Minneapolis was not the war zone I expected to find. Depending on who you are and where you live, things can seem, for a few fleeting moments, almost normal, like a few blocks or neighborhoods over people aren\u2019t being tear gassed or rounded up by ICE or, in two tragic cases, being gunned down by federal agents. Even now some people walk their dogs, run errands and buy groceries, meet friends for dinner and drinks. Daily life has become sinister in its banality, because Minneapolis remains a city under siege. ICE and CBP agents roam the streets, though their tactics have shifted as of late: No longer acting like an occupying army, the Department of Homeland Security now operates like secret police. They do their best to blend in, to look like the people they terrorize, and in this, they often fail. Everyone knows that they\u2019re there, that they\u2019re watching. But they aren\u2019t everywhere \u2014 not at once. The fear is that they will arrive at any moment, that they will take someone, that they will arrest or attack or kill anyone who gets in their way.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
These fears have been realized. Children and parents have been snatched off the street while walking to school. People have been taken from their jobs and grabbed mid-commute, their empty cars left on the streets, hazard lights still flashing. And so those who are most vulnerable \u2014 immigrants at risk of deportation, US citizens who have learned that DHS will, depending on the color of a person\u2019s skin, detain first and ask questions later \u2014 have retreated into their homes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
![\"Residents](\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/268288_Minneapolis_ICE_JCalifano_0404.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400\"\/)
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nDHS has met unprecedented pushback in Minnesota. Residents of the Twin Cities have done everything in their power to hinder the occupation. Locals follow ICE on the streets, jeer agents outside their hotel rooms, and kick them out of restaurants. A robust mutual aid network has emerged virtually overnight to provide the most basic resources to families that have been forced into hiding. This widespread resistance has fueled a triumphalist narrative, one in which the community has banded together to protect their immigrant neighbors and Minnesota Nice has triumphed over fascism and xenophobia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n This is true and yet it isn\u2019t. ICE has been slowed but not thwarted. Most national reporters, myself included, have left, but the story isn\u2019t over. The siege is ongoing, and it has created a noticeable void. ICE may have lost the battle for public opinion, and its operation in the Twin Cities may be hampered by local pushback, but it has succeeded in one respect: It has instilled terror in Minnesota\u2019s immigrant communities, forcing them into the shadows. The question that remains is how long this can go on, and how the community can rebuild once it ends.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201c\u2018Odd\u2019 doesn\u2019t seem like a good enough word, but it\u2019s the one I have, and it\u2019s a very Minnesotan one, but it\u2019s odd to live here right now,\u201d Kai Shelley, a community activist who is a senior policy aide for Minneapolis City Council member Aisha Chughtai, told me. Chughtai, the council majority leader, represents Whittier, the neighborhood where Alex Pretti was killed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cYou walk down the street of Alex Pretti\u2019s memorial and every business has a sign that says \u2018ICE OUT\u2019 or \u2018Come in and get warm\u2019 or is offering free water bottles and opening up their restrooms. There\u2019s a lot of unity and resistance in that,\u201d Shelley said. \u201cSo many people have stepped up to do rapid response and mutual aid. But the undercurrent of all of that, and the reason it\u2019s happening, is because our immigrant neighbors can\u2019t leave their homes, are afraid to send their kids to school, are afraid to do pickup and drop-off at schools, are afraid to go to work, can\u2019t go to work, are afraid to be in the neighborhood. Immigrant-owned businesses are closing or are going to close. We won\u2019t know the full toll for months.\u201d Each person grabbed off the street and removed from the community causes a ripple effect. Every arrest is a warning: You could be next.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a real contradiction here right now. It\u2019s eerie and it\u2019s terrifying, and it\u2019s inspiring and there\u2019s resistance here. It\u2019s always both.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The occupation is inescapable. It\u2019s all anyone can talk about. It\u2019s visible on every street and every storefront, as is the community\u2019s response. Signs on every door warn ICE not to enter without a warrant. Bundled-up people stand like sentinels, whistles hanging from their necks, watching over their blocks despite subzero temperatures. Groups of friends drive around their neighborhoods in search of ICE agents who troll around in unmarked cars. Each morning and afternoon, volunteers in neon vests station themselves outside the city\u2019s schools to ensure students and parents make it home safely. No one person is doing everything, but nearly everyone who is out on the street is doing something.