How ICE knows who Minneapolis protesters are
(nytimes.com)121 points by pretext 2 days ago
121 points by pretext 2 days ago
The problem with these threads is everybody wants to complain about Trump, but nobody wants to talk about policies that actually help buffer against the far-right. Eg implementing robust safety nets and low inequality, to reduce status anxiety and grievance. How many of you software engineers want to sign up for European-style welfare states and pay for them with high taxes? It's basically tragedy of the commons.
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/10/welfare-cuts...
Economics on its own is probably not sufficient either. You probably also need widespread unionization, a Cordon Sanitaire, and probably German-style intelligence surveillance of the far-right too.
Edit: Looking at the comments below you also need a MUCH better education system. FYI 99% of the time immigration is great for the economy, which is why the US has been wholesale accepting immigrants for a very long time.
> The problem with these threads is everybody wants to complain about Trump, but nobody wants to talk about policies that actually help buffer against the far-right. Eg implementing robust safety nets and low inequality, to reduce status anxiety and grievance. How many of you software engineers want to sign up for European-style welfare states and pay for them with high taxes? It's basically tragedy of the commons...
> Economics on its own is probably not sufficient either. You probably also need widespread unionization...
I think you're right about that.
> ...a Cordon Sanitaire, and probably German-style intelligence surveillance of the far-right too.
> Edit: Looking at the comments below you also need a MUCH better education system. FYI 99% of the time immigration is great for the economy, which is why the US has been wholesale accepting immigrants for a very long time.
You're getting off track there.
You also need a democratically responsive government. If the technocrats say "99% of the time immigration is great for the economy" and the people say "we don't want it, less immigration, please," what do you do? If you want a Trump, you say "shut up people, the technocrats say you're wrong, and you're going to get what they recommend good and hard." If you want to avoid a Trump in the future, you say, "OK, we'll tighten the border and reduce immigration quotas."
I don't care how smart or correct you are: if you can't make your case to the people and get your policy widespread popular support, it shouldn't be implemented in a democracy, end of story.
A lot of western societies are aging. If you don’t import immigrants, you’re on a timer. The economy slows, quality of life drops, and people elect the far right anyway. It’s happening to Japan right now. I’d set up the safety nets and hope enough people will appreciate the better cost of living and reelect sane politicians.
Of course there are no guarantees. People hated Obamacare and punished democrats so hard they lost the most seats since Eisenhower.
> If the quality of life was unsustainable without immigration, what makes it sustainable with?
Think of it like (internal) trade, it's a win-win. I've been reading about Brexit recently. It's super easy to convince uninformed UK voters that "look the EU is benefiting from trade with us, so if we stop trade we can take all their benefit and keep all our benefit" ... That's not how it works. In the real world it's like Taiwan specializes at chips, China specializes at solar, India specializes at medicines, etc everyone brings something unique to the table and we ALL benefit from working together. It takes a lot of balls to leave your original country family/friends/etc. Immigrants are usually high quality people, it's best to just let them work.
> Current immigrants come from countries with high population growth. When their population growth slows down, will they get their immigrants too?
1) How is that your problem? Have you ever been worried about China not having enough immigrants before? The US is extremely well-positioned to win this one.
2) Yes there will be increased competition for immigrants, but it's really not a bad thing. I'd love it if the UK was politically stable so I could just move over since the US keeps trying to elect Hitler.
> If the technocrats say "99% of the time immigration is great for the economy" and the people say "we don't want it, less immigration, please," what do you do?
Do less immigration where people feel it, invest into economic education of the general populace.
>> If the technocrats say "99% of the time immigration is great for the economy" and the people say "we don't want it, less immigration, please," what do you do?
> Do less immigration where people feel it, invest into economic education of the general populace.
There can be a lot of legitimate disagreement about what the economy should look like or what's "great" for it. It's not just "GDP number go up."
And isn't it undemocratic for a government to be "investing" into educating people to think about and prioritize issues in a certain way (e.g. according to certain economic ideologies, like a technocrat)? A democratic government is supposed to represent its people, not control them to make them "better" according to some official's opinion.
If you want to bring in something from the overall European region, Switzerland would be a more appropriate model. Instead of trying to implement constitutionally impossible rules and mandates, work with a model that is more realistic to US policies and expectations.
> High trust, consensus governance
Yeah I don’t see that happening here either. Maybe in some rich areas, like tech/finance hubs, operating like mini-Switzerlands. Even then, the poor will keep voting for disruption, so those hubs will need private security vs the federal government? I just don’t see how this is possible or at all desirable. I think we have to tackle inequality……
Can you give specific examples of what you mean by that?
