John, these are accounts from Minnesota in the days since the murder of Renee Good. Please read on.
ICE agents at a Target in Richfield, Minnesota grabbed a teenage employee who was heckling them — as is your legal right — and threw him to the ground. They shoved him in a van and drove away.
The boy was an American citizen who was yelling that he had his passport in his pocket. They didn’t listen until he was detained. Since they had no authority to arrest him, agents dumped him in a Walmart parking lot down the road with no way to get home. He was found injured, bleeding, and crying for help. A child.
Christian Molina, a Latino man and US citizen, was driving to work in South Minneapolis when ICE agents crashed into his car to force him to stop. Why? Because he looked “illegal.” Christian refused to cooperate with the illegal stop. When neighbors came to the scene to observe and support, ICE tear gassed the crowd and left.
Christian Molina’s car after ICE rammed into him.
At a gas station in St. Paul, a man was practicing his legal right to film and observe ICE activities when an ICE agent randomly grabbed him. More agents came over and violently threw him to the ground, arrested him, and dragged him away to an unmarked van. Arrested for exercising his First Amendment rights.
At an electric car charging station in Minneapolis, ICE agents went car to car looking for people of color, asking each to prove they were citizens or risk being dragged away.
At a protest in Minneapolis, multiple masked ICE agents detained a protester and US citizen by grabbing her by the throat and choking her. She was thrown into an unmarked van and disappeared.
In Richfield, ICE swarmed the car of a US citizen with guns drawn, forced him out, and made him get on his knees, an unlawful detention under the Fourth Amendment. After he confirmed his citizenship, they had no choice but to let him go.
In Minneapolis, ICE approached a US citizen and community volunteer, shattered his car window, dragged him out, and threw him to the ground. As they arrested him, they put a knee on his neck: An illegal maneuver that caused the death of George Floyd in 2020.
If you can believe it, I could keep going. There are hundreds if not thousands of incidents like these in just the last two weeks. Folks outside of Minnesota may not understand the scale and severity of the chaos that ICE has unleashed.
Every day, ICE is harassing, beating, arresting, and violating the civil rights of US citizens and immigrants alike.
If Trump can sic this fascist violence on Minnesota, he can do it anywhere, on any of his political opponents and those who choose to stand up for their communities.
We’ve talked about Trump’s many violations of the Constitution, but what is happening in Minnesota right now is a dire Constitutional crisis: an all-out assault on the rule of law and civil rights by out-of-control government thugs that face zero accountability. We’ve seen this story play out before in Germany, Italy, and fascist states throughout history. It can’t happen again.
I’m calling on progressives across the country to stand with Minnesota and help us fight back against ICE’s crackdowns. We cannot let them get away with terrorizing our neighbors and beating people in the streets.
It’s important for me to share these stories with you, so that Americans understand the violence and chaos being unleashed by their own president.
It’s unacceptable, and we must fight back for the sake of our democracy.
In solidarity,
Ilhan Omar
