It Could Happen Here - Everyone vs ICE: On the Ground In Minnesota

Episode Date: January 27, 2026

Margaret and James reflect on their time in Minnesota, the incredible community response to the immigration raids, and what other communities can learn from the Twin Cities. Links: Rent Support for neighbors in Phillips https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-phillips-families-in-urgent-need Rent Support for neighbors in Central https://www.gofundme.com/f/critical-rent-assistance-for-central-neighborhood-families Rent Support for neighbors in Powderhorn https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-powderhorn-families-in-crisis Supplies for Political Art Making https://givebutter.com/spno Protective Gear for Legal Observers https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-equip-twin-cities-legal-observers-with-ppe Diapers and Menstrual Supplies  https://secure.everyaction.com/jLLKnfwWk0qdptMbYLoyPQ2 Abolish Ice Shirts https://www.eaglescreenprint.com/printshop/p/defend-612-abolish-ic3-wnj6e Northstar Front Line Street Medics https://www.paypal.com/biz/profile/northstarhealth Twin Cities Swoletariat Bail Fund Venmo: @TCSwoletariat Cashapp: $TCSwoletariatSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We're on each other's shows this week. We just spent three days in mini. Minneapolis culminating in the general strike last Friday, and we were there to cover the rapid response networks and the mutual aid networks that people have been building. And that's what we're going to be talking about in these two episodes. But the reason that we're recording this little pickup right here to listen to at the front of it is that nine hours after we finished recording these episodes, shortly after both of us had left the city, a man named Alex Pretti was killed by federal agents in what is.

is obviously something that you all are familiar with. And we just kind of want to mark that because I think the tone in what we're talking about right now is we're so excited about these networks that people have been building. But obviously, the tone would have changed a little bit had we recorded it only nine hours later and we would have been talking about something slightly different.

And that's just the breaks of podcasting. Yeah. The fundamental message, I guess, wouldn't change, but we all know that doing what these people do can have terrible costs, and we were reminded of that again Saturday morning. And I guess we should just say that we grieve his passing and we're sending our thoughts to his family and the people who loved him. Yeah.

It's could be a really hard time for them. Absolutely. Hello, and welcome to cool people could happen here. I'm one of your hosts, Margaret Kiljoy, and with me today as my other host is just, James. Hi, Margaret. We are doing a special crossover episode of It Could Happen Here and Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff and we're doing it because James and I are in a sunny Minneapolis, which is true.

The sun was out. Yeah, I saw the sun. Yeah. I saw it through a cloud of cold, cold air. The vapor of our own breath freezing. I have seen more people today with frozen eyelashes than any other point in my life put together. Yeah, I breathed into my goggles briefly, and that froze. Yeah, I took them off of my eyes froze. Yeah. Yeah. It was minus 30 Fahrenheit feel, I guess, with wind chill.

What is that in, what is that in Celsius? They come together at minus 40, so it's going to be like minus 35, I think, something like that. Yeah. It was, for those who are not familiar, cold, very cold. And so the two of us came up to Minneapolis a few days ago, and we have spent the past three days here talking to everyone we can about the rapid response networks that people have built to try to keep themselves and their neighbors safe from ICE and federal oppression and the sort of federal occupation of the city. And so what we thought we would do. This is kind of, neither of us have written scripts yet. We are still here. We just had a fun slightly. hectic day where we spent only about 20 minutes reasonably sure we were getting arrested. We didn't get arrested. No.

Thank you, comrade train. Yeah. We got on a light rail and we're able to leave a kettle by a light rail, which is a new experience for me. Yeah, very European. Yeah. And yeah, we came up here to talk to people. And that's been the story that I'm most interested in, right, is that we have all of these

stories that are absolutely true. The stakes are really high here. but the things that people are building here are really incredible and people know that they're holding down ice here in a way that no one would have expected, I think. And I don't know, so yeah, should we just talk about kind of our days? Yeah, I think I just want to ground people before we do that in that so much as a reporting on Minneapolis has focused on trauma

and so much reporting on migrants focuses on trauma, right? And I think people who have listened to our podcast know that that's not really a game. And so I understand when they hear that we've been in Minneapolis, I think we're going to talk about horrific things that we've seen. I want to talk more about the beautiful things that we've seen because I think those get missed and they're super important, especially if you're listening in another city in the US, which will face some degree of this

or is facing some degree of this, right? So I want to ground this in saying that rather than talking about the trauma people experiencing, which I'm sure will be incidental, I want to talk about how closely people are holding each other here and how special that is and what we can take from it. Yeah, and like without obviously, we're like, we're not trying to paint a rosy picture

of what's happening here because what's happening here is like, I, I'm a cold-hearted journalist historian person and I was crying multiple times in the past couple days as people told me about some of the stuff they've experienced, but some of it has been, you know, we've asked people, we've said like, hey, what do you want people to take away from this? And one of the main things is that kind of a like,

hey, you can do it too kind of thing. And the other thing that people have talked about is like, it would be really nice for people to see that what we're doing is amazing here, even if it's like coming out of such, such horrendous adversity. Yeah. Like one of the things

that I've taken throughout my career is that in hard times we can build beautiful things. Yeah. That's what I wrote my book about, really. Yeah. And what I've tried to report

on all over the world, I think this is more evidence of that. And so, like, you're going to hear things which were amazing and the people who have done them are wonderful, but they're not uniquely special.

You can do all these things too. And, like, I want you to see that it is, where you live. Yeah. So one of the first things that we did when we got here, we talked about, you know, to put ourselves in the story,

I drove a long way and James flew a long way. Yeah. You know, I picked up James at the airport, and we came to where we're staying. And we were talking about, like, and it was late at night, and we're like, all right, what are we trying to do tomorrow?

And what are we trying to see? And what are we trying to learn? Yeah. And one of the main things, one of the first questions we had was like, what's the scale of what's happening here? Yeah. Right?

