Ken Klippenstein: Minnesota “Antifa” Terrorists Charged

 Minnesota “Antifa” Terrorists Charged

Federal prosecutor can't explain why or who Antifa is

Ken Klippenstein June 23 2026

U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Daniel Rosen

NSPM-7 is a scandalously under-covered story, please subscribe so I can cover it more

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Last week’s federal indictment of 15 anti-ICE protestors in Minnesota as alleged “Antifa” members — and thus domestic terrorists — is a masterclass in how the FBI is now practicing “pre-crime,” arresting normal citizens beforethey commit a crime, or without regard to whether they’ve committed a crime at all.

It is one of the first cases where presidential national security memorandum 7 (NSPM-7) has been explicitly referenced by the Justice Department as directing arrests, a new practice that began this month. U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Daniel Rosen said that the directive established Joint Task Force Vanguard to “prioritize politically motivated violence,” which to the Trump administration of course means its opponents. The directive, Rosen, also said, directs federal investigators “to investigate, prosecute, and disrupt those who engage in political violence and intimidation.” 

Rosen was asked at the press conference how the Justice Department defines Antifa, and basically had no answer. “What is Antifa goes beyond, goes beyond, I think, the scope of what this indictment is,” he replied. “But what I can tell you is that we have plenty of people that self-identify in that way, and you might wanna ask them that question.”

And as to whether anyone was actually hurt, here too Rosen stumbled. “Whether or not they actually, at the end of the day, caused bodily harm is not the measure of whether or not they committed a serious federal crime,” said, sounding like a kid who hadn’t done the homework being called on in class.

In other words, the federal government is prosecuting a group it cannot even define.

The Trump administration’s war on its opponents finds its solid form in the war on Antifa. Because President Trump “designated” Antifa as a terrorist group, “counterterrorism” rules apply. Think of the modern day FBI objective as preventing another 9/11: that is, following the doctrine of the past two decades, which is to stop an attack before it happened.

Though they don’t say it explicitly, Task Force Vanguard is in the business of pre-crime. Under NSPM-7, the feds require no crime to actually have been committed. They only need “indicators.” The indicators are broad enough to sweep in millions of Americans: “anti-Americanism,” “anti-capitalism,” “anti-Christianity,” “extremism on migration,” as I’ve previously reported.

Trump’s NSPM-7 Labels Common Beliefs As Terrorism “Indicators”

KEN KLIPPENSTEIN · SEPTEMBER 27, 2025

With the mainstream media distracted by the made-for-TV drama of James Comey’s indictment, Trump has signed a little-noticed national security directive identifying “anti-Christian” and “anti-American” views as indicators of radical left violence. Called National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, it’…

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Antifa as an indicator is absurd. At protests I’ve covered over the past couple of years, when I asked people what they thought of Antifa, the answer I heard again and again — from moms, from grandpas — was “I’m Antifa!” Some of the protestors were being playful, some were being defiant. But what they didn’t mean was that they were part of some organization as Washington imagines it. When I asked them why Antifa, the answer was universal. They are anti-fascist, which in non-national security terms is what they thought the word simply meant.

That confusion has produced mishaps that would be funny if the stakes weren’t what they are — like the time federal law enforcement was convinced it had identified the “leader of Antifa,” who turned out to be some random guy in Portland, as I reported.

U.S. Attorney Rosen announced at his press conference:

“Today, a federal indictment was unsealed charging 15 defendants with conspiracy to impede or injure federal officers and other charges related to efforts of two Minneapolis-based Antifa groups that violently opposed the enforcement of federal law in our state. The defendants are members and associates of Direct Action Minnesota… These defendants have been charged not for what they said, but for what they did. They all joined an agreement, a conspiracy, to interfere with lawful immigration enforcement operations.”

“Conspiracy” sounds to me like an awful lot like civil disobedience or free speech. Note, for instance, that the most vivid piece of evidence Rosen actually presented to reporters was a video of one defendant, Kyle Wagner, using violent rhetoric — speech — which sits awkwardly beside Rosen’s insistence that nobody was being charged “for what they said.”

NSPM-7 was signed in September 2025, three days after Trump’s executive order designating Antifa a domestic terrorist organization. It directs the government to disrupt networks supposedly “animated” by beliefs that include anti-capitalism, anti-Christianity, and “extremism on migration.” Attorney General Pam Bondi’s implementation memo — titled “Ending Political Violence Against ICE” — pointed that apparatus squarely at people accused of impeding immigration enforcement. Joint Task Force Vanguard is now the enforcement arm with a much broader target.

