BoredDirtyCommie
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- Mar 12, 2026
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https://crimethinc.com/2026/03/05/m...ters-blockade-ice-inside-the-federal-building
On March 1, 2026, at the conclusion of a week of action against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement occupation of the Twin Cities, protesters converged on the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Fort Snelling, Minnesota. At least four hundred people marched on the southeast side of the building to demand that ICE withdraw from Minnesota and that the land Fort Snelling occupies be given back to the Dakota people. Many Native people participated in the march, including members of the Dakota, Ojibwe, and Chippewa tribes. On the opposite end of the building, a group of fifty protesters blockaded Minnehaha Avenue with shields, reinforced banners, homemade tank traps, and improvised barricades.
Hennepin County Sheriffs and Minnesota State Troopers attacked both protests almost immediately. They tackled and dragged dozens of people out of the march on the southeast side. At the blockade on the northwest side, they beat protesters, sprayed them with bear mace, and slammed a person’s head against the pavement. One person bled from their eyes and suffered corneal damage from taking so much mace.
The sheriffs arrested forty people in total. Ten of these arrests occurred at the blockade and thirty at the march. The first attacks on the march did not occur until after the barricades on the other side of the building were cleared away. Presumably, the blockade functioned keep pressure off the march by drawing police attention elsewhere.
From Chicago to the Twin Cities, local and state police who answer to Democratic officials have played an essential role in enabling ICE to terrorize communities. Without the continuous assistance and support of local authorities, federal agencies would have been outmaneuvered by protest movements long ago. Every time cops and sheriffs participate in brutalizing those who oppose the ways that ICE is abducting and murdering people, this shows the complicity of Democratic officials in the rise of fascism.
Despite the hardships that the participants endured, this brave action shows that the resistance to the ICE occupation of the Twin Cities is not over. In replacing so-called “Commander at Large” Greg Bovino with “Border Czar” Tom Homan, Donald Trump is trying to rebrand the agency responsible for the high-profile murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. (Homan himself accepted a bag of $50,000 in return for promising to distribute government contracts in an FBI sting operation in 2024, aptly illustrating how the persecution of immigrants functions as a cover for government corruption and the military-industrial complex.) Yet even after the withdrawal of thousands of ICE agents from the Twin Cities, more than 400 remain—an unprecedented number before the surge of federal mercenaries into the city two months ago. Thankfully, people are not finished fighting ICE.
On March 1, 2026, at the conclusion of a week of action against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement occupation of the Twin Cities, protesters converged on the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Fort Snelling, Minnesota. At least four hundred people marched on the southeast side of the building to demand that ICE withdraw from Minnesota and that the land Fort Snelling occupies be given back to the Dakota people. Many Native people participated in the march, including members of the Dakota, Ojibwe, and Chippewa tribes. On the opposite end of the building, a group of fifty protesters blockaded Minnehaha Avenue with shields, reinforced banners, homemade tank traps, and improvised barricades.
Hennepin County Sheriffs and Minnesota State Troopers attacked both protests almost immediately. They tackled and dragged dozens of people out of the march on the southeast side. At the blockade on the northwest side, they beat protesters, sprayed them with bear mace, and slammed a person’s head against the pavement. One person bled from their eyes and suffered corneal damage from taking so much mace.
The sheriffs arrested forty people in total. Ten of these arrests occurred at the blockade and thirty at the march. The first attacks on the march did not occur until after the barricades on the other side of the building were cleared away. Presumably, the blockade functioned keep pressure off the march by drawing police attention elsewhere.
From Chicago to the Twin Cities, local and state police who answer to Democratic officials have played an essential role in enabling ICE to terrorize communities. Without the continuous assistance and support of local authorities, federal agencies would have been outmaneuvered by protest movements long ago. Every time cops and sheriffs participate in brutalizing those who oppose the ways that ICE is abducting and murdering people, this shows the complicity of Democratic officials in the rise of fascism.
Despite the hardships that the participants endured, this brave action shows that the resistance to the ICE occupation of the Twin Cities is not over. In replacing so-called “Commander at Large” Greg Bovino with “Border Czar” Tom Homan, Donald Trump is trying to rebrand the agency responsible for the high-profile murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. (Homan himself accepted a bag of $50,000 in return for promising to distribute government contracts in an FBI sting operation in 2024, aptly illustrating how the persecution of immigrants functions as a cover for government corruption and the military-industrial complex.) Yet even after the withdrawal of thousands of ICE agents from the Twin Cities, more than 400 remain—an unprecedented number before the surge of federal mercenaries into the city two months ago. Thankfully, people are not finished fighting ICE.