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI couldn\u2019t be a bystander anymore,\u201d Sid, one of three people patrolling a corner of Lake Street, told me on a sunny, freezing afternoon. Sid, Kay, and a friend who declined to be named were stationed outside Karmel Mall, a once-bustling Somali shopping center just blocks from the site of Pretti\u2019s killing. The vilification of the cities\u2019 Somali residents, Kay said, is \u201cdisgusting, especially because the immigrant community here \u2014 and I\u2019m sure across the nation \u2014 is so vibrant and supportive.\u201d As we spoke, a Somali man exited Karmel Mall and thanked the patrollers for their work, offering them sambusas and chai to keep warm. \u201cWe can fight ICE, but we can\u2019t fight the winter,\u201d he told us. \u201cI moved here because of the people. Really nice people, really good-hearted people.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Some of this infrastructure was in place long before DHS kicked off Operation Metro Surge, its campaign in the Twin Cities. The American Indian Movement, founded in 1968, resumed armed patrols shortly after ICE descended on Minneapolis. Mutual aid organizations that sprung up around the city amid the racial justice protests of 2020 have reported an upsurge in demand, both from volunteers and people in need of support. This fact, too, is inescapable: People are missing. Cut off from the world, immigrants throughout the Twin Cities have been forced to turn over some of the most mundane and intimate parts of daily life to their neighbors: school pickup and drop-off, grocery shopping, and, in neighborhoods where ICE has been especially active, even trash collection, to avoid the possibility that agents will grab someone in the few yards between their front door and the curb.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Jae Yates, an organizer with the Community Aid Network, first noticed a shift in mid-January. The organization, founded in the wake of the George Floyd uprising, has distributed food and diapers to hundreds of families each week since the summer of 2020. Early this year, some regulars stopped showing up. \u201cNow it\u2019s mostly white folks picking up groceries on behalf of their neighbors,\u201d Yates said. \u201cEveryone who\u2019s not white is terrified to go outside if they have any kind of precarity around citizenship.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Even those who feel secure in their citizenship are at risk. White skin and American birth did not protect Renee Good or Alex Pretti. The government has suggested that observers are part of a vast conspiracy, and some protesters have been arrested on federal charges, while others say ICE has followed them to their homes. Because of this heightened surveillance, the majority of people I spoke to asked to be referred to by pseudonyms, often to discuss otherwise unremarkable activities like buying groceries for their neighbors or forming community watch programs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Parallel ways of life have emerged. Nearly everyone I met said they feel more connected to their community than ever, but they also spoke of a glaring absence. Untold numbers of people are now cut off from the world beyond their doorstep. These are twin cities, operating in tandem; one cannot exist without the other.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n For Jamila Keisar, a lifelong resident of the Twin Cities, the ICE occupation is reminiscent of past government abuses. \u201cMinnesota isn\u2019t new to this,\u201d she told me. \u201cI think of George Floyd, I think of Philando Castile, of Daunte Wright, of Jamar Clark. These were all super high-profile murders at the hands of law enforcement in our city. And these are just the ones we know about because they were caught on body cameras.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Keisar, a Somali American therapist, said the DHS presence has resurfaced old traumas among some of her clients, many of whom were already victims of racial profiling. The vibrant community response to this latest crisis, she told me, is bittersweet. \u201cI hear a lot of people say, \u2018Why can\u2019t things go back to how they were before?\u2019\u201d she said, \u201cbut when you ask communities of color how things were then, they\u2019ll say, \u2018Not great!\u2019 But I\u2019m hopeful.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n If this feels like a breaking point, it may be sobering to remember that there have been other ruptures before. George Floyd\u2019s murder sparked worldwide protests, but eventually, for some people, life went on. \u201cI think it\u2019s really easy to go back to the status quo,\u201d Keisar said. \u201cMy hope is that all the folks who seem to be waking up now can sustain themselves in a way that allows them to participate in this movement, because work still needs to be done even after ICE leaves.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Last December, shortly after DHS announced Metro Surge, Keisar started offering free Sunday sessions for immigrants. \u201cThe number one thing I\u2019m seeing is isolation and a lack of social connection folks are now experiencing because they\u2019re sheltering in place,\u201d she told me. Her clients are no longer \u201cable to just stop at the coffee shop and have a small conversation in the way that you\u2019re doing here today,\u201d she said. \u201cI fear what the ramifications will be of this moment and if things continue in this way.