Like what were your impressions of the scale of what was happening? Hmm. We should talk about what's happening here. Just like really quickly. I bet you all know about it in the news. Why do I have a different tone of voice when I'm talking into a microphone in this way?

And usually I'm in a Zoom call, but instead we're both sitting in a bedroom on opposite ends of the bedroom, talking into microphones. And I somehow have a different cadence. And I don't know how I feel about it. Also, I've had to drink caffeine, which I don't do.

because we've had to do an awful lot. And anyway, what was I about to ask you? How widespread stuff is? Oh, yeah. Like, what was there? Okay, we were going to talk about what's happening here. Yeah, so if people aren't familiar, right, ICE, which is immigration and customs enforcement, the agency charged with removing people from the United States who are non-citizens, right,

who are considered deportable. Specifically, the branch of immigration and customs enforcement that we are seeing here is enforcement removal operations. aka ERO. We're also seeing Border Patrol, right? In the last year, actually more than a year now, right? It's begun under the Biden administration with Operation Return to Sender in the Central Valley of California.

We are seeing Border Patrol agents used to do internal enforcement, right, of people who are generally documented, sometimes undocumented, but always non-citizens. They are detaining them in the street. They are detaining them outside schools. They detaining them at the bus stop. They're detaining them at places to work. And when I say detaining, that's a misnomer.

They're kidnapping people. They're grabbing people out of cars. They're snatching children and using them to bait out their parents. They're smashing people's car windows and pulling them out. They're barging into businesses. In one case, they ate at a Mexican restaurant and then arrested the workers there later that day. I've visited a lot of places where terrible things happen, right? The shit that is happening here, it's the shit that people come to.

America to get away from. It is men in masks with guns, pulling people who have done nothing wrong, who are here, not harming anyone, people who do not have criminal records just for the, I don't feel like I need to say it on this show, but I need to say that every time I talk about this, right? Like the vast majority, something like 80% last time I looked at a stats of these people have no criminal records, and a criminal record could be something like fucking parking in the wrong place. I've been arrested.

Yeah. Also, I don't care. I've done a lot of crime. Everyone listening to this has done a lot of crime, whether or not you've been caught. Yeah, yeah. You probably, you're speeding as a crime. You sped. Yeah, you went a little bit too late through a red light, whatever.

Like, I don't think that matters. Right, exactly. Even if you're a lib, even if you believe that our justice system is fair, it should be fair for everyone. There should be different consequences for different people. Let's move past that, right? So, how widespread is this? Margaret and I got in late we sat up even later talking

we looked at the shitty vegan pizza we ate it we kind of was shitty I'm both sad about it yeah I've had better I won't name drop yeah we uh we work up the next morning

and within five minutes of our waking up we heard like beep beep beep beep beep beep coming down the street yeah both Margaret and I ran to the front door spent a while trying to put on snow boots and watched an ICE agent rolling down the street

in what they normally drive in, which are rental SUVs with the windows blacked out. Yeah. And people following them, alerting the blog, the ice was here, right? Yeah. And we're not downtown.

We, like, picked an area that's, like, slightly... It's single family. We got warned that nowhere is goon-free. Yeah, and they were right. Nowhere is goon-free, right? Yeah. I mean, we have probably been within a 30-minute radius of the...

That's what we're staying at for three or four days, right? We've seen ice pile their car into a telephone pole. We've seen spent munitions on the floor. Ice tear gas some people, a few blocks from us, but they were gone by the time we got there. And I don't want to get this out, like front and center at the start. It was not ICE who kettle protesters today. It was Hennepin County Sheriff's Office. It was not ICE who arrested people who approached them with their hands in the air,

trying to work out what was going on. That was Hennepin County Sheriff's Office. I've seen press conferences with Minneapolis Police. I don't know what their deal is. I'll tell you that Hennepin County Sheriff's Office for actively participating in this, right? Yeah. I'm not buying this local cops good. This will shock listeners. Yeah. I'm not buying the local cops good, federal cops bad narrative. Yeah. When cops get asked what side they're on there on the side of the other cops. Well, it's interesting because the thing that you have is that you have, you know, there's the great classic, like if those who are neutral in times of oppression or siding with the oppressors, right?

Yeah. Because the overall situation here, it seems to be, is that you do have much more, the oppressive force here is an outside forces compared to any other protest movement I've seen in the United States. People are very aware that it is outsiders who have come to their city to steal their neighbors. Yeah. Right. And so because of that, the federal forces are the forces that everyone's mad at.

whereas a lot of the people who are standing up to federal forces are neutral or fine with police and even like the concept of other federal agencies. They just don't want people snatching neighbors. Now, that's not universal, but it's like some of the people we've talked to. Yeah. But what state level law enforcement has decided is that they are committed to keeping the peace and they can't keep the peace against ICE,

which they probably on some level morally know that they need to, but they don't. And instead they're like, all right, well, we can mess up with the, you know, know. The protesters. And that won't be protested. There ain't protesters. Right. But yeah, like, when we saw people drive down honking, the very first thing that we experienced in this town, and we weren't sure what it was. We were like, is that people following ice and honking? And I had done a fair amount of research before I came, and I kind of knew about the whistles and, but I didn't really know about this, like, incredible network that people have built. Yeah.

That what we saw was not in any way exceptional, right? That was just a... Standard Street on a Wednesday morning. Yeah. And so we get into my vehicle and we start driving. You know, we have some places we think we're going to go check out. We have some, you know, friends who are local who are going to talk to us. And we get like two blocks, three blocks before we find people protecting Somali daycare. Yeah.

Right. And we, well, before that, right, we went to the food co-op to get food. Yeah. And we went into the food co-op and we got our food. And on the way out, we see this big old. line on the door, which is like, we're closed on the 23rd, ice out of Minnesota. Yeah. Ice out of Minneapolis, whatever it is.

