Local businesses in Minnesota are aiding the resistance against Immigration and Customs Enforcement, supplying anti-ICE activists and illegal aliens alike with food, housing, and legal support as part of a sophisticated network dedicated to obstructing deportation operations across the sanctuary state.
The Minnesota chapter of 50501, one of the left-wing organizations behind the nationwide “No Kings” movement, maintains a list of community partners providing “mutual aid” in the state for agitators targeting ICE and illegal immigrants at risk of removal.
For instance, Latino-operated stores and markets in Minneapolis are delivering groceries for free to illegal immigrants too afraid to leave their homes due to increased enforcement operations.
Valerie’s Carniceria, a Mexican meat market in south Minneapolis, serves about 100 customers a week who are too scared to shop in person for fear of ICE capture. Alborada Market is offering free delivery for customers within a three-mile radius, while Daniel Hernandez, the owner of Colonial Market, is making deliveries himself. “The service — it’s a lifeline for them,” Hernandez told the Sahan Journal, a nonprofit newsroom covering immigration in Minnesota.
50501 Minnesota itself has organized a network of safe houses in the Minneapolis metropolitan area to help illegal immigrants evade enforcement.
In the event of ICE apprehension, 50501 Minnesota recommends detainees consult with Mai Neng Moua Law, a Minneapolis law firm helping clients “navigate” U.S. immigration law. When scheduling an appointment, illegal immigrants are able to get their consultation fee waived if they mention a referral from Minnesota 8, an anti-ICE group teaching followers to “resist deportation and detention.”
50501’s Minnesota arm also advertises several bail funds as well as a supply drive for those subsequently released from federal custody in Minneapolis.
The Midwest Immigration Bond Fund Coalition will pay the immigration bonds of arrested illegal immigrants upon request, and the National Lawyers Guild of Minnesota offers legal assistance, including bail money, in protest-related cases.
TAXPAYER-FUNDED NETWORK OF MINNESOTA DEFENSE FUNDS BAILING OUT ANTI-ICE AGITATORS
Any arrestee let out of the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, a facility serving as the city’s primary ICE detention site, can collect phones, clothes, and food covered via the Whipple Safe Haven fund. A team of on-site activists additionally provides cars for transportation.
A number of minority-owned towing companies in the Twin Cities, such as Leo’s Tow and Galeana’s Towing, are offering free towing services to people picked up by ICE “abductions” whose cars were abandoned or impounded.
As a prevention tactic, illegal immigrants are instructed to report ICE immediately to “community allies.” According to a rapid response resource guide circulated by 50501 Minnesota, callers can dial the Immigrant Defense Network hotline and relay identifying details about spotted ICE officers, including vehicle information, uniform description, and exact address of the sighting.
SALUTE is a common acronym guiding callers to document the size and strength of federal forces, enforcement actions, location, uniform, time, and equipment.
“As you report, let the community know to show up,” the handbook says, by messaging the MN8 Community Chat on Signal. Doing so will activate activists on standby, dispatching so-called safety patrols in droves to overwhelm officers and “deter ICE from detainment.”
Such encrypted Signal chats have become a vital tool commonly used by anti-ICE networks to send out alerts and coordinate the movement of ICE monitoring operatives, known collectively as “ICE Watch.” Organized groups operate various databases of ICE “abductors” to track officers in real time and mobilize counterefforts ad hoc.
LIBERAL ACTIVISTS USE AGGRESSIVE ‘ICE WATCH’ TACTICS TO TARGET FEDERAL OFFICERS IN MINNEAPOLIS
According to a Fox News investigation, self-deputized rapid responders swarmed the scene of Alex Pretti’s death outside Glam Doll Donuts before the shooting even occurred on Saturday to prevent the detention of another individual, as Pretti was apparently attempting.
Signal messages and an ICE database actively broadcasted the concentration of immigration enforcement activity around the doughnut shop on Nicollet Avenue, where Pretti was killed minutes later in a confrontation with Border Patrol. After shots were fired, the network soon summoned “backup,” calling on more activists to pour out into the street.
As of Sunday, the database reportedly stored more than 4,600 records of license plate numbers belonging to vehicles believed to be government property. Depending on verification, the entries are labeled “Highly Suspected ICE,” “Confirmed ICE,” “Suspected ICE,” “Cleared – Not ICE” and “Unknown.”
Over the weekend, members of a Minneapolis “ICE Watch” unit followed independent journalist Hailey West for more than an hour as she and others were driving, based on reporting from fellow ICE monitors. According to West, they were told that they came up in the local ICE Watch group’s database.
At one point, the ICE Watch activists asked for their identification cards to verify who they were despite West‘s party telling them repeatedly that they are not ICE agents. Tailing them in multiple vehicles, the activists blew on whistles, honked their horns, and swarmed West’s car in the snowy street, demanding to see documentation proving they are not associates of ICE.
Through these license plate-tracking systems and blacklists of alleged ICE agents, Minneapolis has, in some ways, become a surveillance state patrolled by vigilante-style protesters.
Investigative reporter Andy Ngo, who researches political extremism, said the situation in Minneapolis is evocative of the infamous Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, a summer-of-2020 occupation that stretched six streets in Seattle. An armed militia-like security detail guarded the encampment, with rifle-wielding activists vetting who all entered CHAZ’s imaginary “borders.”
Ngo, however, noted that unlike CHAZ, which was confined to several city blocks, the militants in Minneapolis are stalking targets citywide, at times chasing them beyond the city limits.
When targets refuse to show them their paperwork, ICE Watch brigades will follow them home or wherever they are residing to enter that address into their database, Ngo explained.
Activist networks conspiring to impede ICE are continually evolving all over America, branching out into subdivisions tasked with covering smaller districts, or “patrol zones,” and scaling up their mass communications. Under this highly organized structure, activists are delegated specific roles in certain neighborhoods to spread ICE Watch coverage and deploy nearby foot soldiers in an instant.
GUERRILLA-LIKE ‘ICE WATCH’ GROUPS BACKED BY TOP LEFT-WING GRANTMAKERS
Conservative content creator Cam Higby has infiltrated one of the Signal chats in Minneapolis, illustrating this dynamic. While on “a shift,” Signal users are supposed to place emojis next to their screen names to denote their positions in the ICE Watch verification process. The car emoji represents “mobile patrols” who spend their shift searching for suspicious vehicles, the fork-and-knife dinner plate emoji symbolizes “license plate checkers,” and the telephone emoji means “dispatch” operators.
Other “occupations” include stationary and foot patrolmen, hyper-local group messengers, medics, and aftercare providers. Chat members change their emojis after each shift assignment, signifying that they are clocking in and out.