\u201d Life has become so unbearable for some of her clients, Keisar told me, that they\u2019ve started thinking about self-deporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n A vital segment of the city\u2019s population is now missing. Immigrant-owned businesses along Central Avenue have closed their doors; a few restaurants have cautiously reopened, shifting to takeout-only to protect workers and patrons alike. On a recent Sunday, Karmel Mall was nearly deserted. \u201cIt\u2019s been empty the past few weeks,\u201d the owner of a women\u2019s clothing shop told me. The mall\u2019s largely Somali American clientele has stopped coming, and its businesses are struggling. At a dinner in Minneapolis\u2019 Standish neighborhood, a woman sidled up to me after learning I was a reporter, telling me her niece teaches English as a second language at a school that has been targeted by \u201cright-wing agitators.\u201d She showed me her latest attendance numbers: Out of 26 kids in her first-period class, just one showed up. A new tag has popped up, a haunting complement to the \u201cFUCK ICE\u201d and \u201cICE OUT\u201d graffiti that has become ubiquitous throughout the city. Stenciled on walls and street signs, it reads: \u201cA NEIGHBOR WAS TAKEN HERE.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI deliver food to families that have not left their house in six weeks,\u201d Pam, who asked that her last name be withheld, told me over breakfast. She and seven friends had just left a movement class \u2014 \u201cYou have to bring down your nervous system if you\u2019re going to be out there,\u201d one of them explained \u2014 and were back to discussing the inescapable. Nearly everyone in Minneapolis, they said, was fighting back. They weren\u2019t the first to tell me about Smitten Kitten, a local sex shop that had started collecting diapers, nonperishable food, and other essentials to distribute to the community. \u201cI bought two gift cards for my friends,\u201d one of them told me, \u201cand a little something for myself too, but I won\u2019t tell you what it was.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n That morning, Tom Homan, the Trump administration\u2019s \u201cborder czar,\u201d had held a press conference announcing an ICE \u201cdrawdown,\u201d with the caveat that he\u2019d be \u201cstaying till the problem\u2019s gone.\u201d Homan had recently replaced Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol official in charge of the Minneapolis operation, after pushback. (The press conference had been scheduled for 7AM, likely to keep protesters at bay; unable to get on the media list before the RSVP cutoff, I watched the stream from my hotel room.) According to an internal ICE memo that leaked to Reuters<\/em>, agents had been instructed to focus on immigrants with criminal records and advised to refrain from engaging with \u201cagitators,\u201d a practice that had clearly only succeeded in \u201cinflaming the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The gaggle of women didn\u2019t buy it. Homan \u201cis just Stephen Miller with a potbelly and Bovino in a suit,\u201d one of them said. \u201cThey\u2019re just trying to control the narrative. They\u2019re trying to say things have changed, and they haven\u2019t changed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n At the press conference, a sycophantic correspondent for the right-wing news outlet Real America\u2019s Voice had thanked Homan on behalf of \u201call the folks out there in America that voted for this, that want mass deportations.\u201d He also asked whether the administration planned on arresting \u201cthe leadership on the Signal chats or the WhatsApp chats that are organizing the attacks against you, obstruction against you.\u201d Homan declined to answer. \u201cI\u2019m not going to show our hand,\u201d he said, \u201cbut they\u2019re going to be held accountable. Justice is coming.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The administration has characterized Minnesotans\u2019 resistance as organized, hierarchical, externally funded, and above all, dangerous. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem accused Renee Good of engaging in \u201cdomestic terrorism.\u201d Stephen Miller, one of Donald Trump\u2019s closest advisers and the architect of much of his immigration policy, called Alex Pretti a \u201cdomestic terrorist\u201d and \u201cwould-be assassin.\u201d The FBI is reportedly investigating the Signal chats locals use to monitor ICE activity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Beatrice Adler-Bolton, a Minneapolis resident and host of the leftist podcast Death Panel<\/em>, told me ICE showed up to her house on two consecutive afternoons while she was alone with her 11-month-old baby. Adler-Bolton, who said she\u2019s been showing up for her neighbors \u201cin really boring ways,\u201d believes she was targeted for speaking out against ICE, not for her mutual aid work. Two days after I met Adler-Bolton in Powderhorn Park, federal agents tear gassed observers there, just yards from where we had stood.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The first time ICE came by, \u201cthere was a guy in the front in hideous fucking Oakleys, he had a big rifle in his lap, and he was holding the barrel of the rifle. He looked right at me, pulled out his phone, and took a picture,\u201d she said. Five cars showed up the next day. This time, she said, the agents got out of their cars, walked around her house, and took pictures through her windows. \u201cThey were making their presence known. It was obviously intimidation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In addition to a custom-built Palantir tool ICE relies on to identify deportation targets, DHS is reportedly using two facial-recognition tools to track protesters and observers. One woman who was photographed by an ICE agent had her Global Entry privileges revoked three days after the encounter, according to court filings. Both DHS and the Department of Justice have posted photos of detained protesters on social media, calling them \u201crioters.