And it's in English and Spanish and it's like in solidarity with our migrant neighbors, we're not opening. Yeah. And like, obviously it's a food co-op, right? Right. It's not a reactionary space. That sort of planted a seed for me like, ah, like this is a big ass business, you know, like it's not a business that necessarily relies on migrant labor, but I can see it

being a space where people are in solidarity. I wonder how wide that is. Right. And they, even in the, you know, the time we've been here, I've seen businesses put those up that didn't have them when we were going out on Wednesday, right? Like people being like, nah, this isn't right. But yeah, to go back, we, what happened was that Margaret was driving. I was riding next to Margaret. I saw a group of people, one guy had kind of tanned trousers on and I was like, stop. Margaret, Margaret, slow down,

signaled and turned into the parking lot of these folks were at. And they immediately, they had seen us, right? Ham on the brakes and turn up in a vehicle with that. state plates, then we, then we better go speak to these people. We probably scared them. What's funny is, we thought we scared them. No. They're not scared of us. They're looking to see if they're on to us. And it's such a huge difference, right? Because when people are scoping us out, they're not like, oh, that might be ice. They're like, is that ice? Let's fucking get them. Yeah, yeah. Like, if that's ice, we need to roll. We need to, we need to let people know. We need to start honking. We need to start whistling. So we get out, walk over and we start talking to

these people and like that the person who was most forthright most forthcoming was an older lady I mean she shared her age as I think it's fine to say I think it was 76 yeah it's probably around zero Fahrenheit like yeah even like that warmer than that right so like you know minus 10 Celsius something there yeah um ladies not wearing a hat yeah just give a fuck yeah I'm chilly in my like brand new winter clothes that I wear and I live outside in the mouth I don't live outside anymore but I live in the mountains. Yeah, yeah, I'm wearing all my nice technical gear. I just got a poncho on, a parker.

Yeah. And she's just, like, so zealous. Like, she's so happy to be doing what she's doing and so proud of herself for being the person who did it. Yeah. And she's every right to be. In an earnest way. Like, in a way that, not in a self-congratulatory way. Just in a, like, I am 100% convinced I'm in the right and I will talk to you.

Yeah. And I will say it with my whole chest. Yeah. Like, do you want to share some of the stuff she said? I thought it was really... One of the things that she said that, yeah, like, I mean, you know, she... I didn't get the impression she was, like, a wild political radical or something, right? And she's just like, you know, my father fought fascists in France and Italy, and, like, he would be proud of me.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure he would. He would be. Yeah. And... I'm sure it would be disgusted at what's fucking happening. Yeah.

And, you know, and while we're talking... the Somali family whose daycare it is comes out and gives us simbosas. And we're like, no, no, no, we're journalists. You don't have to give us anything. We're like not even helping. We're like, and they're like, you're here. You're with us. You are taking food.

Yeah, the guy was like, no, we're Somalis. We feed people like, what's your dealer? You're vegetarian? We're like, we're like, we're vegan. Yeah. So he comes out, goes back, comes out with the vegan ones. You know, like, and they were delicious. Yeah, no, there was some best food I've ever eaten.

As we're standing there, more people come and go. So you're like, okay, this is happening. here, right? You know, no pun intended. And as we leave, we talk to a few more people, we leave. And some of the other people we talk to are like, and they're people from different scenes. It's not, you know, like... It's not just the old lady scene, right? It's a diverse

crowd. Right. And you know, we talk to a father who I tangentially know through the metal scene who is like, yeah, my kid goes to school here. Yeah. Like, no one is taking kids while I can stand here. And you, you know,

and he was like, I have work to be doing. He's like, we're supposed to be recording this band today or whatever, and he's like, no, I'm here. I'm doing this. There's no sadness. You know, there's just... No, he's like, this is what I have to be doing. It's the most important thing to do. Every two blocks, there are people on the corner.

Yeah. Usually two people, sometimes alone. And those, what we later learned, because we were like, holy shit, there's ice watchers everywhere. Yeah. Those are just the marked people we see. Yeah, yeah. That's the minority. Yeah.

There are people driving constantly in very organized, but entirely decentralized networks of rapid response where they have come together in these like hyper-local signal loops. Signal is an encrypted messaging app that you can use on any device, Android or iPhone. The government can't break its encryption. However, there's no truly safe system. It's the safest one we have, and it automatically deletes messages after it. period of time. If you set it up to. Yeah. And which you should. And so people are using this system. And, you know, a ton of these people had never heard of signal before in their life.

And now they're using this system. And also we talked to folks and people felt that like a certain level of transparency about the networks their building is very useful. Yeah. We should probably address this head on. Like, just to be super clear, like, everything we are sharing is because people have implored us to share it. Right. We did not sneak in and find its information. People openly gave it to us because they wanted you. you to hear it. Right. Because they understand that this is the kind of system that is currently proving effective and they want people to learn from what they're doing. And so they've created hyper-local systems like block by block. You have groups where neighbors are able to check in on

neighbors and people are able to say, hey, I saw this thing, right? You know, and so there is constant presence all over town. And when I say town, we spent time in Minneapolis, but we have talked to a lot of people who say the St. Paul is doing a similar thing. The suburbs are doing a similar thing. Even some small towns elsewhere in Minnesota are starting to do this. Yeah, I don't quite know where the town is, but if people are local, like a few years ago, I went to a massive rent fare here and I've really outed myself. It's okay. I brought a cloak I must were. And folks all the way out there are doing it too, which is, that was, that place had a rural Midwest vibe, let me tell you. And so people are doing this all over. I have never seen

unity like this. No. The only time I've seen a city this much in lockstep is when I was in Camislo in 2023 and where is that? Camislo is a capital of what is generally referred to as Rajava

the autonomous administration of North and East Syria and at that time we were being bombed by Turkey. Turkey takes offense at Kurdish people having any autonomy and this is what that felt like because there is someone in invading your town and taking your friends.

