Bernie Sanders: What Happened in Minneapolis Was Not an Accident
‘Minneapolis Is the Test Case’: Trump Threatens Insurrection Act to Put Down Protests
Original article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
“The Insurrection Act was always the plan,” warned one critic of the president.
President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, which would allow him to put the US military on American streets, unless demonstrations against federal immigration operations in Minneapolis come to an end.
In a Truth Social post, Trump demanded that Minnesota elected officials “stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], who are only trying to do their job.”
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If this doesn’t happen, the president said, he would invoke the Insurrection Act and “quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place” in the state.
“The Insurrection Act was always the plan, and Minneapolis is the test case,” said Melanie D’Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health. “They sent ICE in to terrorize and attack Black and brown communities to provoke a response that would justify deploying the military domestically in Blue cities. This has never been about immigration.”
“Invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy military forces against the American people is the exact opposite of what Minneapolis — and the country — needs right now.” —Lisa Gilbert, Public Citizen
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) made a similar warning last week, amid protests that erupted after the killing of Renee Nicole Good by a federal agent.
“What we are seeing right now,” said Omar, “not only from the surge of 2,000 federal agents—now we have another 1,000 apparently coming in—it is essentially trying to create this kind of environment where people feel intimidated, threatened, and terrorized. And I think the ultimate goal of [Homeland Security Security Secretary] Kristi Noem and President Trump is to agitate people enough where they are able to invoke the Insurrection Act to declare martial law.”
“There is,” she continued, “no other justifiable way to describe what is taking place in Minneapolis at this moment. There is no justifiable reason why this number of agents is here in our state.”
The Insurrection Act has not been used since 1992, when President George HW Bush invoked it at the request of then-California Gov. Pete Wilson to quell riots that had broken out in Los Angeles after a jury acquitted police officers who were caught on camera beating Rodney King.
“Invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy military forces against the American people is the exact opposite of what Minneapolis — and the country — needs right now,” said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen in a statement Thursday morning.
“The violence in Minneapolis is being perpetrated by ICE. The solution is to end the ICE surge, not to further militarize the city, ” added Gilbert. “Deploying military forces against the city and its citizens would be a doubling down on the threat Americans are facing from their own government. Trump should abandon this idea immediately and stop threatening to use the military against the American people.”
Mass protests have erupted throughout Minneapolis since ICE agent Jonathan Ross fatally shot local resident Good, whom the Trump administration posthumously smeared as a “domestic terrorist.”
Protests against ICE presence in the city intensified on Wednesday night after a federal agent shot a man in the leg during what the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) called a “targeted traffic stop.”
The Trump administration last week began surging thousands of ICE agents into Minneapolis, resulting in mass school closures and the disruption of daily life for the city’s residents.
The editorial board of the Minnesota Star Tribune on Thursday described the city as being “under siege” by the federal government.
“Battalions of armed federal agents are moving through neighborhoods, transit hubs, malls and parking lots and staging near churches, mosques and schools,” the editorial explains. “Strangers with guns have metastasized in spaces where daily life should be routine and safe. It feels like a military occupation.”
The editors then declared that “what we are witnessing is the storming of the state by the federal government,” insisting that “the occupation of Minnesota by ICE cannot stand.”
A local Minneapolis resident who was out protesting against the ICE presence on Wednesday night told Status Coup News that he felt like the entire city was under assault.
“This is nuts!” he said. “What the fuck is going on, dude, this is insane… You know what really pisses me off is the fact that they detain people, cuff them, and then still beat the shit out of them! They tell you it’s immigrants, it’s only immigrants? It’s fucking anybody! I have friends who got detained and all they were doing was driving home from work!”
Original article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
‘Get ICE Out!’ Protests Intensify After Another Shooting by Federal Agent in Minneapolis
Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
“This is a military occupation,” said the president of the Minneapolis City Council, “and it feels like a military occupation.”
Protests against the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis intensified late Wednesday after a federal officer shot and wounded a man during a traffic stop.
“Get ICE out of the city!” one resident told Status Coup News as federal agents responded forcefully to demonstrations against their abuses, firing flash bang grenades and chemical munitions at protesters.
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The latest shooting occurred in north Minneapolis during what the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) called a “targeted traffic stop.” DHS, which has lied repeatedly about the circumstances of ICE-involved shootings in recent days, said in a statement that the latest shooting victim had attempted to evade arrest and hit the pursuing officer “with a shovel or a broomstick.”
The agent shot the man in the leg, and both were later taken to the hospital.
Minneapolis officials responded with outrage to the shooting, which came a week after ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good.
Jacob Frey, the city’s Democratic mayor, said that “no matter what led up to this incident, the situation we are seeing in our city is not sustainable.”
“This is already the second shooting that we’ve had in a week,” Frey said during a press conference late Wednesday. “People are scared. The atmosphere is tense. But again, there is another option. We can stop going down this route together.”
The Trump administration has only added fuel to the fire, further expanding the presence of federal agents in Minnesota and attacking the state’s officials and residents with increasingly belligerent rhetoric. President Donald Trump wrote on social media earlier this week that “reckoning and retribution is coming” to Minnesota.
Wednesday’s shooting came as ICE agents, often heavily armed and wearing combat gear, continued terrorizing communities in Minneapolis and across the United States, with many incidents captured on video. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said Wednesday that “armed, masked, undertrained ICE agents are going door to door ordering people to point out where their neighbors of color live.”