In its zeal to arrest and convict its political opponents, the Trump administration has so far been unsuccessful. In January, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem proudly announced that ICE had survived “an attempted murder of federal law enforcement” in north Minneapolis, suggesting protestors were directly threatening law enforcement officers. What she described as federal officers “ambushed and attacked by three individuals who beat them with snow shovels and the handles of brooms,” forcing one officer to fire “a defensive shot,” ended up being two Venezuelan DoorDash drivers with no violent records.

Then the video surfaced. City surveillance footage showed a scuffle lasting about 12 seconds, with no snow-shovel beating; a shovel sat on the ground the entire time. Authorities had the footage within hours of the shooting. Prosecutors didn’t bother to watch it until weeks after they’d charged the men and put an agent’s sworn account in front of a judge. In February, Rosen’s own office moved to dismiss the charges with prejudice — meaning they can never be refiled — citing evidence “materially inconsistent” with the affidavit. A federal judge agreed. Two ICE agents were placed on administrative leave for apparently lying under oath. 

Minneapolis’s police chief offered the epitaph: the agents “hung themselves.” 

This was no one-off. The local CBS affiliate in Minneapolis combed throughcourt filings and found at least 18 Minnesotans whose assault-on-an-officer cases were dropped, with a judge dismissing charges for 15 of them. The sworn affidavits of a single ICE agent turned up in roughly ten of the dismissed cases. In one case Rosen himself moved to drop charges, the defendant said federal agents had shackled him to a hospital bed for days without access to his phone.

Another case collapsed after a judge found that Bondi had publicly named arrested protesters in a social-media post — violating the court’s sealing order and, the judge wrote, “likely” several Justice Department policies.

And the pattern isn’t confined to Minnesota. In Chicago’s “Operation Midway Blitz,” prosecutors charged the “Broadview Six” — a group that included a Democratic congressional candidate and a Democratic candidate for the state legislature — with conspiring to “impede” an ICE officer outside a detention facility. A federal judge tossed the case over prosecutorial misconduct, including allegations of jury tampering and misleading the court.

Of 22 prosecutions in the Chicago area under the federal impeding-an-officer statute, 16 have been dismissed or never reached indictment, according to a Chicago Sun-Times tally cited by CNN.

In Los Angeles, the government has lost all five such cases that reached trial — five straight acquittals.

None of this is slowing down the White House. “Trump Administration Delivers Another Crushing Blow to Antifa Terrorist Network,” the White House announced with the Minnesota arrests. The release details federal cases against “Antifa” individuals in states including Minnesota, Oregon, Texas, Washington, New Jersey, California, and Indiana.

Trump spews and the machinery of government plods along behind. Yes Noem, Bondi, and Kash Patel can tweet as if there is both a threat and the feds are quickly responding, but Task Forces have to iron out their budget and their letterheads before they can get to the X (née Twitter) on-ramp.

Rosen closed by calling political violence “a national scourge in our times.” Not gas prices. Not rent. Not the cost of healthcare. Or childcare. That’s what you get when the imperatives of “national security” are allowed to set a society’s priorities — especially once “national security” has been redefined to mean almost anything the government wants it to.

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Ken Klippenstein: ICE Expands Watchlist Effort

 ICE Expands Watchlist Effort

Meanwhile, homeland's spokesperson is resigning

Ken Klippenstein Feb 18

Tricia McLaughlin

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Today we learned about the resignation of homeland security spokesperson and resident shock jock Tricia McLaughlin, who cast Renee Good and Alex Pretti as domestic terrorists before their bodies were even cold.

But when I reported on homeland security’s secret watchlists last month, I learned that there was one word that even a firebrand like her wasn’t willing to say.

“There is NO database of ‘domestic terrorists’ run by DHS,” McLaughlin said in a statement.

It is also today of all days, as McLaughlin prepares to exit the public stage, that I learned a DHS contractor is looking for a “Criminal Analyst” to join their company to help ICE with its evidently growing watchlisting effort.

The company, Xcelerate Solutions, is looking for a Top Secret-cleared analyst to join the “watchlisting team” for the purpose of “Supporting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE),” to quote from the job announcement.

Xcelerate is a DHS, Pentagon, and FBI contractor founded in 2009 and intimately involved in the government’s larger “vetting” operation, from assisting the government in clearing its own personnel for access to classified material to then spying on those very people to ensure that they don’t leak that material.