Yeah. And everyone, I remember there were funerals, right? So one bomb killed 34, SAE, shot at the internal security forces. Yeah. And I remember everyone rolled out for the funeral. Like, it was like a general strike. Yeah. And that's what it feels like here.

Like, you could walk through town the day that happened and see people were sad. And they were sharing their sadness. Yeah. And here people are mad and they're sharing their anger, but also their love for one another. Yeah. even when someone was killed by ice, this did not stop people from doing this work. It brought more people out to do this work

because people are like, no, this work needs to be done. And on some level, the scale is that, right? Because if someone is seeking asylum, like no one runs unless they have a reason. And so sending people back to the places that they've sought asylum from often just means killing people. Yeah, I mean, let's look at the things

have happened in the last month, right? Gay men being sent back to Iran, where the punishment for that is death. People from this community, Koran people, right, being sent back to Myanmar, where we know that they are directly delivered to a military prison. They are sending people back to Mauritania,

where again, you can be punished for being queer by death. Right. Like, what is happening here is that people's lives are at stake. I think sometimes people think, oh, it's inconvenient you go back to a place where life is less, You know, you don't have a target. No, that's not a deal.

Yeah. We're sending people back to Venezuela, right? We're sending people from the U.S. to Venezuela. The U.S., notably, just kidnapped the president of Venezuela. Those people aren't going to have a nice time. Yeah. Right? And if you were a U.S. intelligence agency and you wanted to insert people into Venezuela,

that's how you would do it. Yeah, and Venezuela knows that. Venezuela, yeah, they're not that dumb and they are very paranoid. Yeah. And they're a state which has a great deal of ability. to do fine and it's based on that paranoia. And so people are aware of the stakes and they're doing something about it.

And what's cool, it's so interesting because at the same time, you know, there's a little bit of like, yeah, we're built different and certainly around the cold. That is absolutely true. And there is all of this stuff in the history of at least Minneapolis that people have built resistance out of, right?

You know, all of this very active multiculturalism going back decades. We've talked to organizers who grew up, and we talked to an organizer who grew up in the American Indian movement and was talking about like black and indigenous solidarity going back to the 60s and 70s, right? And, you know, and was saying like,

there's all of this multicultural and solidarity. There's also all of these like cultural events, right? They have this huge Mayday parade, right? Or festival every year. It's funny, I've spent a lot of time in Minneapolis, but I've never actually been here for this, but everyone's always talking about it. Where basically people go to this park

and build puppets and build giant puppets, and build giant puppets together. But it's decentralized. And so there's all of this history of decentralized organizing. And in 2020, of course, the uprising kind of began here. And people are very aware of that.

And so they have all of these networks that have been built for years. And they weren't necessarily like crazy active in the intervening years. But people know each other on some level. And that's the thing, though. Because we expected kind of,

I expected people being like, ah, yes, they had all of these deep interconnections. And most people we were talking to are like, no, I know my neighbors now.

You know, six months ago. We have these like small seeds, right? And so people here are and aren't special about that.

Yeah. But do you know it is special? I can, I shut it to think, Margaret. I think what's special is the fact that you and I run

anti-capitalist podcasts, special has a lot of meanings that are interrupted by advertisements. Yeah, it is different. It is a thing. And here they are. Yeah. Thank you. Please insert a name of advertiser here

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Andrew back. Yeah. I wanted to talk a little bit about, like, the structures that exist, right? Mm-hmm. And I think probably the way to do that is to break this down into two distinct, I guess, categories. And I think these are distinct in terms of organizing for the most part, right? One is mutual aid and one is rapid response. Yeah.

And I just want to break down why people are doing mutual aid first, right? First of all, we're doing mutual aid because it is the way that we build a better world by taking care of one another without trying to extract profit from one another. Why they're doing it is because people right now who are at risk, of deportation are afraid to leave their homes. They are living like a lot of Jewish people lived in Nazi. This is a comparison that somebody whose grandparents fled the Holocaust made for us today, like Jewish people did in Nazi Germany, right? The difference is this time they know their neighbors have their back.

Yeah. And so they're afraid to go out, right? Schools are offering remote education because kids are afraid to go to school, because ICE has been hitting school bus stops. Yeah. People can't go out and get groceries and they can't go to their jobs. So they can't pay their bills.

And so that requires, if we want to take care of people, we have to feed them. We have to help them pay their bills, meet their material needs, get their kids educated, right? That is a heavy lift. Capitalism extracts a pretty heavy fee for paying rent, right?

We give most of our lives to capital so that we can get food and pay rent. clothes and shit. We have to do that without that here. Right. And people are doing it. So they are organizing food drop-off. They're organizing diaper banks.

They're organizing to give people rides who might not feel safe driving by themselves. Yeah. They're taking people's kids. Often, right, a scenario that I'm very familiar with is citizen children born to non-citizen parents. So those kids, no one is safe when you have this many people running around with weapons. happens, right? And very poor training and then a lot of anger and yeah, not very good at driving in the snow. But their kids are still able to go out and go to school. But it's a bad idea for the parents have taken. Right. So you're seeing people organizing school runs, getting food for people. Then you've got businesses that are owned by migrants, right? Or businesses that are largely staffed by migrants. So it's trying to keep those places afloat so that community can continue to care for itself. But when its workers can't come in or what if the majority of the clientele of the business of migrants? Well, maybe people volunteer to do delivery, right?

So that that business can stay afloat and those migrants can still get, the foods that make them feel safe at a time when they don't feel safe, whatever it is, right? People are meeting each other's needs without trying to extract like financial compensation from each other. And to talk about the decentralized nature of this again, and it's like hyper-local, like no org, many orgs, But no one org stepped in and was like, ah, this is the way to do it.

Here's this top down flow chart. Instead, all of these groups started in different ways. Like we've talked to people from like different neighborhoods where like, ah, it all started like this. And then they paint a completely different picture from people from three blocks over. Yeah, yeah. And like, you know, someone was like, the mutual aid here started with one mom who was like, well, I'm making food. Yeah.

