My local feeds (and friends, via feeds) were on fire today with the ICE/DHS/FBI (and ATF? and DEA?) raid in South Minneapolis. For those not familiar with the area, it was at the intersection of Lake Street and Bloomington Avenue, the heart of Minneapolis's Latino community.
The "troops" showed up with armored personnel carriers and more than a hundred men (I only saw men in all the videos and photos) in combat gear and carrying long guns. They deployed LRAD sound deterrents and pepper spray.
The Hennepin County sheriff's office was fully complicit in the action. Minneapolis Police were not, at first, but showed up to "manage the crowd" of hundreds of people who turned out to tell ICE to get the hell out of the neighborhood.
The mayor did not appear on site, but every candidate who's running against him did, as did the City Council member for the ward. No one knows yet what the mayor thought was so important that he couldn't be present.
The county and city cop reps are insisting it was not an immigration action. But if it wasn't, why were there men there with ICE insignia? They claim the raid's purpose was to carry out a warrant to retrieve documents related to either/both money laundering or human trafficking at a local taco business, Las Cuatro Milpas, but even if that's true, why the involvement of ICE and DHS's Homeland Security Investigations unit? And why the heavy fire power to carry out a search for documents?
It turns out the FBI did also carry out a warrant at the suburban Bloomington location of a related business, and guess what? It was just FBI agents wearing windbreakers who did that work. No armored personnel carrier, and no automatic rifles in sight. This local news report has some footage of those under-dressed FBI workers.
Generally, from what I heard, the ICE and DHS/HSI men were masked, while the FBI was not. We had terrible air quality today, but the masks they were wearing were not medical grade and would not have helped with the air quality; they were meant to prevent identification.
No one was arrested at the scene, but the "troops" left with boxes of records seized from the restaurant.
Here's some of what people on BlueSky had to show and say about it in chronological order of when I saw it:
Please note “make tacos not walls” behind them:
Sheridan @sheridanlair.bsky.social (photo by City Councilmember Jason Chavez)
Feds in masks tear-gassing Minneapolis residents in 270 Air Quality Index, in the rain, while trying to disappear people. 2025. The “american dream” is the most expensive and powerful entity in the world standing in front of a taco shop in Minneapolis, with military grade weapons to destroy families.
certified boogeyman @jagheadroom.bsky.social
Sure sounds like ICE did a punitive show-of-force raid directly in response to Frey's milquetoast photo op at the "make tacos not walls" place, and Hennepin County sent their finest to back them up. Whether you believe MPD or not, they also showed up to enable this action.
scoops @scoopsstp.bsky.social
Literally and figuratively, the federal government is treating blue states and cities like an occupying army. Not sure how the country can come back from this.
Norm Charlatan
I am deeply concerned about this patch on one of the "officers." Have more images/footage for press and antifascist researchers:
Brandon Schorsch (photo by Brandon)
HSI needs more attention. Shadowy agency with ambiguous jurisdiction and 10K+ officers. They pop up in lots of dubious "DHS" cases — massage parlor busts, anti-gang stuff, low-level drug policing, etc. Defense/civil rights attorneys have also told me it's really difficult to get info out of them.
Radley Balko
Why do they need automatic weapons? Afraid that armed pro-immigrant supporters are going to attack them? Of course not. It's intimidation and a show of force. The problem with this cosplay is that DEA and ICE are riddled with psychos who will act out their murderous impulses when given the opportunity.
ConveyerBeltSushi @pdxcharlie.bsky.social
HSI agent on lake st standing next to a “DEFEND IMMIGRANT RIGHTS” sign:
taylr (photo by taylr)
Every extra hour that ICE spends facing off with activists is an hour they can't spend kidnapping other people. Every extra minute ICE has to spend contingency planning around activists and neighbors, every extra officer ICE has to put on a kidnap squad, is a drain on their efficiency.
Chad Loder
Camouflage on Lake Street is a weird move, I observe while knowing it’s like number twenty on the list of messed up things
Bill Childs
Citizen journalist Taylor Dahlin (@taylr.bsky.social) had particularly up-close coverage of events on her BlueSky feed.
Here's a November 2020 profile of the restaurant that was raided from a local food website.
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