Letter From Minnesota:
Details From an Occupation

At the “Ice Out of Minnesota” march in Minneapolis that took place a week ago today, it was impossible to tell how big or small the crowd was from on the ground. The sky was clear and the air so bitterly cold it felt like everything could shatter at a touch. As we marched, I kept hearing a sound some distance away like the roar of a crowd at a soccer stadium. But I couldn’t tell if it was our group’s chanting bouncing off the buildings or something larger and gathered ahead of us.

We were advised to turn our phones off for fear of being tracked, so I couldn’t check the news. I couldn’t tell if enough of us had pulled on all our warmest clothes and added our small selves to the collective in an attempt to matter, or if our efforts would seem tiny and dismissible at the end of the day.

And then I learned that 50,000 people had gathered to demand that ICE get out of our state.

The next day, I wanted to document some of the things I’d noticed so far during this occupation because I’ve also noticed that the attempt to keep up with all the horrors has become its own kind of horror. Every morning, most of us get up, check the Signal chats, the news, the socials, feel nauseated and overwhelmed, put the phone down. Then pick it up a minute later and do the same thing. Gathering it all together seemed like it might hold it in place long enough to take stock. To see it clearly instead of the blur of everything rushing by.

Within hours of this new killing, without an investigation, and with multiple recordings that prove the contrary, they claim the murder of this man was justified.

But even as I sat down to write, a friend texted to see if I was OK because she’d learned that a citizen observer was shot multiple times in Minneapolis. Another observer’s video shows seven men holding the victim on the ground when an ICE agent starts to beat him with a gun. And then someone shoots him ten times. I texted her that I was safe.

For hours after, we watched for updates and put the pieces together, listened to news conferences, weighed how it could have been us, debated the safety of joining the gathering where he was killed in the street. Checked in with each other, asked each other what we should do.

We also kept watching our Signal chats for updates about who needs diapers and who has them.

And who needs groceries and who can get groceries to them.

And who can print more whistles to alert people to the presence of ICE.

And which school needs more observers protecting children from ICE come Monday morning.

Which mosque needs observers to protect them while they pray.

Which store needs observers while people shop.

Which restaurant needs protection when people come in to work.

Which neighborhood is being circled by ICE, which neighbor is being yanked from their house and needs observers documenting ASAP! ASAP!

People will also be asking who has a building big enough for our subset group of archivists documenting, artists making things, community organizers gathering, professors panicking, singers singing, parents guarding in order to gather us together again.

The droning helicopters overhead, unusual for the Twin Cities, will continue to circle, and people will report on Signal whether or not they’re military or news as well as the circuits they’re traveling and what their purpose might be.

I’ve noticed how average American citizens are fearful in a way most of us would have called paranoid just a few months ago.

And each day, as all this chaos happens afresh, the White House lies to the rest of the country. They release AI -altered images of the lawyer and activist they’ve arrested to make it look like she was crying and afraid instead of firm and resolute in the original photos.

They state that the parents of the five-year-old in ICE custody abandoned him, and that ICE sent him to Texas out of concern and not cruelty despite multiple eyewitnesses disputing those claims.

They claim that the Twin Cities are full of criminals though violent crime is down.

They continue to maintain that it was Renee Good’s own fault she was killed.

Within hours of this new killing, without an investigation, and with multiple recordings that prove the contrary, they claim the murder of this man was justified.

I know his name now—Alex Pretti—an ICU nurse, 37 years old. The entire world knows his name now.

I’ve noticed that there will still be those amongst us who will continue to say to comply. Just comply, and you’ll be safe. Keep your head down. Have your ID on the ready, do what they say; then you will be safe.

I’ve noticed that most people don’t feel safe right now regardless of this advice and their intentions to obey it. I’ve noticed that most people do not feel like the rules or laws of the past will protect them whatever they do, or do not do, now.

I’ve noticed reports of people showing up with registered guns to protect their neighbors and that not a single civilian has fired one yet, but as of this writing, ICE has killed two Minnesotans, shot another, and wounded many more through beatings and intimidation.

