Saturday February 14th, 2026

It was about 55 degrees and sunny when I stepped off the Blue Line Light Rail at the Veterans Administration stop today. I had been looking at the blandly designed and drab colored Fred Whipple Federal Building as the train approached the stop.

I saw ICE agents exiting the western side of the building, still wearing their black masks up to their eyes, ending or just starting their shifts. This building….it’s the place that you’ve seen in the news, where the big clashes have occurred between ICE agents and protesters. I also noted some vehicles along the fenceline in the federal parking lot. A white one was covered with anti-ICE graffiti and had a flat tire. A black one had the front end smashed in, presumably from when agents had use their car to ram another vehicle they were pursuing but I am unsure. There was a small contingent of National Guard troops. They were calmly resting on the rooftops of and leaning against the sides of, their Humvees. They were mostly looking at their cell phones. Someone asked me: “if they want to protect the community then why are they parked on the same side where ICE parks?”

I walked over to where the main protest area was located. A DHS helicopter circled high above, so high that I couldn’t hear it. However, it should be noted that even from way up there, an onboard L3Harris Wescam MX-10 camera (or the Wescam MX-15 or MX-20) could profile my face and enter it into their database, along with every single other person there. DHS helicopters and fixed wing aircraft have become commonplace at peaceful protests here in Minneapolis. It’s altogether reasonable to presume that data gathering is exactly what they are doing from up there.

While there at the protest I learned about a man who was in the USA legally. ICE didn’t care about that. As the man was trying to run away he took a fall and broke both of his feet. He was then shipped off to Dilley Immigration Detention Center in Texas. After ICE took their slow time to verify that the man was in fact, here legally, he was then brought back to Whipple and processed out. He was released on a very cold day, in a wheelchair. A group called Haven Safe took in this legal resident of the USA and helped him contact family, get warm, etc. because ICE doesn’t do that for anyone that they release. They just dump you out in the parking lot, usually without proper clothing, your cell phone, your car keys, and no calls to your loved one’s to pick you up. I was told that it’s common for about 20 people per day to be released from the Whipple Building in this fashion. Some of these people have been held in Texas, illegally and without due process, for weeks.

It’s important to track that every single person released by ICE is a silent admission of guilt and law breaking on the part of the federal government. It’s a silent way to say “we don’t care that we broke the law and we wash our hands of you now”

Before I went to the Whipple Building I had been volunteering at a mutual aid station. A lot of people have asked why there is a need for mutual aid and donations of food and household items. Well…let’s go back to how many people are released at the Whipple Building. If 20 people are released on a given day, that could mean that each of them is a money earner for their family. They are now missing, let’s say, two weeks of income to buy groceries, pay rent, car payments, etc. If your husband was grabbed off the streets by ICE, even though he was here legally…and you are now at home alone with your kids, what happens if you are also grabbed illegally? Who will watch your kids? What you do, is you stay at home. You hide in your house. Your rent goes unpaid. Your kids probably stop going to school. Soon you run out of food.

The place I donated at today is the kind of place that provides food and help to people who find themselves in these situations. It’s also just one of many such places around the Twin Cities. Even if ICE left this area today, it will likely take months to get every unlawfully kidnapped person back home and for people to recover financially…and all because of what? This has always been about one thing: and it’s not immigration enforcement.

When I was driving back to my hotel for the night I took a detour through a neighborhood to find a coffee shop. I saw a large white SUV with super dark tinted windows drive past me. I then noticed a car following them. This car had someone inside of it with a bullhorn and the person had rolled down their window…and using the bullhorn they were shouting “The white SUV in front of me is ICE” and suddenly I found myself following both cars. Because I thought, “maybe if I follow, my observing it will make ICE less likely to retaliate?” At each stop sign I wondered if ICE would get out of their cars with weapons drawn, as we have all seen by now. As we drove through this tightly packed residential community I could see people coming out of their houses to see what was happening. People walking on the sidewalks were smiling and waving in support. Some yelled at the ICE vehicle in anger. I kept thinking, this is what it takes. If you are afraid of what ICE will do to you, and that makes you not do it…it only means that they will continue to terrorize other people. People who don’t understand what’s going on here will continue to say and think things like “well if you would just let them do their job”…

If you read this and you are more concerned about ICE agents possibly being thwarted in their efforts to detain someone via a person following their car shouting in a bullhorn…if that makes you angrier than the murder of Rene Good or Alex Pretti, then it does say something really important about you.

It means you still think what is happening here in Minneapolis is about immigration enforcement.

When you realize it’s not, then you’ll be able to understand how someday you might be the one in the car shouting into a bullhorn to protect your neighbors.

Pics from today: