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\n Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photo: Getty Images\n <\/p>\n
\u201cOperation Metro Surge,\u201d an ongoing sweeping federal immigration enforcement action centered on Minneapolis and St. Paul, has been marked by aggressive tactics and strong local opposition. Tensions reached a fever pitch earlier this month after an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agent killed 37-year-old Ren\u00e9e Good<\/a>, which sparked widespread protests from both residents and demonstrators nationwide. But even before the killing, anti-ICE Twin Cities residents had absorbed lessons<\/a> from other cities the Trump administration has targeted and had formed communities that track federal agents, warn neighbors of enforcement actions, and document what\u2019s going on around them. Viral clips of detentions and rough tactics have rocketed around the internet, helping to galvanize opinion against the government\u2019s tactics.<\/p>\n Minnesota resident Will Stancil<\/a> is a lawyer, policy researcher, and onetime candidate for the state\u2019s house of representatives who has long been a voluble progressive presence on X<\/a> and Bluesky<\/a>. Over the past week, Stancil has become a mainstay of citizen patrols, tracking ICE agents around the city in his Honda Fit and sharing his experiences with his 100,000-plus followers. On Friday, I spoke with Stancil about what he has witnessed over the past few days.<\/p>\n Can you describe what conditions are like on the ground right now?\u00a0 It\u2019s too early to say what this means, but the last couple days have been very quiet in my neighborhood. I\u2019ve tracked a few ICE cars through, and other people have as well. But they aren\u2019t getting out of the cars nearly as much. So it\u2019s possible that they are simply not able to function with the sort of level of community vigilance that we have right now and have moved to somewhere else in the state or the city. But they could come back \u2014 they tend to move in waves.<\/p>\n The federal government has deployed more than 3,000 DHS agents into the Twin Cities, far outnumbering the amount of local law enforcement in the region. What is an average resident seeing on an average trip out of the house? The first time I saw them, it was so rattling. This is sort of what got me into the ICE Watch thing. I joined this rapid response chat, and someone said, \u201cOh, they\u2019re out of the car.\u201d I can\u2019t remember the exact address, but it was right next to where I was. So I went running over there, and there\u2019s all these guys standing in the street with assault rifles and a very rapidly growing angry crowd. It\u2019s not clear at all what they\u2019re doing. It was so weird to see them there. No local cops in sight \u2014 just like this military deployment. And then later on, I was like, Maybe I\u2019ll go follow these guys around. I started looking, and it didn\u2019t take a lot of careful detective work. You just find a busy intersection, park on the side of the street, and you\u2019d watch and 20 minutes later, a caravan full of heavily armed Border Patrol guys would roll by. So their presence was very obvious.<\/p>\n The other thing I\u2019ll say is that no one in the city wants to talk about anything else. Every single store has anti-ICE signs. Every single intersection has anti-ICE graffiti. Go into a restaurant, and there\u2019s five tables that have people at them, and all five tables are probably talking about ICE. Go to the grocery store, the grocery-store clerk is talking about ICE. Their presence is comparable to if a military force had occupied the city in terms of public attention and focus on it.<\/p>\n Do the videos we\u2019ve seen \u2014 of violent arrests, of agents deploying flash-bangs and tear gas on bystanders \u2014 capture the full extent of what\u2019s happening? We have these rapid-response channels. I mean, I got to the point where \u2014 and this is very difficult to do \u2014 but I got to the point where I mute them or turn them off or leave them when I come home in the evening because getting the constant updates \u2014 as much as I want to be informed of my community, if I\u2019m not out there and can\u2019t do anything about it, I am a raw nerve all day and night. I come home and I just have to lie on the couch and just shut everything off and shut my brain off because you\u2019ll go insane hearing about what all they\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n What has struck me from the news coverage is how many residents appear to be taking part in a demonstration or community aid in this way for the first time. The Trump administration has defended the agents as conducting law-enforcement actions. How much enforcement do you see them actually doing?