And in her own kitchen, made food. Yeah. And then it was like, I will carry the entire weight of the world as necessary upon my shoulders. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then other people were like, okay, I'll help you lift this. I think of the, have you seen the meme about like, I can't lift weights with my anarchist friends? No. I can't lift weights with my anarchist friends because every time I pick up the barbell,

like 30 of my friends come over and help me lift the barbell while singing John Henry. Yeah, that's perfect. And that's like what's happening here. You know, and so one person starts doing this thing, and people say, oh, that's a good idea. And there are these other networks that can then tie that in. And people will be heavily involved in one network and have a little bit of an understanding what's happening in the other networks. But enough people are talking to each other, that they're learning best practices,

they're learning, what doesn't, doesn't work. And they're also changing to... Yeah, to meet threat. Yeah. I think the other thing is here that no one's coming in with like tax deductible funding. Yeah. Right? This is just people taking care of people.

Yeah. That has been sustainable for some time, right? Like since mid-December, we're now in late January. Yeah. That is a thing that, like, there is a need for money. Yeah. To keep making that happen. And that is an area where people outside of Minneapolis can help if they want to.

So I just want to flag that. Yeah. And we'll drop some resources at the end of these two episodes. And we'll probably drop at the end of the first episode. Yeah. And hopefully if you feel so inclined, you'll be able to help financially. But, yeah, let's talk about rapid response. ICE is not as large of an agency as they wish it was.

You know, there's so much news about how hard of a time they're having, hiring people to the point where they, like, hired the, like, the leftist journalist who was, like, applied as a joke, you know, or applied as a, you know. And so they've had this surge here, the flood, they called it, I believe, of agents here. And, you know, there's about 3,000, I think. Ice agents in the city? Yeah, I think it was Metro Surge here. Midway flood was Chicago.

Ah, okay. And they can't do that everywhere at once. No. So if you play video games, Minneapolis is tanking. Do you know the concept of tanking? Yeah, you'd have to be a video game. You can do it in Dungeons and Dragons.

I know, I know. They do, yeah, you can tank in Dungeons and Dragons. But the actual, weirdly, I think the concept of tanking comes not from Dungeons and Dragons. Yeah. Later additions, this is a nerd tangents. Anyway, James and Margaret talk about Dungeons Drank's etymology. Yeah.

The concept is that one person stands there and takes the damage while other people heal that person and do damage to the people attacking that person. Or like prepare themselves. Yeah. Well, in the video game version, as you, you know, one person takes all the damage while everyone else is also helping do the damage back. That's literally just the World of Warcraft version. But Minneapolis is tanking. The Twin Cities and Minnesota are tanking, and all of the ice agents that are here aren't somewhere else.

Yeah. And one of the ways that they're making that possible is the rapid response. Yeah. And rapid response, that's what the name says, it is a way to respond rapidly, which is the other, okay, this is the other question I had coming in. Why does this work? This was my thought.

I was like, why does blowing whistles at ice agents make them not able to kidnap people? Yeah. So I was like, does this work? And that was one of the main questions we asked people. The answer is yes. Yeah. It doesn't work all the time.

This is still a tragic situation. Yeah. Where everyone involved is kind of traumatized to medium to greater degrees. I don't want to say to lesser degrees. Yeah. You know. But what happens is that if the ICE agents are outnumbered, they usually don't successfully abduct anyone.

Yeah. Even though they're the only harmed people in the situation, even though they theoretically, the way that police would act, being outnumbered, it helps, but it's not as much of a game changer. Yeah. With ICE being wildly unpopular, occupying force, so far, at least currently, outnumbering them seems to often stop abductions. At first, I believe December-ish,

the way that ICE was handling things was these big, spectacular raids that we've seen a lot of places. 30 agents are showing up and raiding this place, right? And so if you get a call about that, a rapid response can be 20 minutes, can be 30 minutes, you can show up and you're still part of fighting against this happening. And this is what's happening all over the country, right? Yeah. So ice here adapted and started moving faster and faster. Yeah. And so now often these abductions take two or three minutes. So they were like, how do we get a crowd in two minutes? And when an organizer first, like what everyone here is an organizer. When a person who does this first suggested that to me,

my thought was like, well, you don't. Yeah, that's impossible. It's not. They do it. Yeah. And they do it because everyone here in Minneapolis, like, not everyone, everyone, but I haven't run across too many counter examples. Yeah.

Is themselves willing to respond? Yeah. And so when you hear, people honking and whistles outside, you go outside. Yeah. I mean, we heard someone was mentioning that they had seen, and to be clear this morning, again, the real feel was in the minus 30s, Celsius and Fahrenheit. Which is last Friday, if you're listening to this comes out.

But they had said they were on a block, they heard some honking, they come outside, their neighbors were outside and cut off pajama pants and crocs, screaming and blowing whistles. Yeah. Right. Like, and you, we saw it even when someone mistook us for ICE agents, right? And within a couple of minutes, a couple of people are come and we were like, yo with journalists, like, long hair. Yeah, like, septum ring.

Yeah, exactly. Like, crusty. Like, you can, you can see us coming. But out of state plates. Yeah. A city is made of people. Yeah. Right.

Like, the people are like, they're the blood pumping through the veins of a city. It's not made of buildings. Yeah. And there are people everywhere. And when all of them. are willing to show up. Yeah. Right.

Or half of them. Yeah. Well, in the entire time we have seen here, the only person who has expressed any negativity about what is happening is a person in a truck today who was honking at a large protest that we were part of in a way that was clearly adversarial. Oh, yeah, yeah. Literally won the person. He was also stuck.

Yeah, he was also stuck and had been stuck for some time. And it appeared to be struggling with a merged situation that happened when we actually don't know his political opinions. We just know he was unhappy. Yeah, he was just, that's the only person I've seen express any upset. Yeah. Like, every, the person checking us out at the supermarket, the people who we have run into at coffee shops, right? Like, Randos outside the Dollar General store.

