A week of ICE and outrage in Minneapolis: the turmoil of the days leading up to Alex Pretti’s death

Since the Trump administration sent ICE agents into the city in December, there have been 3,000 arrests and two fatal shootings. In the freezing cold, as the crisis deepens, the Minnesotan people continue to resist

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n many ways, Alex Pretti and Renee Good could have been any of the dozens of Minneapolis residents I met last week. Among them were teachers, store clerks, Uber drivers, charity workers and clergymen – a patchwork of humanity withstanding what many have called the Trump administration’s siege on their city, which began in December last year and has led to 3,000 arrests, two fatal shootings, and routine rights violations in an operation defined by government brutality.

What the administration has attempted to laud as the largest immigration operation in US history has instead become a fully fledged crisis, and the sharpest test of American democracy under Trump’s second term.

The resistance here goes well beyond activism and protest, as thousands of residents organise, and document what’s going on. As my colleagues have been documenting for weeks, acts of solidarity between neighbours in the frigid cold range from mutual aid to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) watch patrols.