I’m going to assume that if you’re reading this, you more or less understand the situation in Minnesota and I don’t have to explain it to you! That said, I do have a section of local news sources, below. But to answer the question most people want to ask: yes, things are really as bad here as they look in the media. ICE officers are lawless thugs who are kidnapping my neighbors, and the claim that they’re doing us a service by removing violent criminals is a bald-faced lie. You probably knew that already, but just in case, there you go.

I guess I should briefly introduce myself: my name is Naomi Kritzer. I’m a science fiction and fantasy writer. (I have a book coming out in June.) I also write an election guide for Minneapolis and St. Paul, which a lot of people here use when they’re getting ready to vote in local elections. I lived in Minneapolis from 1995 through 2012, and I have lived in St. Paul since 2012. I love my community and also wrote a post of ideas for local people who are looking for things they can do right now.

If You’d Like to Donate Money

There is a whole lot of need in Minnesota right now. Many people need to stay home most of the time to keep themselves safe. (This includes undocumented immigrants but given that ICE has been abducting fully legal documented folks with work permits, and also kicking in doors to abduct citizens in their underwear, it is not just undocumented immigrants.)

Ashley Fairbanks put together an extremely good, detailed website of organizations, fundraisers, mutual aid asks, and more, all of which you can donate to. It’s here: Stand With Minnesota.

Contact Your Senators/House Rep

You can call or email, either is fine. If you’re insecure about this and need a little help, https://5calls.org/ has scripts. Tell them you want Kristi Noem removed and ICE abolished. If you think there’s absolutely no chance they’ll listen to you if you say you want ICE abolished, say you’re shocked by what they’re doing and this lawless rogue agency needs to be reined in and the agents need to unmask and wear badges like every other law enforcement agency. If you’re talking to a Democrat, emphasize that you don’t think “better training” is an appropriate approach here (in the real world, that just means “more money”).

If you’re talking to a Republican and you are a Democrat, don’t feel any need to mention your party loyalties to the person who supposedly represents you. Instead, you could try using the phrase “jackbooted government thugs” (thanks, Wayne LaPierre!) You could say that demanding people produce their papers on demand is communism. You could say that a masked secret police that breaks down doors to abduct citizens out of their own homes is profoundly un-American.

But say it. Say it now, say it tomorrow, say it next week. ICE is a rogue agency that needs to be abolished.

Write a Letter to the Editor

Letters to the (newspaper) editor feel profoundly old school but they matter in a couple of ways. First, they are kind of the physical documentation of the Overton Window. This means they’re extra influential on the Senators and House Reps you’re calling, because they tend to showcase the most median, normcore set of opinions. A newspaper editorial page in Nebraska that’s full of letters saying “ICE is a rogue agency; it needs to be dismantled” will help to make “abolish ICE!” feel like a safer and more reasonable stance for politicians to take.

The ACLU has a how-to guide for people writing letters to the editor. (On any topic, not specifically ICE.)

To Learn More About What’s Going On in Minnesota, Read Minnesotan News Sources

Some good places to find out what’s going on, all without paywalls:

MPR News. Reporter Jon Collins’s work has been especially good.
Sahan Journal. Immigrant-focused news.
MinnPost. A general news site, hired a lot of the people the Star Trib laid off a while back.
Minnesota Reformer: Investigative reporting.

I’m not trying to assign you homework here, just — if you read a NYT or WaPo article about us, please also look to see what our local (excellent!) reporters on the ground are saying.

A couple of particularly excellent articles I’ve seen lately:

The Mamas of Cedar-Riverside
Mounds View Couple Detained On Way to Hospital
Intimidation Becomes a Calling Card

Push Back on Disinformation

I am not asking you to spend your time fighting with Internet trolls! But when you have conversations with family and friends, people who might listen to you, push back when there’s stuff they’ve heard that’s just wrong.

Among the things circulating in the national media that are really untrue:

• ICE claimed that the agents who shot a man in a leg were attacked by guys with snow shovels. This has been repeated uncritically by the media but video from the scene does not show any evidence that this happened.
• News pieces nationally keep describing Minnesota as “roiled by protests.” There’s a fairly small constant protest by the Whipple Building (the Federal building) but other than that, what’s going on here is not exactly protests. Minnesota is being massively disrupted by the aggressive and unnecessary occupation by ICE itself. We are responding with nonviolent community defense.
• I’ve also seen so many people saying that the only people who need to be afraid of ICE are lawbreakers. This is just hilariously untrue. In addition to dragging out a US citizen in his underwear, ICE has abducted people with work permits and no criminal history, shipped them to Texas, and is trying to deport them. They cut off a woman’s wedding ring after arresting her for watching them. They have stolen people’s phones. They beat, abducted, and detained a guy who’s a citizen and also Indigenous and he’s far from the only Native American person who’s been kidnapped and held. They have assaulted off-duty police officers who they racially profiled. They are lawless terrorist thugs.

And of course there’s the claim that Renee Good was trying to run over the ICE agent who murdered her. There’s literally video where you can see that her wheels were turned away from him. Basically everything ICE is saying is a lie. They lie when there are witnesses. They lie when there is video. They tell us to reject the evidence of our eyes and ears because that’s what fascists do.

Get Ready For This Bullshit to Come to You

Eventually, they are going to pull the bulk of their people out of Minnesota and send them somewhere else. Where? Who knows. If you live in a blue city, maybe they’ll come to you.

Minnesota is incredibly organized. Our system of mobile patrols, dispatchers, and rapid responders has made it significantly harder for ICE to abduct people. You can read a discussion of how that system works here. The best-practices document explaining the nitty gritty here. You can read a journalist’s description of mobile patrol here and another one here.