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Everyone I met in Minneapolis pushed back against the government\u2019s characterizations of the resistance. Instead, they described informal networks of friends coming together to support their neighbors. \u201cWhat we\u2019re building is a movement outside the traditional nonprofit sector,\u201d Pam, <\/strong>one of the women I met at the diner, said. \u201cIt\u2019s so much more nimble, and it\u2019s hyper-local.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Pam told me she had helped crowdfund rent for five families on her block. Another told me that after the man who plows snow on her street got picked up by ICE, their neighbors pooled money to hire him a lawyer. When a friend from out of town asked her for a list of nonprofits to donate to, she told her to send it to a trusted local who could pass it directly to people in need. \u201cSend cash to people on the ground,\u201d she said. \u201cThe entire thing is about trust.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n On the morning of Alex Pretti\u2019s killing, Mac*, a retired Army medic, was putting together a grocery list. She popped into one of her Signal chats, saw the news, and immediately headed over. \u201cThings got really spicy really fast,\u201d Mac told me. After declaring an unlawful assembly, the police alternated between firing tear gas into the crowd and pushing protesters back. The protesters had been boxed in \u2014 the Minneapolis Police Department surrounded them on one side, the Minnesota State Patrol on the other. \u201cIt\u2019s what I call a fatal funnel,\u201d Mac said. \u201cOne way in, one way out.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Protesters started calling for medics. \u201cThat was when we got into the fray,\u201d Mac said. \u201cWe run in, and I just see this person holding their hand \u2014 they had caught, likely, a rubber bullet, a nonlethal round. Their hand was shattered. We bandaged them up, and then EMS arrived and we got them out.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n A couple dozen protesters were arrested at the site of Pretti\u2019s killing. After being released from the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, some may have run into Julie Prokes, one of the many volunteers who has become a fixture in Whipple\u2019s parking lot. I spoke to Prokes on a frigid morning as he loaded a folding table with hot chocolate, instant noodles, and assorted snacks to distribute to protesters and released detainees alike. \u201cI took the week off work,\u201d he said, adding that he suspects most of the people who come out of Whipple are US citizens. \u201cI don\u2019t necessarily know their citizenship status. I don\u2019t ask. I\u2019m just out here to offer aid however I can.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n As we spoke, Prokes pointed to a building across the way, which he said was an apartment complex for homeless veterans. \u201cThese guys over there are dealing with PTSD, and now you\u2019ve got people out here playing military, throwing chemical irritants, and disrupting their normal flow of life,\u201d Prokes said, adding that the food vendors that typically work with veterans\u2019 services are now afraid to send their drivers near Whipple.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I ran into Prokes again on Friday morning, the day of the second mass anti-ICE protest in as many weeks, at his usual spot in the Whipple parking lot. Five hundred or so protesters had gathered outside the federal building, behind the concrete-and-steel barriers that had been set up in the aftermath of Alex Pretti\u2019s killing; their numbers had dwindled to a couple hundred by the time I arrived. A small group sang: \u201cThis is for our families who are locked inside \/ Together, we will abolish ICE \/ This is for our friends who are locked inside \/ Together, we will abolish ICE.\u201d A man yelled at two Hennepin County sheriff\u2019s deputies: \u201cYou\u2019re protecting ICE! Liam is in a concentration camp because of ICE. You know who I\u2019m talking about. You\u2019re protecting his captors!\u201d Constellations of ice formed on people\u2019s beards and eyelashes. Despite the cold, there was a drum circle. Two protesters in matching pink gas masks told me I had just missed all the action. There had been no tear gas, but plenty of flash-bangs. I asked how many people had been there earlier. \u201cA shit ton,\u201d one of them said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Two ICU nurses in medic gear told me they had flown in from Colorado to offer support. \u201cI\u2019m a former military nurse, and I have a strong sense of patriotism. Seeing the government turn on the people, as a veteran, really upset me,\u201d one of them told me. \u201cAlex was an ICU nurse. I couldn\u2019t just sit idly and watch it all unfold.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The medics carried tourniquets, dressing, and oxygen bags. Mac told me she takes her medic bag everywhere, just in case. She volunteers as a medic \u201cwhen the situation calls for it\u201d and tries to go out commuting four or five times a week. Lately there\u2019s been a greater need for commuters than for medics, and so that\u2019s what Mac does. Commuters tend to stick to their own neighborhoods and adhere to a set of best practices, but there are no leaders, only volunteers. \u201cI come from the military, from a very hierarchical, bureaucratic system,\u201d Mac told me, \u201cand this is completely foreign to me to the degree that I sometimes struggle, because I\u2019m not familiar with operating in a system that doesn\u2019t have a chain of command.