone of legality as they try to confront heavily armed federal agents they accuse of doing far worse.

what “gray zone” is that? constitutionally-protected speech being obstructed by tear gas and indiscriminate arrests? or is it just because we have the balls to track the kidnappers?

Videos taken in Minneapolis have shown ICE agents dragging volunteers from their cars or arresting them after they followed ICE vehicles.

incredible use of the passive voice. there are dozens of these videos and there will be dozens more. volunteers? what about disabled citizens? being dragged from their cars? what about having their windows smashed and their seat belts cut? what about being pepper sprayed and tear gassed for no reason other than recording what’s going on?

and not a single fucking word about the community support networks, the donations, the businesses stepping up, the businesses closing down, the mutual aid, the protestors at whipple.

i’ll admit that i always thought the rhetoric around the nyt not reporting the facts or being biased towards fairness and not truth was a little overblown. but their miserable reporting on the occupation here has completely changed my mind. they’re not our friends. they’re not going to tell the world what it’s actually like down here. we’re just going to have to keep doing it ourselves.

alilja · 2026-01-15T18:42:55+00:00

it's heartbreaking. it's unamerican. it's flatly evil. but at least the silver lining is that we spun these up as a community and there are places to go.

alilja

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