Yep, his administration took the worst possible approach by waiting so long only to bring these slow milquetoast prosecutions against trump. They should have gone after him and his accomplices immediately, but failing that doing nothing would have been better.
These weak prosecutions did nothing to stop trump and only caused republicans to rally around him.
Sure, but how do the laws get enforced when law enforcement itself has gone rogue? State governors can't deploy their branches of the National Guard to restore Constitutional law and order without risking that the corrupt federal executive will end up taking control of those as well.
Congress is supposed to remove ineffective executives from power, or change the laws/constitution to make the enforcement legal. Some would say they're abdicating those responsibilities.
Oh sure, I'd be one of those people. I was talking about an alternative approach under our system of dual sovereignty. The federal government is currently in gross violation of our Constitution that spells out the relations between the co-sovereigns. Both in terms of good-faith executing the offices laid out in the Constitution document itself, and overtly violating our natural rights including ones described in the Bill of Rights.
It's mostly the same party, politicians, and cheerleaders who have been dismantling those safety nets, while supporting offshoring and massive handouts to the rich (via the asset bubble). The economic issues driving the destructionist anger are themselves the results of primarily Republican policies becoming un-ignoreable. But rather than any sort of self reflection they're just turning the blame to new scapegoats.
This has effectively been a death spiral for the past several decades - blame the government for incompetence while preventing it from doing anything. For example a major reason that so much power accrued to executive agencies in the first place is the trend of Congressional gridlock kicked off by Newt Gingrich.
As a libertarian I have plenty of criticism of the Democratic party as well, but they're not the ones currently wholesale destroying our Constitution.
As a leftist, i can tell you that any kind of unchecked capitalism or inequality threatens democracies and their constitutions in the long run.
The contradiction of private vs public interests surfaces when growth/ROI demands become harder to achieve. Marx predicted it as diminishing profit rates [0]. The decades of lowering taxes for rich individuals and corporations led to the present budget pressure on institutions, civic decay and agitated uninformed voters. This happens in all capitalistic democracies and we hear the same songs everywhere, about more austerity with a xenophobic background.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit...
> As a leftist, i can tell you that any kind of unchecked capitalism or inequality threatens democracies and their constitutions in the long run.
And as a libertarian I can emphatically agree. A foundation of libertarianism is freedom of individual choice, and when a significant number of are economically disenfranchised such that they face economic coercion while simply trying to exist, it completely undermines that foundation. And looking at the structure from the top, completely ineffective anti-trust enforcement has made it so there aren't even many choices to choose from.
> The decades of lowering taxes for rich individuals and corporations lead to the [pressing] budget pressure on institutions, civic decay and agitated uninformed voters
I agree with your description of this trend, as well. I learned long ago that it's not enough to merely push in one direction and assume any results will be positive by construction. Rather you must look at what actually stands to be achieved, in order to avoid merely being a patsy for entrenched interests.
I do question why diminishing profit rates are relevant though. Even if profits had generally been going up, wouldn't the desire for even more wealth lead to the same lobbying / looting pattern?
I haven't really studied Marx though. A quick reading of your link, and trying to restate what I took away in my own terms: As labor becomes less important to capital, then capital is less inclined to invest in the labor pool? That does basically fit the overall trends.
> I do question why diminishing profit rates are relevant though. Even if profits had generally been going up, wouldn't the desire for even more wealth lead to the same lobbying / looting pattern?
Yes, it would, because the expectations of growth/profit/ROI are baked into the system (eg. by interests rates ticking on everything) but in this case, not necessarily to the detriment of society. The profit drive is the root of the problem. Achieving these profits is the point of conflict.
In early capitalistic societies, economic growth is easier because of untapped resources but once the growth of the economic pie slows down, environmental exploitation becomes societal explotation. Previously the point of conflict was capitalists, externalizing cost onto nature (waste products, side effects), today, it is them externalizing operational cost onto the public. Marxs take is, as i understand it, that this profit margin is physically bound to shrink when the remaining space for cost externalization shrinks too, because free markets eventually propagate the lower product prices.
As far as I can tell, there's been "mass immigration" since before there was an "America". Colonial settlers in the 17th century, along with Africans taken against their will. Assorted European immigrants in the 18th, along with Asian laborers and Mexicans taken against their will. So on and so forth. There have always been "immigrants". The US and all the other countries in the Americas are immigrant nations.
Way too many Dead Rabbits thinking they're Bowery Boys.