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In some ways, commuting is less high-adrenaline than treating people who have been tear gassed and shot with pepper bullets, but following ICE around is not without its risks. Several observers told me ICE has threatened them with arrest. Sometimes commuters will trail ICE through familiar streets, only to end up in front of their own homes; they suspect ICE has run their plates through a database, identified where they live, and led them there as a warning. One woman showed me a video of agents approaching her car and threatening her with bear mace. She was able to capture it thanks to a dashcam she had been given days earlier.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt stressed me out so bad,\u201d Nick Benson, a resident of the nearby town of Burnsville, told me of his first commuting experience. Benson ultimately decided commuting wasn\u2019t for him, but he\u2019s found other ways to get involved. \u201cEveryone is finding their lane and kicking ass in it,\u201d he told me. An airplane photography enthusiast, Benson has started tracking ICE\u2019s charter flights out of Minneapolis. I met him on a sunny Monday afternoon on the top floor of the airport parking garage, where he stations himself every day to document ICE\u2019s efforts to transport immigrants out of the state.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Benson and I watched as a bright-blue plane operated by GlobalX, a charter airline, descended into one of the terminals. In addition to ICE, GlobalX contracts with private companies and college sports teams. \u201cA few weeks ago, another one of these GlobalX flights flew handcuffed people down to Texas, then did a ferry flight to Houston, where they picked up the University of Wisconsin women\u2019s volleyball team and then flew them back to Madison,\u201d Benson told me. \u201cSame day, same airplane.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n His telephoto lens pointed at the terminal, Benson explained what we were looking at: two vans pulled up to the plane. A few people, presumably federal employees, emerged from the vehicles and ascended the airplane stairs. Then came the detainees, each of them shackled at the wrists and ankles. One of them moved slowly. Another needed help getting on the plane. There were 23 of them in all, each of them still in the clothes they wore when they got picked up by ICE. One wore a pink jacket. \u201cOnce in a while you\u2019ll see people that look like construction workers or tradespeople, because they\u2019re wearing bright-green hoodies. A few weeks ago, we saw someone who was still in their Amazon uniform get on one of the flights,\u201d Benson told me. \u201cThey\u2019re just taking our neighbors off the street and shipping them out.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Benson told me his role in all of this is to document what happens \u201cat the narrow end of the funnel.\u201d This is the moment between abductions and deportations, when the people ICE rips from the community are shuttled to detention centers in Texas or elsewhere. In addition to tracking these flights, Benson has started distributing dashcams to locals so they can document their own interactions with ICE. Since early January, Benson has given out more than $65,000 worth of dashcams to his fellow Minnesotans.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Mac, the medic, told me she has a dashcam she\u2019s been meaning to install for weeks. She and the other commuters have had too many close calls to count. On a recent patrol, ICE led Mac and another commuter into an unfamiliar neighborhood. \u201cI was behind the other commuter,\u201d Mac recalled. \u201cThey brake-checked him, got out of the vehicle, guns drawn, and started threatening him. They were like, \u2018We will arrest you if you honk your horn or blow your whistle.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I had no such experiences in my week in Minneapolis, though I tried to go commuting almost every morning. On my first day in the field, the people who let me tag along with them commented on how sleepy it was: We saw exactly one ICE agent on our three-hour patrol through Whittier, and he was napping in his car. \u201cI\u2019ve been rattled,\u201d Thomas, the driver, told me while maneuvering the car through the neighborhood, but he had also started feeling anxious when he wasn\u2019t out there. \u201cYesterday I was sitting in the back seat and I was the one on the call, and I was like, \u2018This is not my role!\u2019\u201d His friends had started calling him Baby Driver.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Today, his friend Larry was on Signal duty. He had one earbud in to monitor the call, a litany of intersections, car descriptions \u2014 \u201cWagoneer\u201d repeated over and over with Minnesotans\u2019 characteristic long vowels \u2014 and plate numbers. \u201cI\u2019m sick of getting tear gassed,\u201d he told me. \u201cThere was a period where I was getting tear gassed literally every day.