Yeah. People we see in the street. But there's the people we see in the street. It's standing it. It's cold as fuck. No one's just, like, vibing on a park bench currently. But everyone is 100% in it. On the fuck these guys page.

Yeah. Like, we today, we heard about an ice vehicle that crashed into a pole. And this is actually fairly common, I believe, because one, they don't know how to drive in ice. Yeah. And Minneapolis is icy. And they were driving like a, I don't know whether the vehicle was all we were drive or not. It was a Ford Escape. Yeah.

But it was some not all-terrain tires. Yeah, no, those were pretty, those were some California-ass tires. Yeah. And it's just crashed into a pole in a, like, pretty impressive way. Like they had to be going at a decent speed. Yeah, both airbags had deployed. The radiator was done. The engine block was, you know, like they'd crumple the front of the car.

It's because they drive erratically when people are driving behind them to try and get rid of them, and they are driving ill-equipped, both skill-wise and vehicle-wise. Yeah. And so we showed up an hour and a half after the crash. They just abandoned the vehicle there. They came and got some of their stuff out of the car. Tost them to your gas. Yeah.

cost them here, guys. We saw the canister on the ground of CX gas. And they just left it there. And they were not going to clean it up. I don't believe they will ever clean it up. That'll be on the local police or whoever, you know. Yeah, city. And we're standing there, and a guy drives by, and he's just a normal man. Yeah, yeah. No distinguishing features. No man in vain. Yeah, no belief to be a subcultural or lefty or someone drives by and is like, oh shit, is everyone okay? And I was like, Oh, that's a nice vehicle. And he just starts laughing.

He parks his car. He gets out. He takes a picture. Yeah, yeah. And this happens over, and this must have been happening over and over for an hour and a half. Yeah. What else I noticed then was like, so we were walking up and this person popped out of

their house and was like, hey, what's happening? We were like, oh, I spiffed it into this pole. Yeah. And they were like, okay, if you guys need anything, like, I'm here. I'm taking care of some kids or an elder. I can't remember. But they were like, you need to come in the house. cold, just come to come knock on the door.

Like, you need a hot drink, you know, like. And we're Mark Press. We're not like, hello, we are the activists, you know? Yeah. Like, you know, I'm, to be clear, I'm wearing a helmet. Mark, we're both wearing helmets with big blue press patches on them. So one of the things I noticed is like, and it's been repeated a bit and then reported on a little bit, like these 3D printed whistles, right? Yeah.

One of the ways that people identify, some were saying that's them that people know you're cool. It's like, people are all carrying whistles around the next. Like almost, I was just keeping an eye on this As we met people throughout the last few days Everybody had a carabinian with their keys and a whistle on it Or a whistle around their neck Or there was a whistle on a lanyard on their wrist It's like a little marker

And what's interesting is we've talked to people About how the beginning And a lot of people are like, this seems kind of silly Yeah, right? You're like, oh, they're the federal I mean, they're the Gestapo, right? Yeah, yeah And we have whistles And so it seems so absurd

Yeah but there's so many parts of it. They hate. They want to operate in secrecy. We see watchers on every corner. We don't see ice. Like, this is a city under occupation, but it's like visibly under occupation

by its own defenders. Yeah. Right? It is like infiltrated by federal agents. Not like you don't, you know, I've been in places where you have like the police rolling around and their tank things.

Yeah, bad cats. Yeah. Yeah. And like, this isn't that because they can't actually express much force. They can't even be seen as they go. They're trying their very hardest to hide, right? They have tinted vehicles. They cover their faces. Yeah. They keep getting different rentals so people can't recognize it. Yeah. Like, they are trying their best to blend in and failing.

Yeah. And everyone having a whistle. So not only is it effective because it draws attention to them, it makes you a defender. It's a very cheap and easy way. You hand some a whistle and you're handling them responsibility. You're saying like, you are now,

it's like, I mean, he's handing some of their goddamn sword. You know, in a like night fantasy land way, right? Yeah, like you're one of us when we take care of each other. And you are going to defend people. Yeah. And you're going to defend people by casting these people. Like, it's so interesting because I'm so using, to thinking like power doesn't need to hide, right?

Like, you know, when journalists are like, oh, well, what they really fear is the truth and, you know, I'm like, well, power doesn't need to hide, but the power is not with the folks driving around in occupying the city right now. The more relevant power is with the folks standing on street corners who don't feel the need to hide who aren't afraid, right? And like, this is part of why I hate saying things like this. I think we're going to win. And I haven't felt that way in years. And like, I think that this spirit, the spirit that is animating this city is the thing that will get us through it. And when I say win, when conditions are all weird and hard, and we're going to lose a lot of people.

Like we're going to lose a lot of Yeah, like grabbing people off the street here every day to try all of this Because when I'm like, oh, people are stopping so many abductions They're also, everyone we've talked to Has stop abductions And failed to stop abductions Yeah, and that haunts a lot of them, I think

I think so too And Yeah, people are really torn between those two things Yeah, I'll just say that like As someone who's been in it for a minute When it comes to like advocacy for migrants, right? Yeah. If I go back three years ago to 2023, it was 100 crusties and anarchists and Quakers and Sikhs who were feeding thousands of people in the desert, right?

Yeah. And in a big city, a metro area of 3 million people 45 minutes away, people didn't believe me when I told them it was happening because nobody gave a shit to include the local media. Then I was in L.A., right, in somewhere this year. Yeah. And there were young folks there who were mad as hell and not going to take it anymore, right? And did really inspiring stuff. Did really inspiring stuff and very brave stuff.

And so many of them were those kids who are in that situation where they are citizens and their parents are not. Yeah. And they believe in the right to freedom of expression and speech and they came to use it, right? But I could walk five blocks from there and it could have been any other day in L.A. Right?

Yeah. I went to a fancy coffee shop. I overpaid for a coffee. Because the white people didn't give a shit, you mean? Or it didn't do a shit. No, you're right. But they cared. I think they cared.

