Afraid But Undeterred, Minnesota Greets Trump’s ICE Surge With Demonstrations |
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Minneapolis, Minnesota — Tear gas filled the air outside the Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis on January 9 as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers led two demonstrators away in handcuffs. For hours on Friday, caravans of ICE vehicles passed in front of the pop-up protests, carrying immigrants to be processed for deportation. Amid a mass influx of federal immigration agents to Minnesota, the Whipple building, normally a hub for the Department of Veterans Affairs, has become a staging ground for ICE operations. A group of approximately 20 federal immigration agents stood guard outside the building.
After masked federal agents fired chemical irritants into the crowd, medics rushed to the scene to assist those who had been injured. One demonstrator could be heard exclaiming, “This is the fifth time I’ve been hit with a pepper ball here.” Others clutched their faces, struggling to breathe; one woman collapsed to the ground.
Protesters have been a regular fixture outside the Whipple building since January 7, when ICE officer Jonathan Ross killed Renee Nicole Good on a quiet residential street in Minneapolis after she stopped her car to observe what appeared to be a kidnapping in progress. Video filmed on Ross’s cellphone during the shooting, made public by a right-wing news site, shows him firing three shots into Good’s vehicle before someone off-camera, presumably Ross, calls her a “fucking bitch.”
Protesters have been a regular fixture outside the Whipple building since January 7, when ICE officer Jonathan Ross killed Renee Nicole Good.
Renee’s wife, Becca Good, said in a statement published online after her death that “kindness radiated out of her.” In Minneapolis and across the country, more than a thousand anti-ICE demonstrations continue in her memory.
Over the weekend, thousands demonstrated at Powderhorn Park in Minneapolis, which was also a major site of protest during the 2020 George Floyd uprising. Floyd was killed by police officer Derek Chauvin just a few blocks away from 34th Street and Portland Avenue, where Good was shot by Ross. Now, Minneapolis has been cast into the........