How much can the city take?

I live in Minneapolis. I grew up not far from here, in a suburb of St. Paul; After stints on both coasts, my wife and I settled here to raise our daughters in a state that always welcomed us warmly. As the occupation by more than 3,000 ICE agents continues into its third week — with no clear end in sight — I have received a steady stream of messages from increasingly concerned friends across the country. They all start the same way: Uh…is this really as bad as it looks from the outside?

My answer to this question is easy: No, it’s worse. Not since the pandemic has my daily life been torn apart in such a frightening, surreal way. At that time, at least, there was a semblance of unification of the country. Regardless of the idiots who rally against masks and vaccines, most Americans can at least agree that the world would be a better place if the coronavirus didn’t exist.

There is no such comfort with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is quite literally a hostile, masked, heavily armed police force violently occupying Minneapolis. No one — certainly not ICE agents themselves — really bothers with the excuse that they’re here to make the city safer. This is Donald Trump’s revenge campaign, and they are his foot soldiers.

Unfortunately, their apparent incompetence and buffoonery do not make them any less dangerous. The killing of Renee Judd was bad enough, but Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s blatant lies about the incident — and the FBI’s refusal to share evidence that would allow Minnesota to investigate the death of one of its own citizens — made it clear to both sides that ICE would face no consequences for anything it did, at least not while Trump was in the White House.

In the days that followed, ICE agents acted accordingly. We know that they are often inadequately trained, wear masks to avoid recognition, and have the unquestioned support of an administration that almost openly drives violence on the streets of Minneapolis. As I write this article, Trump is still considering invoking the Insurrection Act and deploying 1,500 paratroopers to the city. How concerned should I be about what ICE will do to those who oppose its tactics? Enough so that I thought about whether I should publish this story anonymously.

So the second question people send me is – Are you well? – The answer is more difficult. I think that’s because the answer is no. You can call me naive, but despite ample evidence of the stupidity and cynicism of the Trump administration and its agents, I was not prepared for them to unleash this level of chaos and violence on my city.

Having ICE is a no-brainer for the people who live here. It is a constant threat that requires constant vigilance. Our public schools were closed because the state government could not ensure the safety of students. Many stores and restaurants, including 80 percent of immigrant-owned businesses, are not open, protecting both employees and patrons from the threat of an ICE raid. Many nonwhite Minnesotans — regardless of whether they are citizens or not — are essentially sheltering in place at home, skipping grocery runs and doctor’s appointments to stay home, where ICE (in theory) needs a court order to harass them.

There’s a right-wing saying that Trump uses frequently: Anyone who resists ICE should be a paid protester. Of course, the reality is the opposite. Many of us have families, most of us have jobs, and we all have bills to pay. None of that has changed, but the job of protecting our community still requires many, many unpaid hours. As a white American citizen, I am one of the “lucky ones”: ICE may still detain me, as it has many other lawful protesters, but I am much less likely to be targeted. I’ve also been lucky in another sense: So far, I haven’t had any really bad situations with my young children. But I expect that luck will run out soon.

For the past two weeks, I have become a volunteer driver, shuttling people of color between their homes and their jobs. My passengers put on the hoods of their winter coats before getting out of the car to hide their faces, and enter homes that still carry cheerful Christmas lights and wreaths. I won’t leave until they’re behind closed doors.

With no alternatives, parents are getting organized via platforms like Signal and WhatsApp. Working alongside people in my community, I alternated between serving as a security guard, waiting outside schools, day care centers, and community centers to send out a rapid response alert if ICE arrived. I have marched and collected donations, while boycotting stores like Target, a Minnesota-based company without the courage to issue a tepid and taciturn defense of Minnesotans.

Nothing I do is enough. But all of that, I reassure myself, is better than him nothing. What is most encouraging about this deeply disturbing moment is to see how Minnesotans of all demographics have been consistently and aggressively pushing back. It was stimulating and hardening in ways I’m not sure anyone outside the city could truly understand. High school students across the Twin Cities metro area organized outings. Parents who would normally be busy with PTA duties patrol their neighborhoods, tracking down ICE agents while honking their horns and blowing whistles to warn the community of their presence. My father-in-law, a devout Catholic in his 70s, put up a cardboard sign reading “Love Thy Neighbor” and joined thousands who rallied against Immigration and Customs Enforcement on a frigid afternoon in Powderhorn Park.

This has been a particularly difficult year for Minneapolis. The assassination of Democratic state Representative Melissa Hortman, and Donald Trump’s characteristically harsh response to it, remains an open wound. Many yards still contain pink signs created as a sign of community support after the deadly shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in August. The killing of George Floyd, never far from the background of the city’s collective memory, has resurfaced, as one needless killing in the streets reminds us of another. How much can one city take?

I think we will all know that. For the past two weeks, I wake up more angry than tired and go to bed more tired than angry. I eat out at restaurants more than I should, but this seems like a good time to support local businesses – even if many of them remain closed. I bought a bunch of whistles and texted some neighbors to see if anyone needed them. No one took me up on this; They all bought packs of whistles too.

The community is united in anger, action, and even remarkably good humor. A variety of local businesses, including Detroit-style pizza shop Wrecktangle and sex shop Smitten Kitten, have become centers of resources and community activity. We share ICE views via Signal and Trawl r/Minneapolis. When conservative influencer Jake Lange — who was pardoned by Trump after serving four years in prison for assaulting Capitol Police officers with a baseball bat — announced an anti-Muslim rally in Cedar-Riverside, group chats across the Twin Cities lit up with the same animated Tom Hardy image. We’ve already gained enough experience to know when ICE and its allies are trying to bait us.

We talk optimistically about the money ICE is spending every day and how difficult it will be for this large-scale attack to continue in the coming weeks and months. Hopefully, Trump’s aversion to anything complicated means he’ll get frustrated with the stalemate between ICE and the people of Minneapolis, or that his petty obsession with shiny new things means he’ll get bored and order his followers to do something else.

We also know that we will win. Time is on our side. ICE may have bloated salaries and the backing of a tyrannical federal government, but we’re the ones who live here, and as the city’s greatest musician Prince once said, the cold keeps the bad guys away. And when the ICE agents finally take off their masks, leave their filthy hotel chain, and go back to where they were before they came to terrorize us, we’ll still be here.

This is the last thing I send to anyone who contacts me: Wherever you are, get organized now. Find out who your like-minded neighbors are. Set up your own Signal conversations. Get some whistles (I can spare some if you need them). This administration has made it clear that Minneapolis is just the beginning, and when they come to your city, you have to be prepared.