A lot of people say, oh, it's terrible what's happening. Yeah. But, you know, some people spoke to me about their film script. Sallet, right? That's a given. But it did not feel like the city was locked in. This feels different to that. Yeah.

It feels more locked in than it even felt in 2020. Yeah. Because everybody sees this as an external thing. Yeah. But do you know what doesn't like doing ad transitions right now? It's me. I don't actually like doing it, but that is my job. And here's some ads.

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And we're back. The external threat part is really fascinating and is like a key to a lot of this, I believe. Yeah. You know, the difference between the tone of 2020 where it was this nationwide internal threat. This is still absolutely present, right? All of the problems from 2020 are still here and bigger. Yeah, earlier today.

And we watched them arrest a lawyer. Yeah. And we'll get to that. But the thing I've been thinking about is that in protest movements, you often say things like, oh, it radicalized you. Or I got radicalized by this. Yeah.

This isn't radical. This isn't radical. Even though it's higher stakes, more risk. Like, it's not radical to say, man, I don't think you should kidnap literal children. You know? Yeah. It's very normal. Yeah.

Which is why very normal people are very pissed off. Yeah. And like, and one of the things has come up from multiple people, you know, and the internet commenters will say, well, then why'd they vote this way? And that's just a, that doesn't get us anywhere. the fuck are you doing. Yeah. We've talked to a bunch of people who are like, oh yeah, that Republican business is closed for the general strike or my neighbor who is very conservative is pissed as hell. Yeah. I saw a sign today and we'll get to the big protest. I saw a

what would Ronald Reagan do? Yeah. The person, right, so this person has not just thought that. Yeah. They have got out their pens and paper and their crafting supplies. Yeah. They've made that sign. They've got their ass down to the middle of town, and it is minus 10, minus 15, and they are out and about with their what would Ronald Reagan sign because they have that pissed off. And no one's mad at them. Yeah. Because at a certain point, it doesn't matter. Yeah, like, I'd rather they were here. Yeah, like, exactly.

And, like, the thing I've been thinking out a lot is that glad you're here gets so much further than what took you so long. Yeah, 100%. And there just is a line. The federal government has crossed it, and the more people who are aware of that, the better. Yeah. I think it's really important that part of the organizing here has been so wide and so inclusive and so broad and yet so focused, right? Yeah. It's so focused on keeping their neighbors safe, and thus it can be so broad because most people think that's the right thing to do. That is what is allowing them to do this right now.

Yeah. And it doesn't matter where someone was yesterday or in November of 2024 if they're on a street corner today looking out for their neighbors. And I'll say that I'm not going to name them, but to shout out, part of the reason I'm here is that like someone I know who I don't know if they have a political ideology to their name, just a, you know, a young queer person I know was talking to them a couple weeks ago. And they were telling me about how, you know, I didn't understand the scope of the rapid. rapid response networks. It's hard to see from outside. Yes, it is, yeah, yeah. And necessarily it's something

that people don't always talk about to everyone, right? Right, totally. And so, you know, talking to this person and they're like, oh, earlier today, I, you know, went and stood in front of an apartment building because of ICE. And I was like, your apartment building?

And they're like, no, about a block away. And I'm like, okay. And they're like, yeah, I just wanted to go stand out front to make sure ICE didn't get in. And I'm like, okay. Yeah. I don't quite understand, you know. And then they're like, oh, yeah,

And I, you know, I go to the hotels where ICE are at, and me and my friend sit there and write down license plates. And I'm just like, and I'm imagining this is just like an activity they're doing. Yeah, yeah, right. I don't quite understand, you know, but I'm like, why are you doing it, right? And not that, not that it's an obvious answer on some level, but they're like, because I told myself I was someone who would do it's right. Yeah. And I think that in all of our hearts, we tell ourselves that when it comes. down to it, we do what's right. And like, you know, people are like talking about like

comparisons between now and Nazi Germany and the rise of fascism and they're like, you know, there's the meme about like how you all end up fascists. You're failing an open note test. Yeah, yeah. But Minneapolis isn't failing the open note test. Yeah, yeah. They are like passing with flying colors, right? Like, yeah. I mean, yeah, I think, you know, you and I are both history appreciators. Yeah. And history has taught us a lot, right? The big coalition do better than small one or ones a fracture into a million pieces that like leadership isn't what we need

participation is what we need and yeah you see a lot of it in action here and like all of us right like anyone who's spent any time reading writing learning listening to history whatever has thought what would I do what we're finding out is that yeah

we're not alone in having thought what would I do and most people have said well I wouldn't be one of the ones who did something yeah so they're doing something. Yeah. And I think about maybe my last thought for today is that when ICE abducts people, which they do every day, yeah, does it just disappear people, right? They just show up, they pull someone over, literally just for being brown to be really, really transparent. Yeah. Like the police have come out and been like, could you please stop pulling over all of the brown cops? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like, and when they, when they, when they, when they,

they pull someone over, they just take them and they leave the car, sometimes running, sometimes in drive, and just drive away. And I was like, are we walking into a ghost town? Right. Are we going to see this everywhere? And like, in my three days here, I haven't seen the abandoned vehicle except the ICE abandoned vehicle that they crashed. But it is happening every day, and we have talked to people who see it every day. And a very common activity. is the ghastly approaching an abandoned vehicle, abandons the vehicle that has been... The person's from the vehicle has been stolen.