The job announcement is graciously explicit about the work involved:

• “Analysis of watchlist data to identify criminal actors and networks,”

• “Nominate or enhance records of individuals eligible for watchlist,” and

• “Review and deconflict previously submitted watchlist nominations.”

Screenshot of job announcement

In other words, ICE has an entire watchlist apparatus that seeks out “criminals,” primarily illegal aliens and transnational criminals. This criminal analyst job might only refer to those individuals, especially because it uses the label “criminal” instead of terrorist to describe the target group. And that’s been ICE’s role—that is, before Donald Trump.

McLaughlin and others at DHS were forced to issue their denials of the existence of a domestic watchlist after a federal agent in Maine was recorded telling a protester who was filming him: “We have a nice little database and now you’re considered a domestic terrorist.”

ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons told Congress last week: “I can’t speak for that individual, but I can assure you that there is no database that’s tracking United States citizens.”

All of these denials rely on technicalities, my sources say. Officials argue that because their lists, records, investigative files, tip-offs, warnings and the like aren’t specific databases, they aren’t officially “watchlists.”

In the national security world, a “watchlist” is a specific legal term of art to describe the Terrorist Screening Dataset, which itself used to be called the Terrorist Screening Database because it once referred to one single watchlist (now there are many). By claiming they don’t have a “watchlist,” homeland security isn’t saying they aren’t tracking people; they are saying they aren’t using that specific administrative bucket. At least, that was before the job announcement revealed that indeed ICE was referring to a watchlist of its own.

The terminology is indeed confusing, intentionally so. The job description says “Targeting Folders,” “Continuous Evaluation Files,” or “Identity Intelligence Clusters.” Note the job description’s use of the word “Deconfliction.” That’s only necessary when there are multiple agencies doing overlapping things. You can’t have a “deconfliction” process if there isn’t a list to conflict with in the first place. 

Last month I reported on the existence of several such watchlists maintained by the Department, with codenames like Sparta, Reaper and Grapevine. A senior DHS watchlist official who saw the story acknowledged to me privately that they exist but insisted that they aren’t technically watchlists. I don’t doubt he believes that. But these systems process and store identifying information about domestic targets. Some are apps, I’m told. Some are databases of specific data. But they are all watchlists or parts of an above Top Secret watchlisting enterprise.

Now, ICE is building a new watchlisting enterprise (the job announcement itself says the location in Northern Virginia hasn’t yet been decided) and though this specific “criminal” analyst might be assigned to target and track individuals other than Americans exercising their First Amendment rights, it’s not hard to see where this is heading.

Major media outlets have largely accepted the official denials that there is any watchlist, rather than examining the evidence. The problem stems from media norms that require documents to literally contain specific words before reporters will use them. In this case, that means waiting for a document stamped “WATCHLIST.”

But that’s rarely how these things work, especially when it comes to risk-averse bureaucrats who are masters at avoiding controversy by employing euphemistic language that says nothing.

I encountered the same dynamic when reporting on Mayor Mamdani’s short-lived reassignment of NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch. I called the new reporting structure—moving from direct report to the previous mayor to reporting through a deputy—a demotion. When Mamdani denied it was a demotion, media outlets criticized me for not using his language.

When a reporter refuses to call a demotion a “demotion” because the Mayor says it’s a “realignment,” they aren’t being objective—they are being a stenographer. That is what’s happening with the media’s unwillingness to say “watchlist.” The underlying issue in properly reporting this is the media’s deference to official language (and legalese) over common sense.

Lewis Carroll captured this problem perfectly in Alice in Wonderland:

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

I believe in calling things what they are. 

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Minneapolis: Dems Collaboration Means More Pain as Metro Surge Ends.

 Cliff Willmeng, Minneapolis

A quick response to the script being read by Tom Homan, Time Walz Jacob Frey, and all of the politicians on the so-called end of, “Metro Surge”. 

The blood on the street is scarcely dry when Walz and Homan made this grand announcement with the prescription that the communities end the direct protection of our neighbors in the street. It is made the days prior to the Democratic Party voting on DHS funding, most certainly so they can have a talking point to vote to fund ICE and DHS. 

The meetings between the Minnesota Democratic Party (or DFL as its known here) were closed to all community members and essential workers. We have no idea what was agreed to, nor who was present in the meetings. 