Welfare state and loose illegal immigration enforcement are at odds policies. Remember in US illegal immigrants can still get WIC and public schooling and their reward for popping out a child is the child now has citizenship and the benefits of such-- those European countries you mention don't normally offer unrestricted jus soli citizenship.
It's 'safety net' itself that helps fuel the immigration rage and delivers people into the hands of the right-wing.
You may also enjoy this in-depth video about other tech companies that profit from death
How many times do you believe immigration agents showed up door to door with riot gear and rifles back then? When it was caught on camera during the Clinton administration it was one of the most polarizing images of his presidency
That one was controversial not because it was the deportation of an illegal alien rather there were custody issues (abduction accusations) as well as the complication of persecution in the home country —in other words there were multiple issues complicating the deportation. Was he a political prisoner, was he abducted to the US?
When the Miami Herald won 2 Pulitzers for its coverage of the incident, do you think it was because people were highly interested in the international custody issues? I’d argue that people were more piqued at why 100+ armed immigration agents needed to raid a family’s home
https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/staff-48
https://www.seattlepi.com/national/article/dramatic-photo-of...
In a free country, if people think the president is crummy, they are supposed to be able to say they want the president to resign or be removed. In the USA this is by design and has been provided for in advance intentionally since the beginning.
Without fear of retribution, this is the USA remember.
While protesting or not.
Whether for or against the President or not.
Retribution is really bad but fear alone is pretty bad too, it can be a complete terror as we have seen in some countries sometimes, where dictatorship rises it always leads to terrible shithole outcomes. Even when they don't employ storm troopers. But there's no other way to be more communist than having a dictator of any kind, no matter what they call it.
Thinking about pure terror, how do you think terrorists got their name?
Storm trooper tactics have always struck terror too, that's their job.
Oh yeah, almost forgot, the USA is supposed to be more free than anywhere else.
As we have seen, not every President or administration official can perform in that league.
From the very point that 4 protestors were killed, Nixon was actually toast.
He just wasn't burnt to a crisp until after he was re-elected.
What were people thinking? Nobody would admit to voting for him a second time after he was proven dishonest though.
Of course equally stupid things have happened which are getting plain to see for more people all the time.
You might not be aware of it. It was there though. I had friends going to support families in detention in San Antonio in 2010/11.
Consider that it might be possible you're the one who is actually ignoring stuff based on a political position? And that rather than ignoring it on a Dem/GOP line, the line is between "normal, real adult electoral politics" and all the folks actually doing work to oppose these evil things directly.
A lot of my Democrat-voting friend easily forget Standing Rock or Furguson, but I doubt the people who were there do. By the same token, those same things have oft been forgotten or dismissed by the GOP-identifying friends of mine.
The problem is once you start opening a history book (that's not, say, published for teaching children in Texas) it gets really hard to thing to say "the law is static and started 15 years ago" or even "it's a law so it has ethical weight", and those things are hard to track for most folks and the implications are almost traumatic.
I get that your question is real and a struggle, because that's how it is for many folks in my life, well-intentioned and smart folks who were raised in a system that didn't seem like a problem to them because it fit them well enough, or they were so circumcised by it at an early age that they don't even notice what they've been cut away from.
But for a lot of us, the fact that a bunch of yall got together and decided to vote on who to kick out of the places where we live doesn't hae a lot of moral ethical weight.
Consider that one reason half the folks in the us don't vote is because we know that neither side is going to do anything resembling a good outcome and signing our names to things we don't agree with isn't just a lie but makes us complicit in our own expolitation.
And as yall have gotten ever more violent in practicng yalls "democratically produced" decision, those of us who have, like, an actual moral position are moving ever close to emulating John Brown.
That's easy. In the same place all the murdering from ICE agents during Obama era was.
So before the death of the protester everyone was honky dori with the deportations? It’s understood ~60-ish percent of the pop want all aliens deported not only criminal aliens, but there is a large minority that only want criminal aliens deported and a much smaller militant minority that don’t want any illegal aliens deported regardless of severity of crimes committed.
It is absolutely not the case that 60% of the population wants all non-citizens deported. On what do you base your claim?
But by the same token - the obstruction of federal agents who are carrying out their lawful mandate was also in that same place.
True, the implementation was messed up. Those unlawful deportation cases should have been the ones to protest. Not demonizing all of ICE or flying Mexican flags.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with flying Mexican flags. Americans fly flags of other countries all the time. There are English flags all over a nearby pub in my area. Heck, there is an entire national holiday for celebrating the Irish—a holiday for which the Defense Department made an exception to its policy of avoiding cultural observances.
The overreach by the current administration is what is driving the volume of protest activity. Specifically the high-volume targeting of lawful residents and Hispanic-looking citizens, and the “show your papers” geographical sweeps—none of which fit typical American notions of what is lawful.