If you think your city could do something similar, and even if you don’t think they could pull this off, you should start getting ready. I have a bunch of specific suggestions.

• Training

In Minnesota, starting early in 2025, there were “legal observer” trainings available from a local group, Monarca. (These are also called upstander training, constitutional observer training, and ICEWatch training.) My understanding is that these were pioneered by a group in North Carolina called SiembraNC.

If you have similar trainings available in your area, definitely try to attend one. If not, you can find out some of what’s covered in the training by reading this manual. Maybe call your local immigrant rights organizations to see if they are considering offering training like this, sign up if they’ve got anything, and express interest if they don’t currently have it.

• Get On Signal

Connect with a couple of friends on Signal and get used to using it. (It’s not hard, but there are some things that are a little confusing at first. There’s a beginner’s guide here.)

• Get a Whistle and Find Out Who to Call If You See ICE

The idea behind whistles is that if someone spots ICE nearby, they can blow a whistle or a car horn to warn people nearby. Vulnerable people who hear the warning can get into their homes and lock the doors. Less-vulnerable people can come to also blow whistles and record what ICE is doing. You can find information on 3D printing whistles, zines on how to use whistles, and much more, here. Note that the zines at that site are Minneapolis-specific; the number you should call in your area for an ICE sighting is going to be different.

(There’s an area in Maryland that is not using whistles. I think everyone else is, though.)

• Start Building Networks

By which I mean, if you have kids at school, talk to the other parents. Talk to your friends and neighbors. Talk to your gaming group. If you think a group is a political mix, one way to quickly make contact with a bunch of like-minded folks within a larger group like your neighborhood Facebook group or your PTA is to get a bunch of nice anti-ICE buttons or stickers or whistle kits and then ask if anyone would like one, and see who says yes.

• Read some of the information at Defendthe612.

Minneapolis has a terrific website that both hosts a lot of information and is used as a clearinghouse for volunteers. (612 is the Minneapolis area code.) They have a guide on How to Start a Rapid Response Network. They have information on How to Start a School Patrol. There’s a lot there that’s worth looking at.

• Think about how your workplace, organization, or community could respond.

In addition to the ICEWatch network, Minneapolis and St. Paul have a whole lot of food shelves that now deliver food. There’s a laundry service for people who can’t safely leave their houses, there’s pet-related mutual aid… start thinking now about how your workplace or business or community group could help people in your community. (And, hey: maybe some of what comes to mind is stuff your community needs now, regardless.)

Also! Look into becoming a Fourth Amendment Worksite.

• Get rid of your Ring camera.

If you have a Ring camera, de-install it. Ring partners with Flock, which gives information to law enforcement (without a warrant), including ICE. I know it’s convenient and I know there are a million reasons people like having them, but it literally makes it easier for ICE to surveil your community and abduct your neighbors.

• If you are personally vulnerable, make your own preparations.

Honestly, this is not something I have a ton of advice about, but I do want to suggest that if you’re a US citizen that some asshole from ICE would assume wasn’t a citizen, and you don’t have a passport, get a passport. In fact, get both a passport and a passport card, and carry the card in your wallet and keep the passport book somewhere safe. You can still tell ICE to pound sand if they demand to see your papers, but you’re less likely to wind up in detention if you have your papers.

If you’re not a citizen, and especially if you’re undocumented, or if you have something like temporary protected status that could get revoked, I’d suggest that you reach out to trusted friends to talk about what help you might need if your city gets descended on by as many ICE agents as the Twin Cities has. Rides, errands, laundry help, dog walking. It’s horrifying that this is where we’re at. Keep yourself safe. You are precious, you are loved, you are a valued member of your community, and you belong here.

Talk About Immigration, and Make it Clear You Think It’s GOOD

I guess this is the final thing I want to encourage people in other parts of the country to do.

We are really goddamn lucky as a country that people want to move here. Immigrants are a gift, a completely undeserved gift. We should want them to come. I will note that a whole lot of Trump’s aggression toward Minnesota is specifically toward Somalis, and Somalis are fucking awesome. They are smart, argumentative, hardworking, funny, incredibly diverse in their opinions. (I remember a mid-morning MPR call-in show in 2001 or 2002 that was related to something happening in the Somali community and the host was a little surprised when she was flooded with calls from Somalis, all vigorously disagreeing with each other. I don’t know if she realized that every Somali taxi driver, which was like 95% of the taxi drivers, listened to MPR all day to improve their English.) Somalis arrived here and immediately started getting involved in politics (there were Somalis out there dropping lit for R.T. Rybak in 2001, even though mostly they weren’t citizens yet). They treasure education, they want their kids to go to college, they’re aggressively motivated in general. This is an immigrant community that everyone should want and I am SO GLAD they came here to the Twin Cities, despite the fact that we have some of the worst winters in the country and they immigrated from a country where the coldest days are like 68F.

There’s a chant I’ve participated in at demonstrations that goes, “say it loud and say it clear / immigrants are welcome here.” That is a nice slogan but also: do that. Be clear in your conversations that you welcome immigrants, value immigrants, care about immigrants, consider your immigrant neighbors to be an irreplaceable part of your community. Don’t apologize for supporting immigrants. Don’t accept the premise that immigration is a problem. Immigration is good. IMMIGRATION IS GOOD.

Things are really hard in the Twin Cities right now. But seeing how many people here are working hard every day to protect our neighbors makes me believe that there’s a better world on the other side of this, and we’re going to get there.