Paul Cantrell
You might be thinking that this is some unusual incident, that the press is cherry-picking and dramatizing the most sensational events.
I live in Minneapolis. The location in this article is pretty close to me. And I am telling you:
The press is •under•-covering what’s happening here. ICE is doing absolutely batshit stuff all the time, every single day, all over the city.
It is exhausting.
https://mastodon.social/@AnnaAnthro/115719761333110884
Solitha
@inthehands Looks like that account got shut down for some reason.
Paul Cantrell
Not sure what account you’re talking about, but I see no sign of anything being shut down
Paul Cantrell
This happened when the temperature (actual air temperature, not “feels like”) was around -4°F / -20°C.
Just to be clear.
Paul Cantrell
Here’s a condensed version of a letter I sent to the Star Tribune last week.
I know that the editorial staff was considering publishing it, because they contacted me about it. Ultimately, however, they opted not to.
Michael Busch
I have not seen ICE or Border Patrol in Saint Paul's Ward 3. The worst offenses have been in Midway and Payne-Phalen.
The demography of where in town is getting most targeted is of course no accident.
Paul Cantrell
100%
Paul Cantrell
I am pleased to report that, unlike the Star Tribune, local residents are very much stepping up to meet the moment.
Paul Cantrell
News spreads like wildfire via private messages from neighbor to neighbor, and there’s •so• much that’s no making the news:
Person abducted on this block. Convoy of ICE vehicles spotted on this street. Person abducted on that block.
ALL DAY EVERY DAY
Paul Cantrell
And also, again and again — people need to know this! — I get these messages too:
ICE started to gather, but dispersed when too many observers showed up.
ICE vehicle headed back to base after being tailed in circles for an hour.
ICE started abducting someone, but let them go as the gathered crowd got larger and larger.
These people •really• do not want to be observed. Typical bullies: they cosplay tough guys, they waggle their gear around, but they •behave• like they’re afraid.
Paul Cantrell
Feeling helpless? Don’t. All of this resistance makes a real and concrete difference. Honestly, the fact that this huge chunk of local residents is giving a visible, sustained “HELL NO” all the time is basically the •only• thing holding them back at this point — but it •is• making a difference.
If there were a sense of blanket permission, a sense that nobody is watching and nobody cares, a sense that there will never be consequences…we’d be in a whole different circle of hell right now.
Paul Cantrell
Local community groups? Busting their asses, but they live and die on volunteer support. Legal system? Too slow, too compromised. City, county, state elected officials? Grasping for something they can. Local police? Useless or worse than useless, of course.
BUT…all the above are formed by, shaped by, and constrained by popular sentiment. An active, defiant citizenry changes how all these institutions behave. Police know, politicians know, and yes, even judges know: they can only stray so far from what people will tolerate.
This active resistance? Hell yeah, it matters. It’s the short-term •and• the long-term.
Paul Cantrell
Some of the little things that don’t make the news really get under my skin.
ICE agents blow through stop signs, speed, drive recklessly.
They take off their license plates (illegally), cover their license plates (illegally), •swap• license plates (illegally). We’ve seen the same vehicle show up with different plates on different days There are photos circulating of the •same• license plate number on multiple ICE vehicles side by side.
Paul Cantrell
Illegal. Completely illegal. But everyone agrees: city isn’t allowed to stop ICE from breaking state and local laws, only issue citations afterwards.
To mismarked vehicles. With masked drivers who refuse to identify themselves. How do you cite •that•?!
Paul Cantrell
ICE eats at restaurants I know and love, nice comfy meal before going back out there and destroying more lives.
It’s weird how much this enrages me. I hope the restaurant staff knows who they’re serving.
I heard a rumor — this one not well-substantiated — that they ate at a restaurant and then come back and raided it the next day.
Paul Cantrell
ICE assaulting a pregnant woman.
Covering their license plates with fake spray-on snow to hide the numbers.
Getting pelted with snowballs by the crowd and responding with pepper spray — which only increased the snowballs.
Just this afternoon’s local news.
Rich Felker
@inthehands Police should be under orders to treat them exactly the same way they'd treat activists doing those things.
Rich Felker
@inthehands Or for that matter, armed kidnappers associated with drug trafficking or other organized crime.
Nazo
@inthehands It scares me that someday they'll be given full gestapo powers — but that's exactly why we need to wreck them now while all it takes is people being loud to do it.
Paul Cantrell
Exactly.
WesDym
@inthehands I don't believe that's true, though I admit I'm not sure what the margin is. States may not interfere with federal agents doing their jobs, within the law. But local cops could stop and arrest an ICE agent for drunk driving, for example, even if they're on duty. That's not interfering with the performance of their duty, because drunk driving is not part of their remit, and it's a public safety issue requiring immediate responce.