“At grocery stores, at bus stops, even at our schools, they’re breaking windows, dragging pregnant women down the street, just plain grabbing Minnesotans and shoving them into unmarked vans, kidnapping innocent people with no warning and no due process,” Walz continued.
Minneapolis City Council President Elliott Payne said Wednesday that he was assaulted by ICE officers while lawfully observing them. Payne noted in an interview with the New York Times that ICE agents frequently brandish their weapons to threaten residents.
“This is a military occupation,” said Payne, “and it feels like a military occupation.”
Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
ICE ‘Not Welcome,’ Maine Officials Say as Reports Point to State as Trump’s Next Target
Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
“Maine will not be intimidated, and we will not betray the values that make us who we are,” said Gov. Janet Mills.
Maine Gov. Janet Mills was among the leaders in the state who addressed reports late Wednesday that the Trump administration plans to send federal agents including those with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to cities such as Portland and Lewiston, and said unequivocally that the violence masked officers have unleashed on Minneapolis in recent days would not be welcome by residents and officials.
Mills said ICE had refused to confirm the reports that its agents would be in the state and what the basis for the operations would be, but MS Now reported Wednesday that the administration is considering sending federal officers to Maine.
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On Tuesday, President Donald Trump mentioned Maine’s Somali community in a speech at the Detroit Economic Club; Somali people in Minnesota have been a top target of ICE’s activities there.
Maine’s Democratic governor said her administration was “taking proactive steps to prepare.”
“If any operations take place, our goal as always will be to protect the safety and the rights of the people of Maine,” said Mills. “Maine knows what good law enforcement looks like because our law enforcement are held to high professional standards… and they are accountable to the law. And I’ll tell you this, they don’t wear a mask to shield their identities and they don’t arrest people in order to fill a quota.”
“To the federal government I say this: If your plan is to come here to be provocative and to undermine the civil rights of Maine residents, do not be confused. Those tactics are not welcome here,” she said.
Mills said state police had been directed to work closely with local law enforcement in cities including Lewiston and Portland, where the police departments do not cooperate with ICE.
Reports of the potential deployment—which Portland Mayor Mark Dion denounced as a “paramilitary approach”—come days after a bill, LD 1971, became law and prohibited all state and local law enforcement from engaging in federal immigration enforcement activities.
“This new law will ensure Maine towns and cities are not complicit in or liable for federal abuses of power, and will improve public safety by building trust between local law enforcement and the communities they are supposed to serve,” said ACLU of Maine policy director Michael Kebede on Tuesday.
The bill passed into law without the signature of Mills, a Democrat who is running in the US Senate primary in hopes of unseating Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). The governor has been trailing Graham Platner, a progressive who has called for the “dismantling” of ICE, in recent polls.
“One of the reasons I want to go to the Senate is that when we have power again, I want to haul all of these people and the ones that made them do it in front of a Senate subcommittee, make them take their masks off,” Platner said in October.
Dion and Lewiston Mayor Carl Sheline, also a Democrat, urged residents and businesses to know their rights in case they are approached by federal immigration agents.
Dion emphasized in a statement Wednesday that “there is no evidence of unchecked criminal activity in our community requiring a disproportionate presence of federal agents.”
“In that view, Portland rejects the need for the deployment of ICE agents into our neighborhoods,” said the mayor, a Democrat.
President Donald Trump’s recent escalation of federal immigration enforcement in Minneapolis has led to an ICE agent’s killing of 37-year-old Renee Good, who had been observing the agents as people across Chicago, Charlotte, and other cities have over the past several months. A federal agent also shot and wounded a man during a traffic stop there on Wednesday.
Trump has largely been targeting the Somali population in Minnesota amid a social services fraud scandal in the state in which some Somali people have been charged and convicted. He has called for all Somali immigrants to leave the US. On Tuesday, Trump said that “Somali scams” had happened “in Maine, too.”
Maine has a significant Somali community including many people who have become US citizens; the population is largely centered in Lewiston and Portland.
MS Now reported that according to people familiar with the administration’s plan, immigration operations in Maine were “being designed to arrest and detain Somali refugees for reviews that could last around 30 days.”
The Maine Monitor reported that immigration authorities visited Lewiston last month and visited Gateway Community Services, a healthcare provider for immigrants that the state suspended payments to after it alleged more than $1 million in interpreter fraud.
Mills said Wednesday that she fully supported the right of Maine residents to protest a federal immigration enforcement operation and urged them to do so peacefully and “to meet any hostility with reserve and resolve.”
“I know there are more unanswered than answered questions right now,” she said. “We will continue seeking out answers and continue to communicate our information and plans with you in the coming days. But know this: Maine will not be intimidated, and we will not betray the values that make us who we are.”
Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
‘This is what happens when a far-right government emboldens a violent death squad’
People participate in a protest and vigil after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis, on January 7, 2026. Photo: Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press via APProtests erupt across US after ICE agent shoots woman dead
CITIES across the United States continued to erupt in protest today after a woman was shot dead by a federal immigration officer.
Thousands of people took to the streets to vent their anger at Wednesday’s shooting of Renee Nicole Macklin Good, including in New York, Seattle, Chicago, Boston, Phoenix, Tucson, Columbus and Minneapolis, where the shooting took place.
The killing of Ms Macklin Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent came during US President Donald Trump’s latest armed operation against the Somali community.
More than 1,500 people have been arrested during the raids carried out by around 2,000 ICE agents.
…
Eyewitness Emily Heller said officers had screamed at Ms Macklin Good to “move, move, move!”
But when she moved, an officer shot her multiple times.
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