Leftist activists at the helm of the resistance against Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minneapolis have begun setting up street blockades to prevent the passage of federal officers through “patrol zones,” aiming to establish 1,000 encampment-esque fortresses across the city, according to planning documents reviewed by the Washington Examiner.
The so-called security checkpoints, meant to intercept ICE vehicles, are guarded by self-deputized patrollers who accost any car or pedestrian that the activist brigade comes across, regardless of whether they are actually federal agents.
Footage of one such confrontation from Monday shows masked militants, operating an “ICE Out” inspection point, shove Latino videojournalist Jorge Ventura back into his vehicle, telling him, “Get in the f***ing car” and “You can’t film here.”
Ventura, who said the anti-ICE activists tried to steal his phone, was recording them checking cars one by one at a South Minneapolis stoplight, located on the corner of Cedar Avenue and East 32nd Street.
As a physical obstruction, operatives part of a local coalition called “ICE Watch” had positioned in the middle of the street stolen traffic cones, barrels, and barricade beams spray-painted with “ICE Out” branding. The fort-like structure was reinforced with wood scaffolding, old furniture, and storage pallets propped up against the perimeter.
Ventura reported that an anti-ICE patrol was demanding to see identification during the shakedown process, logging the license plates of cars believed to be government property into a database, and cross-referencing the tracking system to vet vehicles suspected of belonging to or being rented by ICE.
“Looks like in our system your plates came up as an ICE plate,” one patroller told Ventura’s Somali Uber driver before the altercation. “That doesn’t seem like it’s the case. We’ll take this off the list.”
Another viral video captured members of an ICE watch unit, some wearing neon-colored crossing guard vests, stopping motorists at an intersection and not letting people pass until they ran their license plates.
“So now we need permission to drive from these people?” asked a resident, narrating the clip. Eventually, the appointed patroller, standing in front of the resident’s car, moved aside and waved them through.
Those orchestrating the occupation along Cedar Avenue are now mobilizing to replicate this operation all over Minneapolis, raising questions about the legality of resistance-run blockades, how government officials will respond to a hostile takeover of the city’s streets, and whether the blockades are the beginning of a larger movement reminiscent of the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots.
Who is behind the blockades?
Minnesota ICE Watch, Defend the 612, and Minneapolis Spring are the main architects of the anti-ICE blockades.
Recruitment literature laying out plans to bombard “the entire Twin Cities” with blockades bears their names at the bottom of the proposal posted online by Minneapolis Spring.
Minneapolis Spring acts as a clearinghouse for the city’s anti-ICE resistance, alongside the Minnesota ICE Watch Instagram account. Defend the 612, named after the city’s area code, is a rapid response cohort of local activists formed to disrupt ICE raids.
According to the operational printout, distributed digitally and handed out at the blockade sites, ICE Watch leaders plan to build as many as 1,000 blockades stretching from St. Paul to Minneapolis, constructing them on residential blocks and busy city streets.
“Blockades can be used both locally within neighborhoods or proactively along major arteries ICE travels,” the instructional material says.
Twin Cities Ungovernables, another arm of the anti-ICE resistance network native to the Minneapolis metropolitan region, widely circulated the call to action, initially issued on Saturday.
“Bring signs, firewood, and materials to help hold the intersection and impede ICE operations as much as possible,” the group instructed its followers.
The network is materially supplied through small-dollar donations and sizable grants earmarked for social justice causes.
Defend the 612, a well-funded group engaged in guerrilla tactics, has raked in generous financial support from premier grantmaking foundations on the political Left, most prominently the Tides Foundation and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.
The nonprofit organizations gave the group $10,000 and $15,000, respectively, in recent years by way of the Cooperation Cannon River, a 501(c)(3) charity based in Minneapolis and operating out of a P.O. box. Defend the 612 appears to do business as the tax-exempt entity.
GUERRILLA-LIKE ‘ICE WATCH’ GROUPS BACKED BY TOP LEFT-WING GRANTMAKERS
Funds donated to Defend the 612 go toward purchasing “Community Protector” vests, which are distributed for free to ICE watch patrols dispatched to areas of reported ICE activity. The purpose of the vests is to “visibly flood the streets and neighborhoods of Minneapolis with a recognizable and aligned field of the protective forces.”
Minneapolis Spring recently told “resisters” in a communiqué, “You will get away with it,” instructing them to simply “lose [the] paperwork.”
What is the city doing about the blockades, and are they legal?
A spokesperson for the city confirmed that the public works office, with assistance from the Minneapolis Police Department, worked to remove “debris” and some of the “homemade blockades” on Monday.
“Given the high-traffic and high-speed block of roadways on Cedar Ave., the City cleared the streets to ensure public safety for the neighborhoods and emergency vehicles,” the city’s media relations representative told the Washington Examiner.
