Redditors mount resistance against ICE

On Saturday morning, One Reddit user, who has posted about living in Minneapolis for years, shared a video on the city’s subreddit, r/Minneapolis, titled “Another ICE murder in front of Glam Doll Donuts.”

The 40-second clip showed a group of federal agents tackling 37-year-old Alex Pretty, throwing him to the ground and beating him. After about 20 seconds, someone starts shooting at Preeti. At least 10 shots rang out, from multiple agents, and someone can be heard shouting, “Did they kill this guy? Are you kidding me, buddy? Not again.” (The agents who shot Pretty have not been charged, nor has ICE agent Jonathan Ross, who shot and killed Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Judd on January 7. They have been transferred to “other locations,” according to CBP official Greg Bovino.)

The video has been upvoted more than 60,000 times, reaching the top of Reddit’s homepage.

Over the past month, as the Department of Homeland Security deployed thousands of armed and masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to Minnesota’s Twin Cities, the r/Minneapolis subreddit has become a lively hub of news and information for both residents and outsiders.

Previously, the user who shared footage of the shooting posted a poster about a missing dog and logging near a local lake. “I just wanted a local subreddit to know what was going on in my city, and now all of a sudden, we’ve turned into this actual information hub on how to basically fight fascism,” says one r/Minneapolis moderator, who has been in a volunteer position for nearly a decade and spoke on the condition of anonymity due to safety concerns.

For many long-time r/Minneapolis users, ICE agents have occupied their backyards. Outside of local subreddits in Minnesota, anger against ICE has also reached a boiling point. The majority of posts in r/all, where the top posts in all subreddits are ranked, on Saturday and Sunday were dedicated to mocking and criticizing ICE for killing Preeti.

In the Reddit cross stitch community, the top post this weekend was the “Fuck Ice” embroidery, and there were multiple variations of the same logo in the stained glass subreddit as well. “FUCK ICE” was painted on an acrylic kit in the nail polish subreddit, where other users showed off tricks to get the look of the woman’s bright pink nails in a photo where her hand was pressed into the face of a prominent right-wing influencer during a melee in downtown Minneapolis.

When the r/Leica subreddit moderator blocked “partisan comments” on photos of ICE officers in Minneapolis, one user wrote, “I hate the censorship of this sub.” (Photographer John Abernathy — who went viral after throwing his camera to another photographer while being tackled by ICE agents — shared photos from the scene.) Even users on r/massivecock, where most posts are photos of erect penises, took issue with ICE in their comments.

“I think it’s kind of like this awareness of the level of injustice that’s going on,” the Minneapolis moderator said, adding that people outside the state are increasingly concerned about being targeted by ICE. “They’re testing things out here. They’ll come to you afterward.”

Americans have become more supportive of abolishing ICE since Donald Trump’s second administration began unprecedented raids on blue cities.

Before the 2024 election, polls showed that only about 1 in 4 people surveyed supported abolishing ICE — and now the same polls show 43 percent support it. Anger reached a peak over ICE’s brutal occupation of Minneapolis, especially after the killing of 37-year-old Officer Ross Goode. After the agents killed Pretty, even people who rarely share positive sentiments about Minneapolis, such as fans of rival football teams in Minnesota, Chicago, Detroit, and Green Bay, increasingly protest ICE at their shared subreddit. “The ruling on the field is this is a sub-game of football,” said one of the top posts this weekend in r/NFCNorthMemeWar. “And yet…fuck ICE and fuck anyone who supports them.”