Yeah. And trying to figure out who the fuck it was. And going through and finding the information to contact people's loved ones and say, like, hey, your wife has been stolen. Yeah. You know? And like, and that, and we were talking about,

talking to, you know, a decent number of the people that we talked to about this were Jewish. And they're, you know, talking about, like, this is what my family told me about. Yeah, you know. And, like, that was one of the first things that someone told me that really made me cry. This whole thing has been, like, really challenging all my cynicism and detachment from hard things. but hearing those stories and then just seeing the people who do that which could be anybody because people step up

it's a god I just I say I can only imagine it but it like that's a that is a daily reality here is someone was just stolen a person was just stolen and I have to go through their effects to figure out who they've were. Yeah. I guess when we were speaking about that, I was thinking about experiences I've had in the

desert, right, where you find someone's bag. Yeah. As they're walking through and it's got too hot, they've taken off their bag and you go through all the little ephemera, the little things that people thought were worth carrying across the world. And you try to piece together their life and work out who they are. And you look at pictures of their children and you look a picture to their spouse and their home and you hope that they're okay, right? Like, and in this, you're, and this, you're, this instance, they're not okay. Yeah, right. And it's not the abstract violence of the structures of borders and walls and surveillance that have killed them or taken them in this instance, right? It's five people

in masks in a car over there. Yeah. And it's happening in the middle of cities where people can see it, right? Part of the function of the border is to take the violence away from where people can see it. Yeah. And they got away with that for so long that they figured they could just bring it into cities. And it makes my heart so proud that when people could see it. They said, fuck, no, you're not doing this in my town. Yeah. Because for so long, I've believed that if people could, like the reason I'm a journalist, right, the reason that I have spent the better part of 10 years, like, I'm like receiving trauma, is because I really believe in my heart that people could, if people could see the cruelty, they would care and they would do something.

Yeah. And like, this confirms that for me, right? People can see it and they have cared and they have done something amazing. Right. And that makes me so proud of them. Yeah. The Paradise Built in Hell, as Solnit put it, you know, people are finding community and a really active way and learning what people can do for each other. And the levels in which people are plugging in, you know, there's the whole long-standing cliche that for every frontline activist, there's 10 support people. Yeah. And you're like, well, here it's, those lines aren't so clearly delineated. Yeah, yeah. Because on some level, you know, we've talked to people who have been like, oh, my, my neighbor who, you know, has so many mobility issues that they can't leave their house.

Yeah. They're just hanging on the front porch. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Because the front line comes to you. Yeah. Like we talked to someone earlier who was pepper sprayed this morning while walking their dog.

Yeah. You know, because while walking their dog. a witnessed, masked, masked agents, stealing a person. Yeah. Well, I'm about to do it for part one.

Yeah. It could cool people here. And we'll be back on Wednesday. Yeah. We actually don't know what the scheduling is going to be of this particular episode. Yeah, we'll be back in the subsequent episode of the podcast feed you're listening to you. That's right. That's right.

and yeah you're going to final let me say this right I was really sad when I came here because my friends were dying Rojava yeah and I wish I was with them in a strange way yeah because I know the sense of

togetherness they feel and I felt that here and that was really special for me because I would struggle to be dealing with this alone yeah and we're gonna We're going to talk a bit more about rapid response stuff.

And there's also just to point some articles people's way. There's a series of articles that came out from crimethink, which is crimethink.com, that have talked about some of the structures of rapid response networks. And people here are putting together a lot of resources about what they have and haven't learned. And we're going to be talking about some of those things that people have learned and things like that. But it's really worth understanding wherever you are, because you're all. also that person who can hang out on your front porch. I mean, not necessarily.

Literally, you hang on your front porch. But it's like the idea is when the entire city mobilizes, it works. And I think that when we realize that we can mobilize the entire country, it works. That's my theory. Yeah. See you all soon. Hi, friends. It's me, James.

I'm back. And I'm back because we ask some people on the ground if they could provide us with some links to places where people could donate that have been vetted that they knew would be going to people, helping people on the ground. And they provided us with a lot of different links. So I'm going to tell you what each of these links are. And if you'd like to donate, you can just scroll on down whichever app you're using to the podcast show notes and you can click one of the links below. So there's rent support for neighbors in Phillips, rent support for neighbors in Central, rent support for neighbors in Powderhorn, Supply.

for political art making, protective gear for legal observers, diapers and menstrual supplies. There are abolish ice t-shirts that you can purchase. There is a fundraiser for North Star Frontline Street Medics and the Twin Cities Swalateria at Bail Fund. There are links for both of Benmo and Cash App donation there. It Could Happen here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Coolzone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com. Or check us out on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast. or wherever you listen to podcasts.

You can now find sources for it could happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. Saturday, May 2nd. Country's biggest stars will be in Austin, Texas. At our 26, I-Hard Country Festival presented by Capital One, C. Kane Brown, Parker McCollum, Riley Green, Shaboozy, Dylan Scott, Russell Dickerson, Gretchen Wilson.

Chase Matthew, Lauren Elena. Tickets are on sale now. Get yours before they sell out at Ticketmaster.com. Whether it is getting swatted or just hateful messages online. There is a lot of harm and even just reading the comments. That's cybersecurity expert Camille Stewart Gloucester on the Therapy for Black Girls podcast. Every season is a chance to grow.

And the Therapy for Black Girls podcast is here to walk with you. I'm Dr. Joy Harden Bradford. and each week we dive into real conversations that help you move with more clarity and confidence. This episode, we're breaking down what really happens to your information online and how to protect yourself with intention. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

You know, we always say New Year, New Me, but real change starts on the inside. It starts with giving your mind and your spirit the same attention you give your goals. Hey, everybody, it's Michelle Williams, host of checking in on the Black Effect Podcast Network. And on my podcast, we talk mental health, healing, growth, and everything you need to step into your next season, whole and empowered. New Year, Real You. Listen to Checking in with Michelle Williams from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Back in 2016, we said, let's do a podcast. Little did we know it would last 10 years. I mean, but here's the thing. Stay out of the forest. You're in a cult. Call your dad. This is terrible. Keep going. You guys, stay sexy.

Don't get murdered. Elvis, do you want a cookie? A cookie? My favorite murder turns 10 this month. Join us for new episodes every Thursday on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to my favorite murder on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Goodbye. This is an IHeart podcast.

Guaranteed human. Thank you.