Donald Trump has softened his stance — but after Minneapolis, America isn't fooled anymore
Demonstrators gather during a rally against federal immigration enforcement at Federal Courthouse Plaza on Tuesday, January 27, in Minneapolis. Picture: Adam Gray/AP
You would think by the way the Trump administration had started to talk this week that there was finally an end in sight for Minneapolis, and the reign of terror wielded upon it by ICE.
It only took a few days after Alex Pretti’s brutal killing by federal agents on the streets of the city for Kristi Noem, Steve Miller, Greg Bovino, et al to stop publicly calling him a terrorist. Or someone who wanted to massacre officers.
They had tried the same trick after ICE shot Renee Good earlier in the month. The people of Minnesota had never accepted it. Many elsewhere hadn’t either. But the rest of America wasn’t fooled this time.
Sensing what way the wind was blowing, President Donald Trump softened the stance. He took to his social media platform Truth Social to say he and Minnesota governor Tim Walz had had a “very good call” and seemed to be “on a similar wavelength”.
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This is the same Tim Walz who Mr Trump had originally claimed was “inciting insurrection”, in the wake of Mr Pretti’s killing.
Meanwhile, Greg Bovino, who had taken to having photo ops in what appeared to be blatant Nazi-esque garb on the snowy Minneapolis streets in a show of defiance to those opposing ICE, was taken out of the firing line. Mr Trump was sending another arch-loyalist, Tom Homan, in instead.
The president even hinted that he could follow through on the primary thing called for by all those taking to the streets in the general strike last week — getting ICE out of Minnesota.
For all the shifting rhetoric though, Minneapolis has by no means gotten a reprieve. Not yet. The legal battles to get members of its community out of detention centres are still ongoing.
The videos of what is going on this week just kept coming.
In one posted on Tuesday, agents are seen surrounding a crying woman holding a young girl as they detain her relative.
Through tears, the woman pleads in Spanish, repeatedly asking: “Sir, why? Why?” As the scene unfolds, onlookers shout in protest: “What the fuck are you doing? Don’t you have any humanity?” while others cried out: “Do not shoot him! Do not shoot him!” in apparent reference to the woman’s relative.
Another video that has emerged of an event, likely from a few days ago, shows armed agents — likely Minneapolis local or state police, based on their uniforms, rather than federal agents — throwing and kicking canisters of teargas as surrounding residents shout: “This is a preschool, you stupid motherfuckers. There are kids here, you fucking idiots.”
One video posted on Tuesday shows an agent sitting in his car as he openly threatens an onlooker, saying: “I will tell you this, brother. You raise your voice, I erase your voice.”
Another encounter captured on video on Tuesday showed an agent trying and failing to get into Ecuador’s consulate in Minneapolis. The video showed a consulate staffer running to the door to turn the agents away, telling them: “This is the Ecuadorian consulate. You’re not allowed to enter.”
Ecuador’s minister of foreign affairs filed a protest with the US embassy in Quito, the Ecuadorian capital, demanding such incidents “not be repeated”.
The killing of Mr Pretti did emphasise the importance of what ordinary Minnesotans are doing by taking to the streets to document the actions of ICE.
If no videos had been taken of him being shot and shared widely, there is a sense the Trump administration may have felt like it could stick to its brazen misrepresentation of what had happened. And feel even more emboldened to stick to its course.
From observing the blatant, and what some advocates call illegal, actions of ICE, they are holding them to account in the court of public opinion in a way the Trump administration won’t do in courts of law.
When the visited Minneapolis, the doors of what would usually be public buildings for people to visit, were closed. Video doorbells vet before you’re granted entry. Particularly for organisations that support immigrants, the last thing they want is for ICE to try to barge in. By keeping their doors closed, they know ICE needs a warrant.
In one particular instance, the day before the general strike, a woman who looked in her 60s knocked on the door of a particular building containing an organisation that supports immigrant rights.
Observing this from reception, it was clear she had to wait out in the bitter cold of –26C/-27C while she was probed using a Ring doorbell about why she was there.
She came for a high-vis vest as she wanted to volunteer to stand on a street corner and help to observe ICE’s actions. Even a non-threatening person like that is vetted before being granted entry, as the public at large remain so on edge in this situation.
And while there is little traffic on the roads and few people out and about, many who are actually out are doing so to do their bit to oppose what’s going on.
One of the few places with its doors open was Moloney’s Irish Imports in St Paul. Recently taken over by Emma Crawford, the daughter of an Irish emigrant from Limerick, and her husband James Berget, she said that people were coming in for the chats and to buy their comfort foods from home to get even a small break from everything going on.