Every level of Minnesota government and policing has been cooperating with ICE actions and abductions. The Minneapolis Police Department arrested community members in our defense actions. The Hennepin County Sheriff has been protecting the federal detention center from protesters as has the Minnesota State Police. All of this while ICE has been collecting data on our community members for their, “Domestic terrorist”, database. 

Not a single Democratic politician is saying a word about the $70 billion budget of ICE and the purchasing of warehouses all over the country for mass detention. 

As far as I can tell, some community members are hopeful of the announcement, which is an intention driven by the scale of violence and oppression we have all experienced. No one has forgotten or will ever forget the titanic levels of organizing, resistance and bravery shown by the people here in defending vulnerable communities. 

Personally I see no reason to believe anything is ending here except the last remaining and desperate threads of legitimacy of the politicians and their stooges. “Its the pattern of an abuser”, a local RN said. “They beat you and then apologize before returning to the violence”.

Seymour Hersh. ICE: WHEN AN HONORABLE JUDGE MEETS A CORRUPT GOVERNMENT

WHEN AN HONORABLE JUDGE MEETS A CORRUPT GOVERNMENT

The ICE raids in Minnesota have brought about a conflict not envisioned by the Constitution

SEYMOUR HERSH FEB 11 ∙ PAID

A federal immigration agent tackles a protester to the ground for arrest after a different protester broke windows on two of the agents’ vehicles with a hammer as they tried to leave the intersection of E. 27th St. and 14th Ave. S. in Minneapolis on February 3. / Photo by Alex Kormann/The Minnesota Star Tribune via Getty Images.

Jerry Blackwell was a winner. A Minneapolis kid, he went to a first-rate college on a scholarship, whizzed his way through law school, and went into private practice in his home town. At one point, the singer Prince was among his clients. He served as a pro bono prosecutor after the 2020 murder of George Floyd and delivered the opening statement and closing argument in the successful prosecution of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.

Blackwell was nominated in June 2022 by President Joe Biden to be a US District Court judge for Minneapolis. He was approved by the Senate and assumed office that December. He’s run a tight ship at a time of chaos in Minneapolis as ICE, supported by other federal agencies and President Donald Trump, began an all-out assault on suspected undocumented residents of the city. There have been mass arrests and violence, including two killings of protesters by federal agents. The protests are ongoing.

The issue before Judge Blackwell on February 3 was a narrow one, as the transcript makes clear. “The hearing this afternoon,” he announced, “concerns compliance with court orders; not policy, Just compliance. Nothing else.” There was no need to state the obvious—that the White House had decided to make a show of force in liberal Minnesota, with its large population of immigrants from Somalia, by doing what it has been doing elsewhere in America—bringing in ICE and other armed units to seize people of color. Since 1932, Minnesota has consistently voted Democratic in presidential elections, with the exception of 1972, when Richard Nixon won in a landslide.

Many immigrants without documentation in hand have been grabbed—literally forced at gunpoint out of a delivery car or van—and immediately deported, in Blackwell’s view, without any attempt to meet the legal and constitutional due process requirements.

There were two federal attorneys in Blackwell’s courtroom: Ana H. Voss, the experienced assistant US attorney in Minneapolis who would resign a few days after the hearing; and Julie T. Le, a young lawyer working for ICE in Washington who had been detailed to the Justice Department offices in Minneapolis, which were swamped with questions about illegal detainments. It was Le to whom Judge Blackwell complained about the failure of the Washington offices of the Attorney General and Homeland Security to release a detainee in Minneapolis whose age did not meet the minimum legal requirement.

The judge was pissed off by ICE’s failure to release detainees whose seizure did not meet constitutional requirements in the first place. He said: “I hope everyone here agrees and acknowledges that a court order is not advisory and it is not conditional. It is not something that any agency can treat as advisory as it decides how or whether to comply with the court order.”

After noting that the authority he cited is vested from Article III of the Constitution, Blackwell made a clear reference to the Trump-induced madness taking place on Minneapolis streets: “Detention without lawful authority is not just a technical defect, it is a constitutional injury that unfairly falls on the heads of those who have done nothing wrong to justify it. . . . When a release order is not followed, the result is not just delay. In some instances, it is the continued detention of a person the Constitution does not permit the government to hold and who should have been left alone, that is, not arrested in the first place.”

Blackwell turned to the lawyers’ explanation that there were just too many contested arrests for the federal government’s legal system to deal with. “If the government undertakes an enforcement action of this scale, one that results in the detention of large numbers of people, including individuals who are lawfully present in the United States, then the government assumes a corresponding obligation that each detention complies with the Constitution and court orders governing release. . . . But what you cannot do is to detain first and then sort out lawful authority later.

