Minneapolis politics, slightly ground down

A Minneapolis politics podcast hosted by four-term Ward 2 city council veterans Cam Gordon and Robin Garwood, with longtime activist Jesse Mortenson

LA, DC, CHI... is Mpls next? Resisting Trump fascist takeovers, w/ Garrett Fitzgerald

September 16, 2025

Trump has marched an invasion of ICE and national guard into major cities, and his administration is promising that all "Democrat-run" cities are on the target list. Minneapolis urgently needs to answer questions that only appeared on the horizon when we saw federal agents raid a business on Lake Street in June.

What is the nature of this threat? How are politicians and regular people reacting in Los Angeles, Washington DC and Chicago? How are Minneapolis politicians and institutions likely to react? What should we be demanding from our local leaders, and what can we do to build resilience to this threat as community members?

We are joined by Garrett Fitzgerald, an activist who was targeted with intense government repression in connection to organizing around the 2008 Republican National Convention (in Saint Paul), leading to the absurd charge of conspiracy in furtherance of terrorism. Garrett has since devoted much of his time to sharing lessons from that experience with other activists facing government repression. In a moment of unprecedented threat from a federal government seeking to demonize, brutalize and criminalize groups it labels as opposition, these lessons are broadly salient.

We recorded this episode on 9/11/25.

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Further reading

Dispatches from cities targeted so far

  • LA
    • Organizations
      • Union Del Barrio https://uniondelbarrio.org/main/
      • Homies Unidos https://www.homiesunidos.org/
      • Community Self Defense coalition
        • A network of Latino, Black, Filipino and Jewish organizations in Los Angeles and across Southern California is banding together in an effort to protect immigrants from being swept up in raids conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
        • Union Del Barrio, Centro CSO, Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice, Black Men Build, as well as the L.A. chapters of the Association of Raza Educators, Jewish Voice for Peace and Anakbayan-USA are among the 60 groups that make up the coalition.
        • “We’re doing community patrols before school and after school around the neighborhood. We’re working with students and parents to create phone trees, to not just know your rights, but to defend your rights,” Carrasco Cardona said at the press conference."
    • Organizers mobilized before ICE crackdown
      • So, how does it work? Keeping ICE at bay begins with intelligence-gathering. Individuals who sign up to participate in neighborhoods where federal agents have been spotted carry out “community patrols” by car early in the morning — ICE forces are known to strike in the early hours — and contact organizers as soon as a raid appears imminent.
      • The next stage is public condemnation. “When we get word of them being there, when we find them, or the community calls us with information — and that’s a crucial part of our work, the community collaborating with us and giving us information — we go and we immediately denounce them,” said Gochez. This means driving by ICE agents while loudly denouncing them on megaphones. “We tell them they’re not wanted, [that] we don’t want them in our community.”
      • “[We tell them], ‘if you are documented, come out. Come out and join us. Defend your neighbor,’” Gochez said.
      • Teachers in Southern California and all over the nation are preparing for the worst. As Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers explained, “We serve in the stead of parents for the time their kids are in school. So, somebody knocks on a school door and says ‘I want that kid,’ we have an obligation to say ‘no.’” Weingarten explained how educators are ensuring schools are equipped with ‘Know Your Rights’ literature and form phone trees in case ICE shows up. She said, “we are creating a community of complaining loudly” against ICE targeting of schools.
      • Gochez credits such work with staving off the worst of ICE raids. “After spending hundreds of millions of dollars, and thousands of agents, and National Guardsmen and U.S. Marines, they haven’t been able to get even 1 percent of the undocumented population in Los Angeles,” said Gochez. Of the nearly 1 million undocumented people estimated to be living in LA County, ICE agents have arrested almost 3,000. That’s a third of a percent.
      • NDLON’s “Adopt a Day Labor Corner” program could deter ICE from snatching workers like Galdamez in the future. The group is calling on members of the public to “[c]hoose a location convenient to you, where day laborers gather and commit to showing up regularly. Be present. Be consistent. Build relationships and offer protection.”
  • DC