To some extent this overreach is intentional, as an exercise in generating social media content, and to intentionally make people upset as a pretext for deploying greater levels of force.
It also seems politically performative since the current administration is focusing efforts in Chicago, Minnesota, Maine, etc, not Texas or Florida where there are far more undocumented immigrants.
There were protests against the Obama deportation campaign but they were far smaller because the campaign itself stayed within bounds that fit most people’s notions of lawfulness and propriety. They also did not make the huge mistake of deciding in advance to all-out defend every single bad decision by every law enforcement agent. That alone is a huge factor in the pushback that officials are getting, even from GOP and 2A leaders.
Okay let's say it is murder (regardless that there is broad disagreement and no charges)
What drives someone to feel emboldened to park their car in the middle of an ICE operation and then attempt to drive off after being told to stop?
What drives someone to run around spitting and kicking out lights on an ICE vehicle?
It's like I can understand why someone is a sports fan, despite not following sports myself. I can fully understand, although I don't support, why someone would join the Taliban or Tren De Aragua or whatever other group. I can understand those things. But I still struggle to understand the above.
> What drives someone to feel emboldened to park their car in the middle of an ICE operation and then attempt to drive off after being told to stop?
Protesting? Civil disobedience? Thought you had freedoms. Freedom means being met with an appropriate legal reaction in case your acts are illegal, not death.
I struggle to understand how you feel that in a free society people can't react to perceived injustices, and act in protest of it. A free society doesn't force everyone to bow down to the powers that be for fear of injury or death.
Empathy, that is what you appear to be missing in your equation. If I see someone about to chuck a baby off a cliff, I hope I step out of my normal comfort zone and do something. In that case it is probably pretty clear, and this one seems grey for some people, but for others, and myself include, ICE is affecting people's lives in ways that is unacceptable and we need to do something.
You are explicitly saying that you feel more in common with Taliban or Tren De Aragua than with someone who wishes to exercise their Constitutionally protected right to peacefully protest against unlawful actions by agents of the government?
Also, I am confused why you think that allegedly spitting and/or kicking out lights is a justification for execution.
> park their car in the middle of an ICE operation and then attempt to drive off after being told to stop?
> run around spitting and kicking out lights on an ICE vehicle?
Do you seriously believe pulling a gun and killing somebody is an appropriate response to such actions?
Because if you do, that is a dangerously authoritan attitude.
Why would they find it inappropriate? It's fun for them and they're guaranteed to get away with it. All the opposition does is vote harder and ask nicely that the state not do it again.
Worst case, someone sues and it's paid by OPM. But having been the subject of brutality by CBP, I can tell you it's almost impossible to find a lawyer (all the ones I talked to had already tried and lost so many times they wouldn't take a case, though maybe you have better luck now since immigration law is in vogue) and if you do your chances of overcoming supremacy clause and immunities are next to nill. (Lady in a more egregious case but otherwise similar facts to mine, was raped via hand because the argument was there was drugs up there -- she lost even though there weren't any).
The reason why Trump chose ICE/CBP as his gestapo is precisely because they have excellent overlap of both being largely carved out from constitutional protections via both precedent and their situation as an executive nominally border facing police and the fact they answer to POTUS and can function as an army without running afoul of posse comitatus. Trump simply called checkmate on the populace by taking advantage of 100+ years of precedent, law, and jurisprudence that perfectly teed up the opportunity.
> What drives someone to feel emboldened to park their car in the middle of an ICE operation and then attempt to drive off after being told to stop?
Maybe an order by another agent to drive off? But also, it's not hard to see why you can't understand it - because none of the questions are based in reality, all the descriptions are false/twisted, it's like "I don't understand why the fans of that team that lost celebrate the win" when in reality the team won, that's why, easy to understand
>regardless that there is broad disagreement and no charges
Disagreement from a class that refuses to disagree with their leader and no charges from the administration that committed the crime.
>What drives someone to feel emboldened to park their car in the middle of an ICE operation and then attempt to drive off after being told to stop?
Presumably they thought the problem was that they were in the way, for which driving off would resolve.
>What drives someone to run around spitting and kicking out lights on an ICE vehicle?
The purpose of sending ICE there was to intimidate people, and dear leader was quite open about that. So we might rephrase the question as "why does a deliberate intimidation attempt lead people to feel intimidated?"
>It's like I can understand why someone is a sports fan, despite not following sports myself. I can fully understand, although I don't support, why someone would join the Taliban or Tren De Aragua or whatever other group. I can understand those things. But I still struggle to understand the above.