“People are mostly staying at home,” Ms Crawford said. “People definitely are not out on the roads in a way they would normally be.
“Having gone through 2020, and what happened with the uprising after George Floyd was killed, Minneapolis has been organised. Like we kind of know how to support our community because we’ve gone through something like this before.”
As the community does what it can to rally around — observing ICE, delivering food parcels, attending protests — and show solidarity, the legal routes being taken against the federal government are starting to gather momentum.
A US District Court chief judge this week rebuked the administration for its actions, ordering it to be represented in court on Friday to say why it shouldn’t be held in contempt for violating court orders.
Mr Justice Patrick Schiltz said in a filing on one particular case that the man in question remains detained and has not received a hearing, as required under the law, after he was granted a “habeas petition”.
In fairly plain language, albeit using the word “alien” to describe people who’ve been detained, he set out what has been going on.
“This is one of dozens of court orders with which respondents have failed to comply in recent weeks,” the judge said.
“The practical consequence of respondents’ failure to comply has almost always been significant hardship to aliens [many of whom have lawfully lived and worked in the United States for years and done absolutely nothing wrong].
“The detention of an alien is extended, or an alien who should remain in Minnesota is flown to Texas, or an alien who has been flown to Texas is released there and told to figure out a way to get home.”
Mr Justice Schiltz said he had been “extremely patient” with the federal government, even though it decided to send thousands of agents to Minnesota to detain immigrants without any plan on how to deal with the hundreds of court filings and cases that would be filed as a result, as people sought to defend their rights.
This patience, he said, is at an end, as the administration had shown no willingness to abide with his court orders or show that they would be adhered to.
What the court ruling emphasises strongly is the sense that people on the ground have felt in their communities for two months now. That ICE feels above the law and is being emboldened to act as such.
People are scared of what these private militia — that feels it will face no consequences — will do. But they’re standing up to it anyway.
These battles continued in court throughout this week, with another judge on Wednesday blocking the Trump administration from detaining refugees in Minnesota, following a spate of arrests in the state.
Lawyers on behalf of over 100 refugees who had lawfully resettled in the state say their clients have been arrested in recent weeks, with some flown to detention centres in Texas hundreds of miles away.
The ones who were abruptly released then had to find their own way home, and pay for it too.
One of the plaintiffs in the case, referred to as D Doe, said he was at home with his family when a man in plain clothes knocked on his door and said that he had hit Mr Doe’s car. When he went outside to check the damage, “he was surrounded by armed men and arrested”.
He was detained first in Minnesota, and then flown to Texas, where he was “interrogated about his refugee status”, according to the filing. He was released in Texas and had to find his way back home.
“I fled my home country because I was facing government repression,” said Doe. “I can’t believe it’s happening again here.”
Detaining refugees who are lawfully living there comes as part of the Department of Homeland Security’s re-vetting process, dubbed Operation Parris. The federal government has described it as “a sweeping initiative re-examining thousands of refugee cases through new background checks and intensive verification of refugee claims”.
Advocates call it a trumped-up excuse to detain immigrants, even those lawfully living and working in their communities.
“When you come to the United States, I’ve lost count of the amount of screenings you have to go through,” said Jane Graupman, executive director of the International Institute of Minnesota.
“You are vetted by the FBI, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security. It’s multiple government agencies, and you have biometric screenings too. People don’t understand that.
“The most important thing about all of this is that our clients have been arrested and detained, but have legal status and have done nothing wrong.
“You get abducted in Minnesota and released in Texas, and you have no idea where you are. You’ve never been to Texas. People have to find their way home and have no money. Often don’t have documents. It’s the cruellest thing I’ve seen in 37 years in this work.”
Julia Decker, policy director for the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, said the different rules of courts down in Texas also make it “impossible” for lawyers from the mid-west state to represent clients down there.
“The out-of-state transfers, some of that is very intentional as it takes people away from their lawyers,” she said. “It takes them away from their family members.”
A detention centre in Texas is where five-year-old Liam Ramos was taken with his father, with images of the young boy with a school bag on his back being detained going viral and causing outrage.
The backlash against this case in particular meant that opposition to the Trump administration’s policies spilled into Texas itself as protesters clashed with state troopers outside the detention centre this week.
Local democrat politicians also visited the centre where Liam and his father are being held, including congressman Joaquin Castro.
“I demanded his release and told him how much his family, his school, and our country loves him and is praying for him,” he said.
His school reports that Liam has been in poor health since his detention.
Even with the softening of rhetoric from Donald Trump after the killing of Alex Pretti this week, this incredibly traumatic period is still by no means over for Liam or his family, or the people of Minneapolis.
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