“In many instances,” the judge said, “I have had to not just issue an order, but another order, another order, another order . . . about seven or eight different touches sent to the government simply asking for the date, time, and location of someone who was ordered released, in many instances, a week or more in the past. . . . The requirements that the court has in place exist because individuals were being detained without lawful authority, they were being transferred contrary to orders, or released in ways that undermine the relief that was granted by the court.”

It took Le, the newcomer, to give the judge an inside view of what can only be seen as the Trump administration’s utter lack of regard for those seized illegally and later ordered released by a federal judge. She explained that she arrived from Washington to Minneapolis with no idea of what she was supposed to do on issues of due process. The judge, with what I hope was a smile, interjected. “Are you telling the court,” he asked, “that you were brought in brand new, a shiny brand new penny into this role, and you received no proper orientation or training on what you were supposed to do?” The answer was yes.

Le offered to share the documents she had been provided by the government regarding the case at hand with the court and was told that any information provided would need to be shared with counsel for the illegally seized person, known during the proceedings as “Oscar,” whose whereabouts were not being provided by the government, despite repeated efforts by the court to get him released. The judge said once again that the alleged illegal immigrant had no criminal record and had been ordered by the court to be released immediately more than a week earlier.

The judge said that for days there were inaccurate reports that the detainee was being scheduled for release and a flight back to Minnesota from El Paso, according to one message. A counsel for ICE later said that the detainee was in Albuquerque and was scheduled to fly to Minnesota two days later. During all of this back and forth chatter, the detainee remained in ICE custody, in direct disregard of the judge’s January 15 order that he be freed immediately. The detainee was returned to Minnesota and released on the afternoon of January 28. The official reason for the delay, Judge Blackwell said, was safety of the detainee amid never explained security concerns.

Where Oscar slept, if he did, and who fed him, if he was fed, is not in the court record.

It was during this period, Le told the judge, that she put in her resignation but remained on the job because no replacement could be found. And now, she told the judge: “I am here with you, Your Honor. What do you want me to do? The system sucks. The job sucks. And I am trying every breath that I have so that I can get you what you need.”

Blackwell’s response was empathetic and to the point. He told Le: “I want you to understand my goal in any of this is not to threaten you or anyone. What we really want is simply compliance, because on the other side of this is someone who should not have been arrested in some instances in the first place who is being held in jail or put in shackles for days, if not a week-plus, after they’ve been ordered released.

“And I know that the government has a concern about the growing number of requirements that the court puts in place upon release of individuals. That happens because of the things we learn. For example, if we say, ‘Release the person immediately,’ then we learn—having transported him back to El Paso or New Mexico, you don’t bring him back. We learn that somebody is put on the street with just the clothes on their back and have to figure out how to get back here when they never should have been arrested here in the first place, let alone flown halfway across the continent of North America.

“And then we say, ‘Alright. So you brought them back. We can’t have them released when it’s minus-fourteen outside. And now we have to address that. Don’t release them in the circumstances that might endanger their health or safety.’

“And so once that’s addressed, then we learn that they’ve been released, but now conditions have been imposed. That someone who should never have been arrested in the first place is now being told, ‘You’re going to be released if you wear an ankle monitor,’ which the court didn’t order because the person was unlawfully detained in the first place.”

The judge asked Le, “Do you understand that?”

She said she did and added: “And I share the same concerns as you, Your Honor. I am not white, as you can see. And my family is at risk as any other people that might get picked up. . . . But again, fixing a system, a broken system . . . I don’t have a magic button to do it.”

Somehow, amid all the suffering and fear that an irrational and ignorant president can create, here in the US and abroad, it is reassuring to hear an informed and honorable federal judge share his anxieties with a young federal worker in the wrong job in the wrong place, and try to reach a meeting point.

Julie Le, according to a report in the New York Times on Sunday, was fired from her temporary job in Minneapolis with the Justice Department. There was no immediate word about her permanent job as an attorney with ICE in Washington.

At the end of a long day for Judge Blackwell and the others in the courtroom, Kira Kelley, one of the public interest lawyers for Oscar, whose full name was not in the transcript, asked for a moment.

She had a lot to say about Oscar’s experience.