    • Organizations

      • Free DC project
      • Free DC is a renewed campaign to protect Home Rule and win lasting dignity for our communities. We are no longer willing to accept anything less for our communities, and we are setting out to build the cultural and political movement it will take to win. We want you to be part of it.
      • Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid
      • CourtWatch DC
      • Harriet's Wildest Dreams

    • Shannon Clark interview (camp evictions)

      • “The fact that MPD and federal agencies have been able to speed up the rate of camp evictions is astonishing, given how frequent and expansive camp evictions on both federal and city property have been over the past several years. There is now no notice. Evictions that would have taken hours, so that people could plan, pack, and move, are finished in 30 minutes, with people packing as fast as they can while MPD drags their tents to dump trucks.”
      • While people are exhausted and scared, D.C. residents have shown up in force to defend each other. Evictions were stopped by local advocates, buying people another night of rest and safety. Organizations are getting people into hotels, making sure they are fed, getting them tents and camping supplies, helping them pack and move, and finding safe places to hunker down during the federal takeover. People all over the city are sharing photos and warnings about federal agents patrolling the streets, setting up vehicle checkpoints, and calling into ICE watch hotlines to keep each other safe.
      • Organizations to support in D.C. right now:

    • Zirin/Modiano article on night patrols

      • Armed only with cell phones, medical kits, and the confidence to assert their dwindling rights, groups of local residents trail and record Trump’s occupation forces. They’re known as the night patrols.
      • There is no centralized night-patrol planning committee. People in different groups don’t necessarily know each other, but everyone with whom we spoke was either experienced in this kind of work through previous cop-watch trainings or are compelled by what is happening to play their part in making sure the foot soldiers of the surveillance state know they too are being surveilled.
      • Another time, Orr said, he saw officers trying to arrest a man over a burned-out taillight “while his two young children sat alone in the car, crying.” “Thankfully,” he explained, “our group managed to put pressure on these officers [phone cameras out and ready], and they eventually let the man and his children go.
      • The night patrols are clearly making a difference. Many of the occupying forces have shifted their tactics from walking around and harassing people to a “jump out” strategy in which they stay in their cars until screeching to a halt and storming out to accost people.
      • While one tactic is to work in smaller groups like Orr, another has been to mobilize cop-watch rallies or “Defend the District” go-go shows in order to draw in people—especially youth—for larger showings of strength. “Go-go is the native music of Washington, DC,” one attendee told us. “This music has been used for our resistance time and time again.”

    • Grand juries rejecting prosecutions

    • Muriel Bowser

  • Chicago

Trump's buildup and crackdown

Trump's buildup and crackdown

  • 25,000+ officers diverted to ICE deportation work
  • [Radley Balko interview}(https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-radley-balko.htm)
    • I think the worst-case scenario is that Trump sends active duty military troops into any city that displeases him — any city where there are protests.
    • I’m a journalist, not a historian, but I’m a student of history. There aren’t very many countries in which the figurative political head of the country assembled his own personal paramilitary force that was loyal only to him where things turned out well. So that’s where I think we are right now.
    • But you can’t hit the figures that they wanted by just targeting the dangerous people. Dangerous people don’t make themselves available to ICE — they hide. It’s a hell of a lot easier just to send a couple of ICE agents to a courthouse to arrest people as they show up — as they’re supposed to be doing — for their hearings.
    • So that’s what we’re seeing. It’s a lot easier to go to Home Depot and just massively racially profile and arrest anybody you see, and then sort through the paperwork later
  • Chicago
    • Hundreds of federal agents are being sent to a suburban naval base from Los Angeles, where an immigration blitz spurred protests that pushed President Trump to call in the National Guard. Trump has since threatened to send the Guard to Chicago while promising a crime crackdown and immigration arrests.
    • About 140 unmarked vehicles that will be used in the operation have been sent to the base, which is the Navy’s largest training station and the largest military installation in the state, according to sources. Officials are seeking to establish a no-fly zone to keep away news helicopters and drones that aren’t already prohibited from flying in the area.
    • Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday there were “no immediate plans” to send the National Guard into Chicago and chided Pritzker for not being a partner “in cutting down crime.”

