Friends and Relatives,
We will be providing regular updates from our organizers on the ground in MSP. Mainstream news coverage cannot keep up with the events as they happen in real time. ICE is now everywhere in the Twin Cities metro area and throughout greater Minnesota.
In the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery, we provide solidarity in two ways: (1) human capacity on the ground; and (2) providing financial support. We are committed to standing in solidarity with our relations and neighbors targeted by ICE.
Here are a few of the stories that have been shared from folks on the ground.
Schools are raided by ICE agents during school pick-up times, so parents and community members have to patrol and protect vulnerable students and terrified children. Over the weekend, a teen was dragged out of their place of employment, despite having a passport in their pocket, and, beaten and bruised, was dropped in a Walmart parking lot miles away.
There are videos of these events on social media, just as there are videos of people being pulled through their busted car windows, broken in by ICE agents, and disappeared in the back of unmarked vans. We are told that ICE agents are causing car accidents, abducting drivers, and leaving vehicles running in the streets, sometimes with pets or children left behind. They are breaking down doors without a judicial warrant and abducting people from their homes.
And those brave enough to bear witness or record with cell phones? They are being targeted, too. ICE agents deploy chemical weapons on neighbors who show up to observe their activities and have been recorded saying menacing things like “Didn’t you all learn your lesson?”
All of this in broad daylight. All of this under the guise of “law and order.”
But, in fact, this is a federally-authorized terror campaign. It is a military occupation of a major US metropolitan area. Minnesota is under siege, friends. And, we continue to hear reports of more ICE agents being sent to MSP, and even rumors that hotel reservations have been extended though May. If this is true, then this is a prolonged military occupation by thousands of armed and militarized ICE agents. As with other military occupations, there will be an increase in terror tactics while access to resources is cut off. Federal funds to MN including SNAP and childcare were suspended last week.
Meanwhile, we are hearing that paid agitators and right-wing media are being sent into peaceful protests to try to incite further violence and justify the use of force. We are hearing, too, that some of the same Proud Boys that flooded Washington DC five years ago — and who invaded MSP after George Floyd’s death — now patrol the streets of Minnesota, only this time wearing ICE badges and wielding the authority of the federal government.
We are calling on you, our friends and supporters, to join the struggle. Call your members of Congress and tell them to defund ICE.
YOU can support impacted families on the ground with rent support and food delivery. Donate here: dismantlediscovery.org/donate (mark your donation with “Minneapolis” when you fill out the payment information)
We want you; we need you. Please commit your prayers to this movement for life and share your material support to those who need it most, right now.