“Most of my clients,” she said, “are pulled over for how they look or where they are or for any number of things that don’t amount to probable cause. . . . His affidavit really just shows us what it’s like. . . . That he was without food. He was without clean clothes. . . . People are being treated like less than human. . . . I can’t tell you how many clients [once released] . . . who I had to go find who were left on the side of the road with no coat, no phone, no wallet, no hat . . . and it’s zero outside. We shouldn’t need a court order saying, ‘Don’t put someone’s life in danger.’ But here we are.”

Here we all are. 

Minneapolis Happenings on Superbowl Sunday

Sean Snow 2-9-26

https://www.facebook.com/ldz451/posts/pfbid0mWEtnQxRFzBp7YjBdwCYBSyyMQvuu1wN853fcF25paXYV72g5VTLt3Ge1MiePqyMl?rdid=fw6fimeIfmZ55sp0

The conflict in Minnesota has moved from the streets to the suburbs and school zones, as federal agents are continuing to target "sensitive locations" previously considered off-limits. In response, the community is building a parallel infrastructure of care, ensuring that when the government steps away from its duty to protect, neighbors step in.

Today is Monday, February 9, 2026, here's what happened yesterday in Minneapolis:

1. Parents Detained at School Bus Stops: In a shocking escalation of "sensitive location" enforcement, reports confirmed Sunday that federal agents detained multiple parents at school bus stops in Fridley and Brooklyn Center on Friday. Witnesses described unmarked SUVs pulling up as children were being dropped off, with agents questioning and detaining adults in front of elementary students. This tactic breaches long-standing norms against enforcement at schools and has sent a wave of panic through suburban school districts.

 

2. DOJ Threatens "Felony" Charges for Observers: The Department of Justice issued a stern warning on Sunday, stating that protesters who "track, surveil, or share" the location of federal officers could face felony charges for obstruction. This announcement appears to be a direct response to the success of the 30,000-strong civilian observer network in Minnesota. Civil liberties groups immediately condemned the threat, calling it an attempt to criminalize the First Amendment right to document public law enforcement activity.

 

3. Congressional Oversight Blocked Again: For the second time in three days, Representatives Angie Craig and Betty McCollum were physically barred from entering the Whipple Federal Building on Sunday. Federal officials cited an unspecified "lawsuit" to limit occupancy to only 13 people, effectively shutting out congressional members. McCollum slammed the move as unconstitutional, stating she has never seen an administration so brazenly obstruct health and safety inspections.

 

4. Retaliatory Surveillance of Observers: A new report from The Marshall Project released Sunday documents an escalation in federal harassment against community watchers. Legal observers in Minneapolis reported that masked agents have begun calling them by name and following them back to their private homes. Civil rights groups are calling these "terror tactics" designed to dismantle the community's capacity to witness state violence.

Enough darkness… here's some reasons to hope:

 

5. The "Grocery Brigade" Mobilizes: With thousands of families too terrified to leave their homes due to the bus stop raids, a massive mutual aid effort dubbed the "Grocery Brigade" launched on Sunday. School social workers and neighbors are using a fleet of personal vehicles to deliver weeks' worth of food and medicine to immigrant families in the northwest suburbs. Organizers say they are building a "mobile pantry" to ensure that no neighbor goes hungry because of federal intimidation.

 

6. Former State Rep. Hosts "Resistance Training": In a bold display of political defiance, former Minnesota State Representative Ryan Winkler announced Sunday that he is hosting "resistance training" sessions at his private home. Winkler posted a video alleging that federal agents parked outside his residence in an attempt to intimidate attendees, but stated firmly, "I will not be intimidated. None of us in Minnesota should be intimidated." The move signals that political leaders are now using their own homes as organizing hubs.

 

7. The "Whistle" Defense Spreads: While anyone who has watched videos of ICE enforcement hears the unmistakable sound of whistles, neighborhoods across the Twin Cities are pushing for greater adoption of the tactic. Reports from Sunday indicate that residents and clergy are distributing thousands of whistles to be used as an immediate alert system during raids. The piercing sound is designed to draw witnesses out of their homes instantly, ensuring that agents can no longer operate in silence or isolation.

 

8. Evangelical Leaders Break Rank: In a significant cultural shift, prominent evangelical leaders in Minnesota began speaking out on Sunday against the crackdown. The Star Tribune reported that leaders from institutions like Bethel University are publicly questioning the morality of the raids, calling them "unjust" and contrary to the teachings of Jesus. This fracture in a key voting block suggests that the "moral cost" of the operation is becoming too high for even the administration's traditional allies to ignore.