\u201d This was a reprieve, but the relative stillness made us all uneasy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Things hadn\u2019t exactly slowed down, but they had shifted. The next morning we parked outside of Whipple and watched as ICE\u2019s convoys of unmarked cars left for the day. Where they previously rolled out in groups of five to seven, this morning they left in pairs. We drove around Whittier in circles searching in vain for ICE. That night, someone showed me a video taken around the same time, just one neighborhood over: Observers leap out of their cars, blowing their whistles to alert their neighbors of an arrest in progress. A man flails as ICE agents struggle to force him over a chain-link fence. Agents yell at the observers, liberally deploy pepper spray into the crowd. One man, clearly marked as press, stands off to the side. An agent pulls down his gas mask, sprays him in the face, and leaves.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThey\u2019re evolving,\u201d Mac told me. \u201cAs soon as we catch on to them, they evolve. And they know that we\u2019re onto them, because they keep putting out new restrictions, saying, \u2018You can\u2019t make noise, you can\u2019t film us, we don\u2019t need a warrant.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The opposition\u2019s tactics are evolving, too. Some South Minneapolis residents have begun setting up \u201cfilter blockades,\u201d makeshift roundabouts designed to slow traffic and keep an eye out for ICE. On a recent Saturday, a dozen or so people stood in the middle of Cedar Avenue surrounded by signs, mattresses, and pallets of wood. Farther up the road, volunteers in neon vests handed out flyers to drivers, most of whom honked and fist-pumped in approval.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n People are fighting surveillance with surveillance. Garrett Guntly, a tech executive who has lived in Minneapolis for a decade, told me he\u2019s installed a network of more than 20 cameras across the city. \u201cI\u2019ve been out there in negative 15 weather trying to install these things,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n At first, Guntly felt awkward about asking his neighbors if he could set up cameras on their property. The response has been almost universal assent. Their reasoning, he explained, is simple: \u201cThe government\u2019s already watching me. Why not my neighbors?\u201d Unlike consumer-grade doorbell cameras, Guntly\u2019s network isn\u2019t connected to the cloud. It\u2019s a network-based internet protocol system. \u201cIn layman\u2019s terms, think of it as a CCTV system,\u201d he said. \u201cIf the landowner agrees to have a camera on their building facing out onto the street, only then do they have access to the broader camera matrix. It\u2019s a skin-in-the-game approach. If you\u2019re part of the network, you have the network.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The cameras are installed on private property, but they\u2019re pointed at \u201ccritical areas\u201d with lots of foot traffic, like bus stops and busy intersections. \u201cWith these cameras, we\u2019ve been able to get a lot more surgical and rapid at getting people onto the streets. One human can cover one and a half square miles of street, where they wouldn\u2019t have been able to before,\u201d he told me. \u201cWe\u2019ve been able to thwart close to a dozen attempted abductions.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I\u2019d heard rumors of the ways DHS agents tried to disguise their otherwise conspicuous vehicles: dirtying up rental cars with snow; putting stuffed animals on their dashboards, just visible through windows tinted to near-opacity. On Saturday, we followed an unmarked car up and down Hiawatha Avenue, where it stopped in the middle of traffic, presumably in an attempt to deter us. I fiddled with my gas mask, trying to tighten the straps so it would fit snugly against my head. The tags were still on; I hadn\u2019t needed it thus far. We had seen lights flash inside the car, visible even through the pitch-black windows. This was a law enforcement vehicle of some kind, and it was running a light to get away from us. Hours earlier, we had trailed an SUV with Florida plates. It sped away from us, and we followed, passing a small group of anti-ICE protesters stationed outside an Enterprise Rent-a-Car. When we caught up to the SUV, which had gotten on the highway that leads back to Whipple, I noticed it had a bumper sticker: \u201cBABY ON BOARD.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I met Myles, a Minneapolis resident of 19 years, on a Friday afternoon. His affluent pocket of Southwest Minneapolis felt almost like a parallel universe: A pair of elementary schoolers walked home unaccompanied, unworried about being stopped by ICE, discussing their favorite kinds of sushi. Myles\u2019 foyer, however, quickly brought me back to reality. In addition to the requisite winter boots and pile of coats, the entryway was full of paper grocery bags, each loaded to the brim with toiletries and nonperishable food.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Myles started fielding individual requests from neighbors last December. \u201cAt first it was helping with one-off needs, like if a kid needed a ride to school or someone needed groceries,\u201d he said. When the DHS operation began, \u201cwe were doing small-scale mutual aid and planning for a significant invasion\u201d down the line. He assumed ICE would descend upon Minneapolis like it had on Chicago, Portland, or Los Angeles, other so-called sanctuary cities where the agency has conducted large-scale raids since Trump\u2019s inauguration \u2014 but Metro Surge is DHS\u2019s biggest operation yet, one that residents of the Twin Cities have met with an unprecedented degree of pushback.