{"id":468974,"date":"2026-02-14T22:18:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T22:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/468974\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T22:18:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T22:18:13","slug":"barack-obama-publicly-states-support-for-anti-ice-demonstrators-in-minneapolis-barack-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/468974\/","title":{"rendered":"Barack Obama publicly states support for anti-ICE demonstrators in Minneapolis | Barack Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"

Barack Obama<\/a> publicly gave his support to demonstrators in Minneapolis for standing up to the \u201cunprecedented nature\u201d of the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE<\/a>) operation in Minnesota.<\/p>\n

Speaking in an interview<\/a> with progressive YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen on Saturday, the former president discussed the power that US citizens hold when standing up for the values they believe in and his hopes for the next generation of American leaders.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason I point out that I don\u2019t think the majority of the American people approve of this is because ultimately, the answer is going to come from the American people,\u201d he said. \u201cWe just saw this in Minnesota, in Minneapolis<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is important for us to recognize the unprecedented nature of what ICE was doing in Minneapolis, St Paul, the way that federal agents, ICE agents were being deployed, without any clear guidelines, training, pulling people out of their homes, using five-year-olds to try to bait their parents, all the stuff that we saw, teargassing crowds simply who were standing there, not breaking any laws,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The Twin Cities area of Minnesota has been the site of ongoing<\/a> anti-immigration enforcement protests. These demonstrations have grown in scope following the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti<\/a> at the hands of federal agents.<\/p>\n

But this week, Tom Homan, the US border czar, said that the Trump administration would be drawing down<\/a> its immigration crackdown in Minnesota following the killings after initial escalations by immigration agencies. Many have credited the decision to draw back as proof that the protests were successful in sending a message.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, we\u2019re being tested, and the good news is, what we saw in Minneapolis and St Paul, and what we\u2019re seeing in places across the country, including here in Los Angeles, has been the American people saying no,\u201d Obama said. \u201cAt least a good number of the American people saying, we\u2019re going to live up to those values that we say we believe in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as we have folks doing that, I feel like we\u2019re going to get through this,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Obama, along with the former first lady, Michelle Obama<\/a>, called the killing of Alex Pretti \u201ca heartbreaking tragedy<\/a>\u201d and \u201ca wake-up call to every American, regardless of party, that many of our core values as a nation are increasingly under assault\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a statement<\/a> released last month, the Obamas said federal law enforcement and immigration agents were not operating in a lawful or accountable way in Minnesota. They said the tactics employed by ICE and other federal agents seemed \u201cdesigned to intimidate, harass, provoke and endanger the residents of a major American city\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Barack Obama publicly gave his support to demonstrators in Minneapolis for standing up to the \u201cunprecedented nature\u201d of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468975,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-468974","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}