 

Here are some national news stories you should know about:

1. Clergy Arrested on Capitol Hill: In a massive show of solidarity with Minnesota, over 500 faith leaders from across the nation descended on the Senate office buildings in D.C. to demand an end to ICE funding. The "Pray with Your Feet" day of action resulted in 54 arrests as clergy refused to leave the rotunda, singing hymns and reading testimonies from families separated by the surge. The protest successfully forced a national conversation on the morality of the budget.

2. GOP Revives "SAVE Act" to Purge Voter Rolls: Congressional Republicans have fast-tracked a new version of the "Safeguard American Voter Eligibility" (SAVE) Act, a bill that would require every American to provide physical documentary proof of citizenship, such as a passport or original birth certificate, in order to register to vote. Voting rights advocates warn that this is a "solution in search of a problem" designed to disenfranchise over 21 million eligible citizens who lack ready access to these specific documents. The bill is expected to disproportionately purge young voters, communities of color, and millions of married women whose current legal names do not match their birth certificates, creating administrative chaos just ahead of the 2026 midterms.

 

Mend what is within reach

A great Mexican-American writer, Clarissa Pinkola Estés , said, "Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach." The resistance in Minnesota isn't about grand gestures…it's about the small, daily refusals to accept the unacceptable. Whether it is a whistle blown on a quiet street, a grocery delivery to a frightened neighbor, or taking action on educating others on important new legislation, these actions help mend the fabric of our community. We do not have to solve the whole problem to make a difference…we just have to protect what is in front of us. 

Sources

* Bus Stop Detentions & Grocery Brigade: https://www.k12dive.com/.../an-atmosphere-of-fear.../811427/

* DOJ Felony Threats: https://www.foxnews.com/.../from-protest-felony-lines...

* Congressional Access Denied: https://www.startribune.com/congress-members.../601578300

* Retaliation Against Observers: https://www.themarshallproject.org/.../ice-immigration...

* Ryan Winkler Resistance Training: https://evrimagaci.org/.../minneapolis-grieves-renee-good...

* Whistle Defense: https://www.nea.org/.../mutual-aid-act-resistance-and...

* Evangelical Leaders Speak Out: https://www.startribune.com/evangelicals.../601568168

* Capitol Hill Clergy Arrests: https://www.ucc.org/ucc-clergy-members-among-those.../

* Save act analysis: https://www.brennancenter.org/.../new-save-act-bills...

Minneapolis Makes us Proud to Be American.

America's Youth Rise to the Occasion in Response to ICE Violence.

By Mark Provost

 

I spent a couple hours last night, and a couple more today, reviewing countless photos from the massive protests around the country on Friday. 

 

Few people grasp the size, spread, and significance of these protests led by high school and college students. Legacy media can't adequately cover these events (even if they wanted to) so I'm going to give it a shot. 

 

To see spontaneous and organic protests organized by young people is to behold collective joy. I've reviewed thousands of images and videos. You don't see a single student scrolling their phone. They are living in the present and exuberant. They link arms, hug, and support each other. 

 

Some of the walkouts were organized by the senior class; other times by freshmen. These young people are forming their identities and have made the decision to become active subjects in the American story. They appear determined to turn a new chapter. 

 

A few of the signs adopt familiar messaging from previous protests like NoKings. Other signs are direct communiques to the adults who are supposed to be protecting them.

 

One of the more popular signs read: "We're skipping our lessons today to teach you one." Another sign said, "My immigrant parents work harder than your president." Signs featured curses that aren't permitted at home or school.

 

I noticed the boys who climbed the highest light poles and edifices proudly waved Mexican flags. The physical liberation of their bodies against artificial constraints betrays their spiritual and moral development. 

 

I pause on the images to reflect and zoom in on their expressions, homemade signs, and take in the camaraderie. These kids and young adults are making history and they're more aware of that than anyone else. 

 

I'd prefer to resume my day but I can feel my soul recharging. I stare into the imagery and no longer feel trapped by impending doom. It is impossible to bear witness to a youth uprising and not feel immense hope about our future — coupled with the commitment to help them make it a reality.

 

The anti-ICE protests mark a definitive turning point in our nation's trajectory, one that began with the emergence of Donald Trump as a force of nature roughly a decade ago. 

 

The walkouts also mark the moment the baton of anti-fascist activism has passed from the nation's oldest generation — who thus far accounted for the bulk of visible protests — to the youngest generation.