Paul Cantrell
@wesdym
Correct or not, the legal advice that cities are receiving is that doing anything that “obstructs” a federal LE operation — even doing a drunk driving check — would place the cop and the city in legal jeopardy. If you want to argue with that, take it up with the various lawyers who are dispensing that advice, because it is the •advice• — not the actual reality of the law, whatever it may be — that determines what happens on the ground.
Glyph
@inthehands relevant, if you had not already seen it: https://aphyr.com/posts/397-i-want-you-to-understand-chicago
I'm so sorry this is happening to your community.
Paul Cantrell
A request for everyone: please don’t be this person. We’re going through a miserable time here in MSP, and reply guy snot does not make it better.
A •lot• of replies I got are about what is illegal, or should be illegal, or must be illegal, and…yeah, we know, believe me, we know. If what you’re offering is commiseration — and with most replies — I welcome that wholeheartedly! This sucks, and it’s nice to hear people say, “Yeah, that sucks.”
But please don’t come into my mentions to argue. Wrong time, wrong target.
Paul Cantrell
The thing this reply guy doesn’t get, the thing that’s so crucial to this moment, is that being correct about the law counts for absolute diddly shit in the moment. The law is slow. The law comes later…if ever. With these people on our streets right now, the only thing that matters is what people believe: what they believe the law is, what they believe is safe, what they believe they can get away with, what they believe they are capable of doing.
The law is slow. The law catches up later. Belief is •now•.
Paul Cantrell
If anybody knows how to convince city leaders and police chiefs that they •can• enforce traffic laws against ICE, or convince ICE officers that they will be prosecuted for their actions, or convince everyone that ICE officers who do not provide proof of identity can legally be treated as unknown assailants and kidnappers, or convince judges that Minneapolis / St. Paul is not “the border,” or…or…or…undo any of these nonsense beliefs, please do that! But it’s the •convincing•, not the being correct, that matters there.
Paul Cantrell
Right now, belief — legally correct or not, morally sound or not — is keeping an authoritarian bubble inflated. Belief.
You can yell that it’s wrong, you can be correct, and…you’ll be yelling into the wind.
•Belief• is what’s creating MSP’s current reality.
Paul Cantrell
@xorgrox
Believe me, we are keenly aware of this
xorox
@inthehands This is very much like Russia. If you guys will not stop it it will enslave you.
Cory Dransfeldt :demi:
@inthehands our local sheriff has taken it upon himself to cooperate with ICE up to the legal limit of what he’s allowed to under SB 54 in California. My town (Camarillo) also contracts out police services to said sheriff. When volunteers call in violations on ICE’s part to the local police, they’re ignored. When ICE does the reverse, multiple deputies show up immediately.
Paul Cantrell
@tarheel
Walz has made some similar efforts. However, the power and reach of state & local gov seems to be limited legally, and even more severely so in practice: they already do a bunch of illegal stuff with impunity, so it’s not clear how much it helps to make even more things illegal.
P.S. That Google AI text is pretty hilarious. (Is “Pritzker license plate” a special kind of license plate, it assumes we’re asking, like a “Veteran’s plate” or something?)
John Lusk
Has Walz not done a Pritzker yet?
Paul Cantrell
@tarheel
The important different between MN and IL is that our state senate is essentially deadlocked right now, so they’re simply not going to pass anything bold this term. Walz can say what we wants — and he’s been raising what ruckus he can, rattling Noem’s cage etc. — but we’re not going to see any useful new laws to reign in ICE this term. Alas.
Paul Cantrell
This is a really good question from @mathaetaes. The first thing I keep telling everyone in other cities who wonders how they can help, what they can do:
Get organized NOW. Meet your neighbors NOW. Get your neighbors set up with secure messaging NOW. Form multiple hyper-local neighborhood social groups NOW. Organize a block picnic or community craft night or repair workshop or whatever NOW. Get contact info for the human beings who physically show up for neighborhood events NOW.
Form all those local connections ASAP, so that they’re there when you need them. The hardest lines of communication to establish will be the ones with the people closest to you. If you get local lines open in advance, you’ll be in a far, far better place.
Esteban K�ber :rust:
@inthehands they don't need to be right. They don't even need to believe they are right. They just need to believe that it won't matter.
Paul Cantrell
@Bfordham
Yeah, it was a particularly sad interaction.
Bryan L. Fordham
@inthehands Wait, so he replies to you, then tells you to "go be smug on someone else's timeline?"
Uh...
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