On the Ground in South Minneapolis

Earlier this month, I reported on the killing of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent named Jonathan Ross. Good was on a community patrol, responding to a suspected ICE raid, when she died in her car, in daylight, in the middle of a Minneapolis street, in view of her wife. The federal siege in the Twin Cities had been underway for months — a test case in the Trump Administration’s immigration agenda. 

Good’s death was a brazen escalation, yet it only drew out more protesters, turning more people into committed activists. A South Minneapolis resident I’ll call B. was one of those people. I accompanied her on a rapid-response car patrol that week and have caught up with her periodically since, including after the killing of yet another protester, Alex Pretti. I called B. yesterday to get an update on the situation as she sees it. Here’s an edited version of our conversation. —E. Tammy Kim

E. TAMMY KIM Can you just say what it feels like in Minneapolis? You and I met after the killing of Renee Nicole Good, and now another person, Alex Pretti, has been murdered in the street. We don’t know where other people are being disappeared to, and there are people dying in detention. There’s a daily onslaught. How do you feel, in a bodily way?

B It’s very stressful. It’s very heavy. Sometimes it can be physically hard. I mean, they use so many chemical munitions. There are clouds of the stuff, and they’re doing it in residential neighborhoods. I saw a conversation on Bluesky around this, that folks are having their menstrual periods interrupted because of tear gas. So there’s that, and we see ICE officers everywhere. They’re saturated. But so are we. We are everywhere. 

I saw an article that said we have about 15 observers for every agent here. They’re so incredibly outnumbered. When we had a candlelight vigil for Alex, where we were supposed to go stand on the corner with our neighbors, I did that, and we had two dozen people. But then I also drove down Lake Street, which is in South Minneapolis, and there were people on every single corner on both sides of the street. And wow, it was gorgeous. It was wonderful. Yesterday, I had to go to St. Paul, and when I crossed the river, there were folks standing on the bridge with signs on both sides. This is how it’s going to be now. This is one of our things for the day. This is one of our chores. 

ETK And this is in what kind of weather?

B Oh, it’s four degrees above Fahrenheit. That’s balmy. There’s no bad weather, only bad clothing.

ETK When we met, you described yourself as “just a normal lady,” by which you meant not a professional activist. You were pointing out how this moment is politicizing people. How and when did you get involved as a rapid responder?

B Yeah, I’m not a “paid activist.” I’m just a normal person. I got involved in mid-December. One of my LinkedIn connections had posted about how a community responder showed up while his mosque was worshiping. This guy had just taken it upon himself to start coming, recognizing that it might be a dangerous time for folks to worship — and, of course, since the Trump regime has removed the “let’s not snatch people while they’re worshiping” caveat. I was interested in doing something like that. So I asked how my connection had gotten involved, and he sent me a message about the rapid response network and how to join these different Signal groups.

ETK What is the structure of the network you’re involved in, and how exactly were you brought in, in terms of onboarding and orientation?

B There’s a group that you go into after you’ve done a certain training, and then you get assigned from there. I’m involved in a number of different ones. They’re hyper-local in a lot of places. I’m in my neighborhood commuter chat; I’m in my neighborhood rapid response chat, which is where people send confirmed alerts — like, get out of your house, grab your whistle, come; and I am in the South Side Minneapolis chat. There are also a couple preschools and daycares near me, so I’m in the group that defends daycares, which I can’t believe I’m saying out loud. My mother did daycare when I was growing up, so I feel a connection. And then there’s a group that’s just for general chatter, like “How crazy is this?” or “Have you seen this article?” The rapid response and commuter chats change daily; they’re dated. So we have to update those every single day and then delete the old ones. Some groups are lightly vetted, but some, anybody can join. We assume ICE is in there. If you don’t know, just assume someone’s a cop. 

ETK Are these networks a continuation of Black Lives Matter networks? Are they pre-existing immigrant-rights networks? 

B I’d say “yes and.” There’s been a lot of mutual aid and community involvement since George Floyd was murdered, but I don’t think that there was this kind of organized network, really. People are seeing the need and stepping up, asking how they can get involved, and then getting involved. We’ve got a couple of different orgs that are running trainings pretty much constantly at this point. Once you’ve done this, that, or the other training, you can go into a subject matter area like, if you want to be a legal observer versus a commuter versus out at Whipple [the building that houses the immigration court and the regional Homeland Security office]. Behind these networks, there’s a lot of invisible labor that women do every day. Women, a lot of times, just pick up the slack, because they see something that needs to be done. They know if they don’t do it, somebody else isn’t going to do it, and it needs to be done.