 

That corporate media and the commentariat refuse to acknowledge this seismic shift doesn't diminish its historical impact. 

 

The public murder of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and the larger occupation of Minnesota, had the opposite of its intended outcome. The regime wanted to make a glaring example of Minneapolis —a diverse medium-sized Blue island in an ocean of Red — that resistance to their agenda is futile.

 

But by trying to stomp out an active fire in Minneapolis, Trump spread glowing embers to every town and city — the hot coals even hopped generational gaps. The broadening generational participation against the regime is arguably more important than the growing geography of resistance. 

 

That isn't to say the geography of rebellion isn't impressive. One can map concentric circles from the epicenter in Minneapolis across the Midwest: school walkouts in the tiniest towns in rural Minnesota, a massive protest in neighboring Milwaukee and throughout Wisconsin, student walkouts in Michigan and in St Louis, Missouri. I saw photos of students in Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio. Ten thousand took the streets of Chicago. 

 

Across the plains and America's heartland, deep in Trump country, thousands of students poured out from their schools in coordinated and peaceful fashion. At an anti-ICE protest in front of a high school in Fremont, Nebraska, one student in an SUV waving an oversized Trump flag struck a classmate then fled the scene, to the horror of screaming students and faculty.

 

We bear witness to MAGA's violence against children, whether it's little Liam Ramos or a white child participating in their first sidewalk picket. The threat of physical danger and death lurks even in the most unlikely places, which means no protest against the regime can be glibly dismissed as purely performative. The symbolism of a Trumper injuring a fellow student then attempting to escape accountability was likely not lost on their classmates or the community. 
MAGA flees from the crime scene as fast as they dash from relevance; the Quickest Reich.

 

Friday's protests were so widespread I had to cross check common city names to identify which state it was in. For example, there was a huge march near the Bay in Lafayette County, California, as well as a protest in Lafayette, Indiana, home of Purdue University. Students and neighbors hit the streets in Lafayette, North Carolina. Two nights prior, the community of Lafayette, Louisiana protested against local police cooperation with ICE. Students from more than 100 schools in Georgia walked out. 

 

I saw a photo of students in Burlington under swirling storm clouds against a lush green mountainous backdrop wearing only flannels and hoodies and knew it couldn't be Burlington, Vermont, where despite three feet of snow and below freezing temps, saw at least 1,000 people march. That's how I learned of Burlington, Washington nestled in the Skagit Valley, where students lined both sides of the freeway. Students throughout Portland, Oregon led walk outs. I watched a clip of people marching through historic downtown Portland, Maine, accompanied by a brass band, that was so long it went for two minutes.

 

Students in California hit the streets from San Diego to Sacramento and everywhere in between. On the other coast, students walked out at Brooklyn Tech, the largest high school in the nation. 

Trump's invasion and occupation of Minneapolis not only spread the resistance across geographies and generations, but by extension across races. Aside from a few communities which remain mostly white, the majority of US children already live in a multi-racial society, go to diverse schools, and they don't want to see their friends and neighbors abducted, tortured, and deported. 

 

Let me quickly point out the unlikely example of my hometown of Manchester, New Hampshire. When I began school in the early 80s, 90% of the city's student body was white. All the non-white students combined comprised only 10% of the student body. Today, half of Manchester students are non-white. 

 

Many Manchester students are from recently immigrated families as our city is a UN designated relocation sanctuary for displaced refugees. We have immigrants from Sudan, Darfur, and the former Yugoslavia. In our small northern New England former mill town — in the nation's third-whitest state — our residents speak more than 100 languages.

 

Students rose up across the West, from Denver to Reno, from Tucson to Deep Red Dallas. Their families are from South and Central America. They are Mexican, Chicano, Mexican and Chicano, living alongside and among hundreds of Native American Nations and their communities. Their ancestors have been here and crossed imaginary borders for millennia before Christopher Columbus ever stuck his syphilitic foot on their soil. 

 

This is America and it will take more than chintzy sheet metal concentration camps and masked Rent-A-Goons to erase us. 

 

A sizable chunk of America's youth realize a sizable chunk of American adults are violent, racist, and delusional. Young people aren't waiting until they can vote to make political demands and take political action, something we adults should take a cue from. 

 

It's impossible to look at these brave children and sincerely believe this nation is on the cusp of descending into a fascist hellhole. If the growing demonstrations signify anything, it's that America's future will look dramatically different than the regime envisioned.

Sky’s Shutter