MINNEAPOLIS, January 29 — A core of Minneapolis activists is playing a high-stakes game of cat and mouse with the federal agents deployed in force to the midwestern city to round up undocumented immigrants.
Using encrypted messaging apps and mapping software, the volunteers—several of them military veterans—seek to shadow the federal officers as they comb the city for immigrants, to share their whereabouts and document arrests.
Activist Chelsea Kane pulled up alongside a black SUV that her city-wide network of eyes and ears suspected belonged to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“It is not ICE. It’s just a person picking up takeout. Normal human,” she said after a man left an eatery and got into the car.
Kane and her fellow spotters publish the locations of officers and raids underway in an effort to document arrests and de-escalate the encounters with their presence.
The freelance software engineer, 37, is among dozens of volunteers who spend hours each day tracking the roughly 3,000 federal officers who have surged into Minnesota under US President Donald Trump’s aggressive anti-immigrant crackdown.
“For me, it’s just what you do. You protect your community,” said the former soldier, who accuses federal authorities of racism and profiling.
Sitting alongside her in her electric SUV was her neighbor, Carrie Thompson, another volunteer.
“It’s messed up, just because you have brown skin, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be here,” said the 45-year-old mother-of-two.
Trump has deployed waves of heavily armed, masked agents into the heart of Minneapolis, following the playbook previously used by officers in Los Angeles and Chicago, sparking fierce local opposition.
Aggressive raids at bus stops and in front of hardware stores have led to the arrests of thousands of undocumented migrants, officials report, as well as some US citizens.
The committed band of Minneapolis residents organized spontaneously, defying the deep-freeze conditions to confront the operation that has ensnared longtime city residents.
Each neighborhood has its own group powered by local people on the encrypted messaging app Signal, which lights up with rumors and tips when vehicles with tinted-windows or ICE officers are spotted.
‘It’s not over’
The Trump administration has characterized the observers as criminals obstructing law enforcement, while the FBI has said it is reviewing the activity on Signal.
“We’re not trying to get in their way,” said Kane.
“All we’re doing is recording so that if something happens it’s documented.”
The Democratic-supporting city of 400,000 has been locked in a stand-off with Washington over the immigration sweeps.
In less than a month, federal agents have shot an undocumented Venezuelan man in the leg, and detained a 5-year-old Ecuadoran boy, Liam Ramos.
They have also shot dead two US citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both of whom administration officials sought to paint as domestic terrorists until witness footage challenged those claims.
“If we don’t have video evidence, that propaganda that they’re trying to spin could literally just become the truth. Between an eyewitness testimony of a random person and the president of the United States, who are you going to believe?” Kane asked.
Kane and Thompson said that Minneapolis had been beset by paranoia following the start of the anti-immigration operation.
On occasion, clips of them confronting federal agents have spread on social media, but many of the tips they chase are false alarms.
Kane said she does not mind the wasted calls she receives during her tours, which last as long as eight hours.
“Honestly I don’t mind when it’s boring because that means that ICE didn’t catch anybody today or harm anybody today,” Chelsea said.
“Families stayed together—that’s a good day.”
Following the killing of Pretti, Trump pulled back an outspoken Border Protection commander as well as a proportion of the officers deployed to the state.
Kane insists the pullback is merely cosmetic.
“They’re not taking a significant amount of agents off the streets,” she said.
“So it’s not over” — AFP
Minneapolis activists track federal immigration officers using encrypted apps