According to an update from Minneapolis Spring, the “community defenders,” however, returned and relit the barricade fires minutes later.
“Today was not a total loss,” Minneapolis Spring said. “Filter blockades are easy to construct, simple to maintain, and can sprout up anywhere that good people decide that community is greater than fear.”
Following the city sweep, Minneapolis Spring posted tips on setting up one’s own blockade.
“A filter blockade doesn’t take much!” the collective said. It can be as simple as a circle of cones and a lawn chair on an existing table or as elaborate as a stockpile of furniture.
The guide to building a blockade recommended easy-to-find materials for “fortifying” the barricades, high-visibility vests to pose as authority figures authorized to direct traffic, and a plan of action if they ever encounter ICE, whether to “directly [defend] your neighborhood” from federal forces or to forward “intel.”
Swarms of activists within the anti-ICE network have learned to build makeshift blockades, Minneapolis Spring said. This weekend, deployed troops will be setting up blockades “everywhere.”
Sherral Schmidt, the president of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis, which represents the city’s police force, said the police union does not support private individuals or nongovernmental groups constructing unauthorized checkpoints on public streets.
“No one has the legal authority to stop, detain, question, or search people or vehicles outside of lawful government powers,” Schmidt told the Washington Examiner.
While peaceful protest is a constitutional right, Schmidt said, “Impersonating law enforcement, conducting stop-and-frisk activities, or physically blocking public roadways is not.”
Minneapolis police officers have a duty to address public safety risks irrespective of “the cause being advanced,” Schmidt added, noting, “Officers enforcing basic traffic and safety laws are not taking sides in political disputes; they are preventing chaos and potential harm.”
Schmidt urged the city to take “an assertive and aggressive stance on stopping these illegal blockades and enforce the laws before someone gets seriously hurt.”
Robert Stilson, a senior analyst at the Capital Research Center studying disruptive protests, agreed that demonstrations that devolve into criminal conduct are not constitutionally protected.
“The legitimate First Amendment rights of protesters do not extend to lawbreaking,” Stilson told the Washington Examiner. “This includes the various forms of civil disobedience that are commonly employed by street activists, such as blocking public roads.”
Any individuals obstructing traffic in violation of applicable laws should face appropriate legal consequences, Stilson said, also urging city authorities to continue clearing the obstructions as more pop up.
In response to the city clearing out the Cedar Avenue occupation, the activist organizations behind the blockades complained on social media about MPD officers dismantling three different roadblocks.
“This is what collusion looks like,” Minneapolis Spring said. “When power and order precedes justice, all of our communities are at risk. Protect your communities—because MPD won’t.”
ICE watch patrollers also put up posters, affixed to the blockades, comparing police to the Ku Klux Klan.
Schmidt said that the city’s police officers have been vilified for their efforts to restore law and order, a hostility notable against the backdrop of left-wing vitriol toward ICE.
“Rank-and-file MPD officers are placed in an impossible position,” Schmidt said. “They are expected to preserve public safety, keep streets passable, and prevent confrontations from escalating. Yet, when officers move in and request the illegal blockades be removed, they are not met with cooperation, but with open hostility—verbal abuse, non-compliance, and individuals’ intent on escalating confrontation rather than restoring public safety.”
An ‘autonomous zone’ in the making?
The blockades mark an escalation of anti-ICE surveillance strategies in the Twin Cities, as agitators continue to hunt down and harass suspected immigration agents, including alleged associates and supporters of ICE, sometimes tailing them by car for miles beyond city limits or stalking the targets on foot.
Civilians misidentified as undercover officers have been chased by anti-ICE mobs in public, even while the victims were going about their daily lives, based on erroneous reporting from fellow ICE monitors.
Apart from mobile ICE watch squadrons, the blockades serve to spread the network’s coverage citywide by installing screening stations that, in effect, “secure community control” over neighborhoods under perceived threat of ICE enforcement.
Some political extremism watchdogs suspect that the blockades, if left unchecked, are the early stages of an “autonomous zone.”
MINNESOTA DEMOCRATS, INCLUDING ELECTED OFFICIALS, LEAD ICE OBSTRUCTION OPERATIONS
“It would not at all surprise me if some of the individuals involved would be pleased to see some kind of local ‘autonomous zone’ develop,” Stilson said. “Whether and in what form this transpires would largely depend on the response from city officials.”
In 2020, the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, which was confined to six streets in Seattle, lasted 23 days. CHAZ, erected on the outskirts of Cal Anderson Park, was fortified by commandeered police barricades. An armed security detail stood guard outside the encampment, with rifle-wielding activists in the militia vetting all who entered.