Minneapolis immigration enforcement separation ordinance

Minneapolis

  • First created 2003
  • Ordinance language
    • The city works cooperatively with the Homeland Security, as it does with all state and federal agencies, but the city does not operate its programs for the purpose of enforcing federal immigration laws
    • Employees shall comply with any properly issued subpoena for the production of documents or witnesses, even if related to immigration issues or issues of the Homeland Security.
    • City employees shall only solicit immigration information or inquire about immigration status when specifically required to do so by law or program guidelines as a condition of eligibility for the service sought.
    • Other than complying with lawful subpoenas, city employees and representatives shall not use city resources or personnel solely for the purpose of detecting or apprehending persons whose only violation of law is or may be being undocumented, being out of status, or illegally residing in the United States (collectively "undocumented").
    • City attorney's office - civil division employees may investigate and inquire about immigration status when relevant to potential or actual litigation or an administrative proceeding.
    • Public safety officials shall not undertake any law enforcement action for the purpose of detecting the presence of undocumented persons, or to verify immigration status, including but not limited to questioning any person or persons about their immigration status.
    • Public safety officials shall not question, arrest or detain any person for violations of federal civil immigration laws except when immigration status is an element of the crime or when enforcing 8 U.S.C. 1324(c).
    • Nothing in this chapter shall prohibit public safety personnel from assisting federal law enforcement officers in the investigation of criminal activity involving individuals present in the United States who may also be in violation of federal civil immigration laws.
    • All such use of city public safety personnel under 19.30(a)(3) and (a)(4) shall be documented, including any applicable Department of Homeland Security mission statement and operational guidelines, the reason for the dispatch of personnel, the name of the homeland security agent in charge, and the name of the officer authorizing the use of city personnel
  • City Mpls official Know Your Rights page
  • 2025: Wonsley/Chavez request from the Mayor info on separation ordinance
  • City Audit: did not violate sepration ordinance in June
    • The audit found the city’s role that day was to provide safety for residents and share information as it became available. Minneapolis police were not directly involved in the federal drug and human trafficking investigation, did not enforce immigration laws, and did not arrest or question anyone based on immigration status, according to the report.
    • City communication records show that the full City Council was notified through official channels at 1:50 p.m., nearly four hours after the Chief of Police was notified and three hours after the Mayor was notified,” the report states. “Council Members were left with a void of information and an urgency to respond to constituent concerns.”
  • Advocates for Human Rights statement on importance of separation ordinances
    • Though these policies are sometimes called "sanctuary" policies, these governments are not offering sanctuary from immigration law - residents can still be arrested, detained, and deported by federal law enforcement agents, and local government will participate when legally required to do so.Separation policies are instead about ensuring public safety, the wise stewardship of public resources, and community cohesion.
  • Omar Fateh Statement
    • There is no circumstance in which MPD should cooperate with ICE. In the eyes of many, Minneapolis has one of the strongest Separation Ordinances in the country. But yesterday, we saw its weaknesses: a close reading of our Separation Ordinance still allows collaboration with ICE.
    • By labeling it in an investigation of “criminal activity,” ICE visited fear into the heart of an immigrant neighborhood
    • even helping Trump’s Federal agents do “crowd control” is unconscionable. MPD should be responding to urgent calls and clearing its backlog of unsolved crimes, not doing Trump's bidding.
    • if elected, I would (& I ask Mayor Frey to do so now):
      • Work w/ the Council and community to strengthen the Separation Ordinance
      • Instruct MPD to halt participation in Federal Task Forces that include ICE
      • Fire police officers who violate MPD policy to not cooperate with ICE

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