Liberal activists are deploying rapid response networks across Minneapolis to impede Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, and tensions between protesters and ICE officers are rising a week after the ICE-involved shooting of activist Renee Good in Minnesota.
Following the flow of cash between mutual aid allies, some of these guerrilla-like groups, operating in communities across the country, appear to receive generous funding from premier grantmaking foundations on the political Left with similar social justice-oriented aims.
For instance, in Minneapolis, Defend the 612 is a well-funded organization that is part of a local coalition called “ICE Watch,” a decentralized cohort of anti-ICE activists dedicated to disrupting raids. ICE Watch is not exclusive to Minneapolis, as other loosely-affiliated networks bearing “ICE Watch” in their names have formed nationwide.
Defend the 612, however, appears to collect donations under a different name. A fundraising campaign for Defend the 612 was organized by Cooperation Cannon River, a 501(c)(3) charity based in Minneapolis and operating out of a P.O. box.
Various nonprofit organizations known for championing left-wing causes have contributed substantial sums to Cooperation Cannon River over the years.
The Tides Foundation, a pass-through funding vehicle for other left-wing organizations, chiefly liberal megadonor George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, previously gave a $10,000 environmental activism grant to Cooperation Cannon River, according to 2021 tax filings.
Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, another left-leaning grantmaking group, donated over $15,000 to Cooperation Cannon River in 2023 for “general” expenses.
The Proteus Fund, a progressive nonprofit organization involved in immigration activism, gave the charity $10,000, vaguely earmarked for “Rights & Justice,” in 2021.
The Solutions Project, a climate justice group “created by Black, Indigenous, immigrant, women and communities of color,” awarded Cooperation Cannon River roughly $50,000 in 2023 as part of its Fund for Frontline Power initiative.
The Washington Examiner contacted Defend the 612 and Cooperation Cannon River about the nature of their relationship and whether the former is doing business as the latter.
Funds donated to Defend the 612 go in part toward the purchase of “Community Protector” vests, distributed for free to activists “doing rapid response work,” namely ICE Watch patrols that are dispatched to areas of concentrated 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,” Defend the 612 says.
Good, who reportedly was a member of the Minneapolis ICE Watch arm, and her wife, Rebecca, were filmed on police cellphone footage heckling ICE officers when she was fatally shot attempting to drive off and evade apprehension, as encouraged by Rebecca.
In the moments leading up to the shooting, one of the ICE officers had placed his hands on the driver’s door handle and reached through the open window, repeatedly ordering Good to step outside.
“Drive, baby, drive!” Rebecca was heard on cellphone footage instructing her wife immediately before Renee hit the accelerator, with another ICE agent in front of the car, despite being ordered to exit her vehicle. At the time, Rebecca was outside of the car, trying to interfere with the ICE officers’ operations.
LIBERAL ACTIVISTS USE AGGRESSIVE ‘ICE WATCH’ TACTICS TO TARGET FEDERAL OFFICERS IN MINNEAPOLIS
Defend the 612, named after the city’s area code, teaches similar “de-arrest” and evasion tactics to foot soldiers in the resistance’s fight against ICE. The organization put out a primer on how to forcibly free a suspect from police custody by placing their bodies between officers and arrestees.
“A de-arrest can look like physically removing an arrestee from [a law enforcement officer’s] grips, opening the door of a car, or pressuring LEOs to release an arrestee,” the advisory explains.
The primer recommends latching securely onto the suspect, “pulling and pushing an officer off of an arrestee,” letting the suspect out of a police car, and pressuring arresting agents by “totally surrounding the officers who have the arrestee” until they cave to the swarming mob.
As to “Tactic 2,” prying an officer off of an arrestee, the primer warns that it, legally, is “the most risky as it requires physical contact with an officer, which could lead to assault on an officer charges.”
According to the document, revolutionary-left ideologues opposed to policing consider a successful de-arrest “a micro-intifada which can spread and inspire others until we may finally shake off this noxious ruling order altogether.” Pro-Palestinian protesters often chant the phrase “Globalize the Intifada,” which Israel’s supporters see as an antisemitic rallying cry inciting violence against Jews worldwide.
Screenshots of the step-by-step instructions were widely shared within the city’s ICE Watch community and beyond, notably on the Minnesota ICE Watch’s official Instagram page, with the intent of rescuing comrades who have been placed under arrest by ICE.
Defend the 612 also trains followers to engage in agitator-style tactics intended to provoke immigration authorities.
The organization’s training material directs members of ICE Watch to “follow” federal officers while “honking and blowing on whistles when they are sighted” on the road, aiming to cause “traffic jams and slowdowns.”
In the Renee Good case, another video angle of the altercation seems to show the couple blocking traffic with their car for more than three minutes on the morning of the shooting.
“You want to come at us? You want to come at us? I say go get yourself some lunch, big boy,” Rebecca Good was captured on camera saying to Jonathan Ross, the ICE officer who, seconds later, shot Renee Good in apparent self-defense as she drove toward him.
Ross was struck and suffered internal bleeding to the torso, according to the Department of Homeland Security. DHS officials said the incident involving Ross followed a separate attack in which he had been “dragged” months ago by an anti-ICE agitator who rammed him with his car.
THE PRIME OF TOUGH-GUY PROGRESSIVISM
Among other highly organized counterefforts against immigration enforcement, Defend the 612 has published a list of such “Community Response Resources,” including information on what to do when ICE makes a targeted arrest, a “Best Practices Guide for ICE Watch Patrol and Monitors,” and rapid response recruitment flyers to post around Minneapolis.
Militants in major sanctuary cities, such as Chicago and Los Angeles, have replicated ICE Watch practices and organizing strategies with considerable success.
In Portland, PDX ICE Watch instantly posted internal city dispatch communications, reportedly leaked from a first responder, about the shooting of two suspected Tren de Aragua associates who allegedly rammed a truck into an undercover vehicle used by Border Patrol.
Heeding the post, issued as a call-to-action, ICE Watch operatives quickly mobilized and appeared in droves near the scene of the non-fatal shooting.