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cEveryone seems really willing to step up,\u201d Myles said. \u201cIf they\u2019re not already involved, they\u2019re eager to get involved.\u201d What started as a handful of neighbors organizing one-off grocery runs is now a network of about 20 volunteers supporting 150 families. Myles told me he\u2019s had to discuss the additional grocery trips \u2014 and everything else \u2014 with his two young children. \u201cI have to explain why we\u2019re doing it,\u201d he said of the deliveries, \u201cand that people are afraid to leave their homes, people are being assaulted and taken just because of the way that they look. Having to explain all of those dynamics to a five- and an eight-year-old, I wish I didn\u2019t have to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Lyn, a doctor, told me her two teenagers have been \u201cdistraught, angry, and deeply saddened\u201d by what\u2019s going on. Many of her son\u2019s classmates are first- or second-generation immigrants from Africa and Latin America. \u201cSome of his friends aren\u2019t going to school,\u201d she said. \u201cOne friend\u2019s dad was just abducted, which is what I call it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I met Lyn at a Mexican grocery store on the west side of St. Paul, where she was shopping for two families she had been connected with through Neighbors Helping Neighbors. The organization started in mid-December as a local mutual aid project run by a group of friends and has since evolved to a network of more than 500 volunteers who run errands, buy groceries, and crowdfund and deliver rent to families throughout the metropolitan area.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"Renee](\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/268288_Minneapolis_ICE_JCalifano_0416.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400\"\/)
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"Patrollers](\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/268288_Minneapolis_General_Strike_JCalifano_0149.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400\"\/)
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/268288_Minneapolis_ICE_JCalifano_0436.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C8.3333333333333%2C100%2C83.333333333333&w=2400\"\/)
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<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"George](\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/01\/268288_Minneapolis_General_Strike_JCalifano_0021.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400\"\/)
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<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"Jamila](\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/268288_Minneapolis_ICE_JCalifano_0375.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400\"\/)
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"Local](\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/01\/268288_Minneapolis_General_Strike_JCalifano_0141.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400\"\/)
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"Outside](\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/01\/268288_Minneapolis_General_Strike_JCalifano_0007.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400\"\/)
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"Beatrice](\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/268288_Minneapolis_General_Strike_JCalifano_0155.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400\"\/)
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"ICE](\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/268288_Minneapolis_ICE_JCalifano_0413.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400\"\/)
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"An](\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/268288_Minneapolis_General_Strike_JCalifano_0250.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400\"\/)
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"Hot](\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/268288_Minneapolis_General_Strike_JCalifano_0252.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400\"\/)
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/01\/268288_Minneapolis_General_Strike_JCalifano_0247.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C8.3333333333333%2C100%2C83.333333333333&w=2400\"\/)
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/01\/268288_Minneapolis_General_Strike_JCalifano_0251.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C8.3333333333333%2C100%2C83.333333333333&w=2400\"\/)
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/01\/268288_Minneapolis_General_Strike_JCalifano_0239.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400\"\/)
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/268288_Minneapolis_ICE_JCalifano_0346.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400\"\/)
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"Anti-ICE](\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/268288_Minneapolis_ICE_JCalifano_0394.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400\"\/)
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"\u201cI](\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/268288_Minneapolis_ICE_JCalifano_0401.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400\"\/)
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"Minnesotans](\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/268288_Minneapolis_ICE_JCalifano_0348.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400\"\/)
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