Really? So then think of politics like sport, with the dems and repubs being two teams, and ICE being like fans from one team, and protesters are fans of the other, and they go out in the street to support their side. Now imagine that instead of your team losing being completely inconsequential, it could lead to you being poorer, your rights being taken away, etc. Now you understand politics, congratulations.
America started with the Boston Tea Party. If you don't like our allergy to authority that considers itself above us and our God given rights, you are free to leave.
where were the murders of civilians lawfully protesting?
This is very clearly a loaded question and not a good faith one. You are using the format of a question to express a rhetorical position. You can't just tack on "this is an honest question".
Your premise is incorrect. ICE's conduct is illegal, they are executing people in the streets and deporting US citizens. This is against the law. The majority of US citizens did not vote for Trumpin in 2024, and federal elections do not explicitly involve a vote on policy.
Further, people who are 30 now were 15 in 2010.
How often did ICE violate the 4th Amendment under Obama? How many court orders did they ignore? How many people were deported without due process?
Obama actually pioneered non-judicial deportations. Under his administration, 75% of removals took place without the established immigration hearing process.
Many (most?) ICE deportations taking place today are after "due process" "judicial" hearings, that is, a final order of removal being issued by an immigration "judge." This is generally ignored by news reporting.
https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/speed-over-fairn...
The news does not contextualize what is going on. Indeed, you can safely strike the word "unprecendented" from almost all journalism. But it's not only a problem with this story, but most stories. Selective outrage is applied based on the cause and enemy du jour. You are honestly better off not watching the news unless you are willing to do extensive deep dives on a topic, because regardless of your party affiliation or personal feelings or what outlet you subscribe to you are being fed a line of propagandistic BS.
You seem to conveniently ignore the 4th amendment violations and the ignored court orders.
Obama had “fast-track” deportations but also convenient ignore that this administration is doing it under the aliens enemies act which is a wartime authorization and most importantly deporting people to “third” countries.
> Indeed, you can safely strike the word "unprecendented" from almost all journalism
"Border patrol murders unarmed subdued citizen in broad daylight on film and then lies about it" I think is pretty unprecedented. at least as far as I know.
> Many (most?) ICE deportations taking place today are after "due process" "judicial" hearings
CITATION NEEDED.
almost no one is getting due process today
and yes, the way the system evolved is a problem, but as that article pointed out this change started in the mid-90s. Obama actually deported half the number of people as under Clinton and Bush, see Table 1[0]
Also most of the people Obama deported were at/near the border as he prioritized that over interior arrests. You can see the big change in Figure 1[0]
Turning people around at/near the border is a completely different than arresting people who have been in the US for years, even decades.
[0] https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/obama-record-deporta...
So the "whataboutism" is a complete red herring, and that's without even getting into fixed quotas, no guardrails or accountability for ICE agents, no consequences for murder, unlimited surveillance budget, hiring unqualified agents and putting guns in their hands, and I could go on and on.
I personally think that mass deportation is a foolish policy. I also accept that it can be done legally. However, the current actions clearly exceed legal boundaries.
1. ICE claims the power to enter homes with out a warrant. And has done so: https://www.minnpost.com/metro/2026/01/judge-orders-release-....
2. ICE / DHS are shooting protesters. This is not a legal response to a protest.
3. ICE is ignoring court orders at an unbelievable rate: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mnd.230...
4. The administration is openly slandering citizens - claiming they are terrorists without evidence.
5. ICE is conducting mass surveillance of citizens and non-citizens alike.
There are certainly liberals who broadly oppose deportation and who would protest any mass deportation project. However, there, I believe, a lot of us who would grudgingly accept as foolish-but-legal a deportation program that followed the law. What is broadly - across all political stripes - despised is this despotic overreach. And that's what driving people into the streets.
I wasn't outraged until ICE kidnapped two US citizens at gunpoint from their jobs at target, refused to verify citizenship, dragged them away in unmarked vans, beat the shit out of them and dumped them in the snow.
Obama deported criminals only and mostly at the border.
A majority of recent detentions are of people without a criminal record.
> According to DHS data, about 29% of those detained by ICE in January had criminal convictions, down from about 54% last February https://www.factcheck.org/2026/01/as-ice-arrests-increased-a...
No. That is not the case. The majority of deportations are of non-criminals.
People really need to get things together and investigate these crimes committed against the people.
In no world did we ever allow the government to track our movements or what we think. People are free and are not bound to laws that the gov will simply trample over when they feel like it.
Use encryption, don't tell plans, and keep fighting. We have got this.