ETK How would you describe the role of existing left and left-ish organizations such as the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee, DSA, and progressive labor unions? 

B Very, very instrumental in both the organizing and the provision of training. They reach out to folks who are already within these different movements but also people outside — friends, neighbors, co-workers. They let them know that, yes, this is a legitimate action, and there are things you can do. “Okay, you don’t want to get in your car and chase after ICE and honk? Then, can you do data entry.” Everything matters. There’s something for everybody to do. 

ETK The night when I went out with you, we followed a big white truck and had a brief standoff with the driver and passenger in a parking lot. What was your objective in doing this? 

B We didn’t know if it was ICE. I hadn’t checked the [rapid response network’s] license plate database, but they were acting suspicious. They were turning to see if they were being followed. They went into this parking lot, which had a dead end. I got the license plate number, and we put it in the database. ICE swaps out license plates like it’s going out of style. Sometimes they have different license plates on the front and the back. The data is for use in the moment [to help avoid raids]; we have checkers and spotters driving around. And there could be potential for logging this information and possibly bringing lawsuits.

ETK Have you had close calls while trailing federal agents?

B I have never had any of the experiences that, unfortunately, have been increasingly frequent — like ICE leading you to your house or being outside of your house or boxing you in.

ETK Have you seen agents arrest or apprehend anybody?

B Yes. There was one incident that was three blocks from my house. It was the middle of the work day — I work from home — and I got the rapid-response notification. I jumped in the car and was able to get over there in a minute, as were a number of other people. There were two or three ICE vehicles and probably a dozen neighbors in cars and on foot, recording and whistling and honking. It was a single-family house on a residential block. Somebody said “they took our neighbor” and that he was in the back of one of the vehicles. I ended up following that vehicle. It went to Whipple. It was really frustrating. It happened so fast, and even though we were there and we observed, they took him anyway. They still took him.

ETK ICE and CBP have now killed two activists in the city. How do you think about risk for yourself?

B My risk acceptance is pretty high. I don’t have kids, I don’t have dependents. It’s just my dog, and she’s got places to go. I feel like I have a supportive enough community that if I’m disappeared, they’re gonna find me. I feel both like I’m morally obligated to accept risk and I can’t sit and watch this happen. I have always known that ICE is going to kill us. I just didn’t know how many of us. But it hasn’t been a shock. There would be no consequences, literally, if masked men came to my house, dragged me out, and took me somewhere. They don’t have to notify anybody. They could fly me to Texas before anybody knows I’m even gone. 

ETK What do you think the role of elected leaders should be right now? You have Mayor Jacob Frey, Governor Tim Walz, and Senator Amy Klobuchar who has just confirmed that she’ll be running for governor. And there’s Representative Ilhan Omar, who was just assaulted at a town hall. What did you expect from them? What have they done? And what do you think they should be doing?

B I expected them to meet the moment. Not a single one of them has. I know Ilhan got squirted with apple cider vinegar, and I’m sure that was scary. I love the video of her cocking her fists back, but she hasn’t introduced any articles of impeachment, she’s not visible, she’s not physically putting herself at risk to stop things. None of my electeds are. Amy apparently thinks tweeting is doing something.

ETK Some outlets have suggested that Trump is pulling back in Minnesota and that things are going to calm down. For example, he removed the Border Patrol head, Gregory Bovino, from the state and replaced him with Tom Homan, the so-called border czar. Have things changed? 

B Not a bit. ICE activity hasn’t slowed. They’re everywhere; they’re in the suburbs, they’re in the city. They have even more of a chip on their shoulder after Alex’s killing, like they have more to prove. They’re threatening people on video with their masks off. That’s how confident they are that they can do whatever they want without consequence. 

ETK Why are Minneapolis and Minnesota being targeted, and what does your community have to teach the rest of us? 

B In terms of the “why us,” it’s both opportunity and pettiness. I think that Trump is mad at Walz, is mad at Jacob Frey, is mad at Minnesota for not voting for him. Then he took advantage of the Feeding Our Future controversy [an alleged social-services fraud scheme that implicated Somali residents] and blew it up. A lot of these people have been prosecuted. The person who was at the head of the thing was a white woman. None of that gets said, and then we do have a lot of Somali folks in Minnesota whom he can target.

And then, there is something about Minnesotans. There’s a collective responsibility for people in the community. We’re a cold place. If you don’t take care of your neighbor, we freeze to death or we don’t have enough food for the winter. In addition to that, we do show up. When we say we’re going to do something, we’re going to do it, and we’re going to keep doing it. You can’t steal our neighbors. That’s what we collectively have our minds set on.