Casual Minnesota consumers of the news or social media are being, not so subtly, influenced to believe that enforcement efforts by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are creating “chaos” and are widely opposed.
The truth is the “chaos” surrounding nearly every ICE operation is manufactured, and while that manufactured chaos is impacting public support for the enforcement, the effort still has significant support — support that must be more carefully maintained going forward.
The chaos
Yesterday, ICE agents in St. Paul attempted to arrest a Honduran man whom ICE had a warrant for. Reporting by the Pioneer Press indicates the man fled ICE agents and that an ICE vehicle was rammed in the process. The man was able to flee into a house in the Payne-Phalen neighborhood. ICE surrounded the house and eventually secured the man’s cooperation to surrender.
However, while this arrest was taking place, a group called the Immigrant Defense Network (IDN) activated its “rapid response network,” which resulted in an estimated 200 people descending upon the agents as they carried out their lawful work. Had this group not inserted itself in this lawful arrest, there would have been no chaos. The manufactured response was similar to ICE activity on East Lake Street in Minneapolis earlier this year, and elsewhere around the country, where protestors agitate the situation to force a response by agents, only to then claim victimhood.
This is not organic, but rather a highly organized effort to disrupt and intimidate ICE, while gaslighting the public into believing the chaos the protestors created was created by ICE.
These protestors aren’t family or neighbors in the area. They don’t arrive with peaceful intent to simply observe or express their First Amendment rights — they arrive to create conflict and chaos.
The group’s tactics are to surround agents and block their paths of travel on foot and by vehicle. Video shared on X shows protestors aggressively surrounding and shouting at agents. One video shows Minnesota House Representative Athena Hollins among the group yelling at the agents, while another unidentified protestor screams at the agents, calling them “fucking pigs” and demanding that they “get out of here.” Another video shows people blocking the ICE vehicles as they attempted to leave the area — an action that resulted in pepper spray being deployed by St. Paul police officers called to the area because of the threat the group was posing to the ICE agents.
The IDN has only been active since early 2025, so little is known about who is behind the group. But it is well organized, and its followers are aggressive. The Sahan Journal published some interesting background found here. In it, the IDN organizers discussed some of the coordination, travel, and training taking place with like-minded organizations around the country. People don’t become this organized, fund travel and training across the nation, and create layered notification systems organically. There is big money behind this, no doubt.
To better prepare its own response strategy, the IDN sent a leadership delegation to Los Angeles to be trained by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network on how to adapt their Adopt a Corner model, Torres Desantiago said. In addition, members from the Center for Popular Democracy will soon come to Minnesota for two days of training with IDN.
Sahan Journal
Unfortunately, the IDN has politicians all too willing to parrot their narratives.
The narrative
Not surprisingly, many politicians who oppose the President jump at the chance to amplify the “chaos” narrative. Does anyone believe the term chaos is being used by so many, just by chance? You shouldn’t.
This amounts to professional-grade gaslighting.
Perhaps no complaint is as egregious as Governor Walz’s suggestion that ICE should be reaching out to his office in advance of making arrests. This is the man who called ICE agents the “modern day Gestapo” during a commencement address at the University of Minnesota’s Law School graduation last spring – an accusation he has repeatedly failed to walk back. To then act surprised when ICE doesn’t share information with his office about enforcement operations is truly rich.
Blame sanctuary policies
In one of his first moves, President Trump appointed Tom Homan to be the “Border Czar.” Homan has refused to play into the narrative that ICE’s efforts to aggressively pursue people in the U.S. illegally and deport them have gone well beyond its stated goal to prioritize criminals.
Homan has been clear since early 2025 that although ICE would be prioritizing the arrests of illegal aliens who had criminal records, collateral arrests of those without criminal records were bound to occur with more frequency, especially in jurisdictions that had adopted sanctuary-style policies. This occurs because sanctuary policies prohibit local law enforcement and jails from transferring custody of people already under arrest to ICE. When local jurisdictions release these people, it forces ICE into the community to re-arrest them. When agents are forced into the community, they are more likely to encounter others who have violated our immigration laws but have otherwise remained law-abiding. Homan has rightfully said, ICE agents will not turn their back on these situations, and those people will be arrested as well — a situation labelled as a collateral arrest. Local officials who have supported and passed sanctuary policies have only themselves to blame for the increase in collateral arrests.
The truth
President Trump was elected with a mandate to enforce our immigration laws — and he has kept his campaign promise. The public needs to avoid falling victim to the efforts to delegitimize this success.
In October, Secretary Noem was in Minnesota to speak on the immigration enforcement effort. During this address, she announced that as of October, ICE had arrested approximately 4,300 people in Minnesota in 2025. 3,316 of them had criminal histories, 98 of them were documented gang members, 11 were suspected terrorists, and 2 were foreign fugitives.
Secretary Noem also reported that as of October, ICE had arrested 515,000 people nationwide for immigration violations. In addition, another 1.6 million had “self-deported” upon warnings from the Trump Administration that failure to do so would result in a permanent ban. According to ICE detention data over the four years of the Biden administration, ICE detained an average of 268,540, while allowing tens of millions to overwhelm our border.
Furthermore, ICE is positively impacting our public safety in Minnesota through its enforcement action as evidenced by press releases like the one below:
Takeaway
President Trump won a second term last November with heavy support to address the failed border security and immigration system under President Biden. Throughout the early months of his term, the President’s approval rating involving immigration was consistently positive. He continues to fulfill his promise to secure the border and to begin removing the millions of people who have illegally entered the U.S. over many years.
Unfortunately, as is the case with so many issues, the fickle public has begun to abandon its overwhelming support for this aggressive immigration enforcement — and the efforts of IDN and others are a key factor. What once amounted to overwhelming support for the effort has now begun to wane. As of November, the Real Clear Politics average for all polling on the President’s approval rating on immigration stood at 51% disapproval and 46% approval.
The Administration must avoid unforced errors in this effort — the margin is too thin. Focus must remain on prioritizing the worst of the worst — those with criminal records — while avoiding situations that opponents will capitalize upon.
Bolstering ICE’s public information officer complement would go a long way to combating the misinformation machine that has been set in motion. That isn’t selling out; it is recognizing the public’s fickle nature, and the need to own the narrative and to maintain public support.