I’ve noticed how average American citizens are fearful in a way most of us would have called paranoid just a few months ago. We’re saying to one another with only a little self-conscious laughter, that on their drive to the grocery store, or a friend’s house, or on their way to work, they thought they were being followed.

People are getting ripped from their cars! Children are being taken from their families and sent to other states! People have to carry their documents everywhere and produce them when stopped!

I’ve noticed that observers following and recording ICE activity are telling stories of ICE leading them to their own houses as a form of intimidation.

I’ve noticed Signal chats reminding people regularly that they must act as though the chat has been infiltrated: don’t assume you’re safe here. Or alone.

I’ve noticed Signal chats asking if other users have been vetted yet? Was he? Is she? Does anyone know? Anyone!? Should we dump this chat and start a new one?

I’ve noticed that those bringing groceries to people in hiding are making sure to not also be involved in other forms of action in case they’re tracked.

I’ve noticed people are in hiding.

American citizens with no criminal record are in hiding.

I’ve noticed that some people have begun to police the socials, deciding who isn’t posting enough, who isn’t loud enough, which businesses haven’t been public enough.

I’ve noticed that people are fearful of ICE and also still fearful of social rejection.

I’ve noticed how we’re all trying to figure out how to do this right. But none of us know if we are.

I’ve noticed how St. Paulites are getting pissed at the shorthand of “Minneapolis” when everything happening there is also happening in their city.

I’ve noticed the suburbs getting pissed at both of the Twin Cities for the same thing.

I’ve noticed the way movements hold strain.

I’ve noticed how the most sane, undramatic and calm person I know—a political scientist from Turkey—has said the only thing she knows is that it is going to get worse.

I’ve noticed that it seems impossible to get the rest of the country to fully understand the intensity of what’s happening here. People are getting ripped from their cars! Children are being taken from their families and sent to other states! People have to carry their documents everywhere and produce them when stopped! ICE is knocking on doors and demanding people tell them where the immigrants live!

And I notice how quick I am to believe that surely, after this new, abhorrent killing captured so clearly on video that the rest of the country will care now. But then a friend posts on her socials for people to check in with their Minnesota people because it’s hard up here, and someone from Tulsa asks if it’s affecting our daily lives because she’s reconsidering travel, and I want to push my face through the screen and scream at her.

I’ve noticed that in the crowd of thousands at the ICE Out of Minnesota march, I didn’t know how to feel. Couldn’t land on one single emotion of pride or fear or hope or despair. I kept thinking of George Floyd. All those marches and actions here and around the world. Of Philando Castile in St. Paul before him, and of the many, many other Black and Brown folks killed by the state before him. Of the Women’s March. Of No Kings Day. Of ICE protests in Portland and Chicago and LA, and all the ways I’ve shown up and paid attention or haven’t.

I’ve noticed my tendency to flail inside my fear.

I’ve noticed how I keep thinking about when I was little—a daughter of an immigrant mom whose parents lived under the German occupation of the Netherlands during WWII—how I played “running from the Nazis” (just like Oma ran!) and planned out my hiding spots at night when I couldn’t sleep because I was certain they would come for us again.

I’ve noticed how that kid already understood the wide range of possible lives that could unfold in the future.

I’ve noticed myself planning out hiding spots and exit strategies again during these sleepless nights.

I’ve noticed myself asking how we’ll know… when to leave, when to stay and fight, how anyone knows how to mark the point of no return except in hindsight.

And I’ve noticed the way so many here are still working for better things, even now as we gather in rage at this latest incarnation of violence with Alex Pretti’s murder.

How it’s an act of faith just to gather.

People are taking the smallest of steps forward not knowing how many others are up ahead. Or behind. To the right and left of them. Even though they can’t see the entirety of what they’ve added their single, tiny self to and can only hope it is enough. They’re trying to believe that their participation matters. That the body they’re building collectively matters.

And so, they keep moving.