EDITORIAL
The Military Siege of Minneapolis

Jan 25, 2026

For six weeks, Minneapolis has been under siege by ICE and the Border Patrol.

Supposedly, these are police forces, whose task is to pick up immigrants who break the law.

In fact, they are military forces whose real task today is to subdue the U.S. population, native born and immigrant.

Fitted out in full body armor, heavy boots, cans of noxious chemical spray strapped to their bodies, handguns strapped to their legs, with machine guns slung over their shoulders when they march down city streets, ICE and the Border Patrol are exactly what they look like: military forces. The Vice-President declared that they have “absolute immunity,” meaning they can NOT be prosecuted for anything they do, no matter how criminal, no matter how terrible.

And they have done terrible things. In Minneapolis, they killed two people, shooting both at close range. The first was Renee Nicole Good, who had just driven her six-year-old son to school. While trying to steer her car out of a blocked street, she was shot in the head. Their second victim was 37-year-old Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse in the VA Hospital. When he tried to help a woman whom ICE had pushed to the ground, he was tackled by seven ICE thugs, shot multiple times. His gun, for which he had a permit to carry, hadn’t been drawn.

ICE thugs grabbed a five-year-old boy, using him as bait to trick someone into opening a locked door. Four of them held a man on the ground, while another shot a stream of noxious chemicals into his face. They pulled a disabled woman out of her car through a broken window. She had been on her way to a medical appointment at the Traumatic Brain Injury Center. They sprayed pepper gas into a car with three kids in the back seat, on the way home from a basketball game.

ICE thugs descended on a school, where they lined up students for no reason except to stoke fear. They refused to accept the identification cards carried by Native Americans, which ICE claimed were not valid. They broke out windows of passing cars, just to show they could.

Trump lied about all these actions and many more—blatantly lied, making the point he can say what he wants, send thugs to do whatever he wants, and no one will dare to stop him.

In Minneapolis, Trump met a population that wasn’t ready to be drummed into submission.

The murder of George Floyd by a cop had brought many people in Minneapolis out into the street in protest in 2020. That experience armed them to react when ICE invaded.

Neighborhood groups came back to life. Networks were re-established, letting people know where ICE was. Observers followed ICE around, using cell phones to document what ICE was doing. It’s how the lies about Nicole Good and Alex Pretti were refuted. Demonstrations were organized. After the first killing, tens of thousands marched through the city in 8-below-zero weather. None of this is enough to shrivel up ICE and blow it away. ICE and the Border Patrol are being used to establish the principle that the military will be used inside this country against the population. They are battering rams to get the population used to accepting discipline.

Trump may be a megalomaniac. He may wish to be a dictator. ICE may be thugs, but the issue goes far beyond Trump and ICE.

The U.S. is on the road to war. War is the ultimate answer to economic crises capitalism cannot overcome. And the system is in crisis today.

That is why we see preparations for war. Military spending is on the increase. New U.S. weapons were tested out in Ukraine and Gaza. New technology was tested by the bombing of Iran, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Nigeria and Venezuela. And the government is trying to muzzle the U.S. population, trying to get us used to obeying orders.

Whatever happens down this road, when the population fights back as it did in Minneapolis and elsewhere, it is arming itself for the future.