In my neighborhood, what you saw in the days after Ren\u00e9e Good\u2019s shooting was an explosion of extremely aggressive militarized ICE and DHS action. Many, many, many guys in masks. You\u2019d drive down the street, and you\u2019d see an out-of-state car \u2014 you\u2019d look up and it\u2019d be two guys in masks or four guys in masks. Big convoys of three or four dark SUVs with guys in masks. Abductions were happening. At busy intersections, they\u2019d jump out in force and grab someone. I saw a time they chased a guy down an alley and tackled him, dragged him to a car \u2014 that sort of thing was happening all over. Very often, they get out and essentially take up a fight with the people because they\u2019re very unpopular. So they were antagonizing people and then launching tear gas in the city streets. I got tear-gassed twice in 36 hours.<\/p>\n
They primarily drive rented civilian cars, mostly SUVs. So if you\u2019re driving through traffic and you\u2019re just staring at the sky, you may not notice anything for the most part. But if you start looking at occupants, you realize they\u2019re everywhere. They\u2019ve kind of stopped wearing masks and uniforms because it was too obvious, especially in my neighborhood. They literally couldn\u2019t make it 40 feet without picking up 20 cars and people blowing whistles and just causing chaos. It seems like they sort of have changed up their strategy a little bit. But for a few days, it felt like you were under military occupation. It was terrifying.<\/p>\n
No. In the private rapid-response channels, people will share many, many videos, and they don\u2019t want to bring them public because they don\u2019t want to be identified. People are worried. So there\u2019s lots and lots more private stuff that is never circulating. The other thing is I think it\u2019s really difficult to capture. The last few days have been calmer. But for the first week or so, it was really hard to convey the unrelenting pace of this stuff. I had a journalist come ride along \u2014 he just published an article about it<\/a>. I had been talking about how crazy it was, and I could tell he was a little bit skeptical. He thought, Okay, maybe we\u2019ll see an ICE car. In a two-hour ride, we chased four ICE convoys onto the highway, saw someone violently abducted alive in front of us, then saw a separate ICE convoy tear-gas a major commercial intersection for no reason at all. In two hours.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I think seeing it has been galvanizing. When you see a video of somewhere that you shop every day getting tear-gassed or someone getting abducted from the main commercial strip in your neighborhood, it is galvanizing. People are angry beyond description. The other thing is seeing your neighbors do it makes it easier. I\u2019ve probably had 20 people come to me because I\u2019ve been public about this and say, \u00a0\u201cHelp me get into the rapid-response stuff. I want to do it too.\u201d I\u2019ve had neighbors come to me, and many of them have never engaged in any kind of activism or advocacy. Some of them are just wealthy older folks who are like, \u201cI want to help.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s ludicrous. I mean, you take 20 guys with assault rifles and pepper balls, put them in a convoy, they\u2019re all in masks and uniformed armor. They pull up at the main intersection of my neighborhood where there\u2019s a McDonald\u2019s, where I walk by every day. They jump out, and they\u2019re tear-gassing people in the crowd. They\u00a0grab one woman off the street, whose name they did not get. She\u2019s walking alone. No one knows who she is because she\u2019s just walking on the street. She\u2019s a Black woman. You stuff her in a car, you continue to shoot tear gas and pepper balls into the crowd and then you pile into your convoy and you tear off. That is obviously an atrocious thing to witness and to do. But the other thing is it has no utility whatsoever as an immigration enforcement action. They don\u2019t even know who they grabbed. They didn\u2019t get her name. No one there knew her, so how would they know her? And it took 20 guys and four cars and like a half-million dollars worth of weapons. Even if you agreed with the notion that we needed aggressive immigration enforcement, and I don\u2019t \u2014 but if you did \u2014 this is an incredibly inefficient way of doing it. So much so that the idea that that\u2019s the goal is completely laughable.<\/p>\n