MN ICE Watch Jan. 26-30: Daily Updates on the Deadly Federal Occupation of Minnesota

Having trouble keeping up with the fascist Trump administration's "largest ever" wave of immigration stormtroopers that continues to terrorize Minnesota? You're not alone. The rolling updates below will provide nugget-sized intel/links/embeds amid this dizzyingly depressing news cycle, hopefully making you feel a little better-informed and/or connected to your community. As always, feel free to contribute in the comments.

MONDAY 1.26

A whiplash Truth Social post from the president Monday morning. Uh, seems promising? Maybe? 

Governor Tim Walz called me with the request to work together with respect to Minnesota. It was a very good call, and we, actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength. I told Governor Walz that I would have Tom Homan call him, and that what we are looking for are any and all Criminals that they have in their possession. The Governor, very respectfully, understood that, and I will be speaking to him in the near future. He was happy that Tom Homan was going to Minnesota, and so am I! We have had such tremendous SUCCESS in Washington, D.C., Memphis, Tennessee, and New Orleans, Louisiana, and virtually every other place that we have “touched” and, even in Minnesota, Crime is way down, but both Governor Walz and I want to make it better! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP

Trump is losing, writes political columnist Ross Barkan via New York Magazine. We’ll take all the glimmers of hope available…

The chaos of Minneapolis, though, might start to chasten Trump, in the same way he dimly understood there was no enduring political benefit to randomly deploying National Guardsmen. This is, understandably, not all that comforting, since more bloodshed will still come. MAGA can’t actually win this fight—winning would mean building the sort of world where Americans actually yearned for their ICE agents—but it can do inordinate damage as it loses, as it fades from relevance following an inevitable midterm drubbing, straining to matter under the aegis of a reviled lame duck president. This regime is weak, any serious mandate long leaked away. The weak, however, are still dangerous. There is more darkness waiting before dawn.

Incredible scenes from Friday’s massive “ICE Out!” protest/general-strike-ish movement.

The Atlantic dispatched a war correspondent, Robert F. Worth, to document what’s happening in our streets. “But behind the violence in Minneapolis—captured in so many chilling photographs in recent weeks—is a different reality: a meticulous urban choreography of civic protest,” he observes. 

Listeners appear finished with KFAN DJ/Minneota Vikings announcer Paul Allen, who last week joked about “paid protesters” in Minnesota. Da ‘FAN’s subreddit, which for years has groaned over Allen’s increasing religiosity, is ready to boycott the station. After getting bad publicity in the PiPress, Allen said on air Monday that his paid protester line was “a misguided attempt at humor... I'm taking a few days off."

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi: We will not be extorted and blackmailed. Bondi sent a letter to Gov. Tim Walz Saturday that outlined conditions that would "bring an end to chaos in Minnesota,” including handing over state voter information. "Her letter is an outrageous attempt to coerce Minnesota into giving the federal government private data on millions of U.S. Citizens in violation of state and federal law,” Simon responded Sunday. “This comes after repeated and failed attempts by the DOJ to pressure my office into providing the same data."

Minnesota Vikings Hall of Famer/former Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Alan Page got mixed up in the cyclone of social media disinfo. No, he was not freezing his legendary butt off protesting ICE in this viral photo. But, yes, he understands why so many Minnesotans did just that Friday. “If the issue is immigration, you don’t need the gratuitous violence,” Page tells The Athletic. 

And now you have to hear from a far less great Minnesotan: longtime New York Times take-haver Thomas Friedman, who tediously devotes hundreds of words to a very random column that argues ICE is just like Hamas, if you really think about it. While denouncing Trump's actions and acknowledging the righteousness of our observers, Friedman also calls JD Vance "the voice of calm and reason" while reminding Minnesotans of the need to "control the border."

Elsewhere, the great Minnesota-launched writer Alex Pareene is back in Defector with: “I Have A Great Idea For Retraining ICE Agents.” Defector has deactivated its paywall for all of January, so click away.

As the Trump administration’s astounding capacity for lying expands, the Minnesota Department of Corrections established a resource page for “combatting DHS misinformation.” 

The rhetorical calvary has arrived! Minnesota’s corporate community has taken lots of justified heat for its total and complete cowardice in the face of authoritarian wrath, but the C-suite big guns came out a-blazing over the weekend. “We are calling for an immediate deescalation of tensions and for state, local and federal officials to work together to find real solutions,” reads a letter jointly signed by 60+ CEOs of Minnesota firms. Whoa. Trump, Noem, Bovino? Ya finished. 

In the face of so much human suffering, we still gotta think about the pets. For the Pioneer Press, Molly Guthrey reports that local pet rescue organizations are dealing with a “rolling crisis” of animals coming from people who’ve been “disappeared” by ICE. Jeanne Weigum of Pooches United with People (PUP) likens it to what the orgs deal with during hurricanes and floods.

“I feel like we’re performing CPR on what may already be a corpse, called the constitution.” Tell ‘em, random guy being interviewed by TV news Saturday along Eat Street.

The New Yorker has a lengthy profile of a mayor whose city is “at a breaking point.” There’s not a ton of new stuff to learn about Jacob Frey, for Minneapolitans at least, though it is revealed that both of his parents were professional ballet dancers—huh! 

The thugs attacked KARE 11 journalist Jana Shortal:

Progressive think tank North Star Policy Action released a study last week on how much Operation Metro Surge is costing taxpayers. About $18 million per week, its researchers found. What a country.

Stribbers Kim Hyatt and Louis Krauss chatted with munitions experts to determine how dangerous the gas and chemical canisters being indiscriminately lobbed at ICE protesters are. Come for the expert intel, stay for the nifty canister comparison graphic.

Amazing cover image on the issue of New York Magazine. Here's staffer Kerry Howley, writing long on, "Your Friendly Neighborhood Resistance: On the ground in Minneapolis, watching out for ICE at every corner, crosswalk, church, and school."

To our knowledge, Minnesota Reformer’s Max Nesterak published the first local longform account of the historic federal siege of Minnesota on Friday. Buckle up. (Nesterak will be discussing his ambitious work later this week on RacketCast.)

AP reporters captured a beautiful portrait of Alex Pretti by talking to those who loved him. “He was an outdoorsman. He took his dog everywhere he went,” says his mother, Susan Pretti. “You know, he loved this country, but he hated what people were doing to it.”

You can look at all the minute-by-minute video analysis you’d like—federal immigration officers beat, shot, and killed Minneapolis man Alex Pretti along Nicollet Avenue this past Saturday, and the Trump administration has issued outrageous lie after outrageous lie about the killing ever since. Pretti, 37, was not a “domestic terrorist,” as DHS Secretary Kristi Noem maliciously labeled him; he wasn’t plotting to “massacre law enforcement,” as Border Patrol head Greg Bovino claimed. He’s not anything the craven MAGA propagandists say he is. He was an ICU nurse who served veterans. He was a “kindhearted” lover of the outdoors. He was a permitted firearm carrier with no criminal record. He was a brave ICE observer who, in his final seconds, aided a woman who was being physically assaulted by Border Patrol. Pretti, who leaves behind a “very angry” grieving family and city, was the best of us. History won’t forget the real Alex Pretti.