Faced with the aggressive tactics of thousands of federal immigration agents across the Twin Cities, local civilian observers have had to adjust as well in an effort to shield themselves from possible violence.
The fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Macklin Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent on Jan. 7 has been an inflection point for many of those observers, proof of the danger of what they do. But national and local trainers say that hasn’t discouraged others from joining the effort. They report a sharp increase in people who have signed up for training sessions.
Training sessions attempt to inform observers how to keep tabs on ICE activity legally and safely. The grassroots network of observers often draw attention to the presence of immigration agents with whistles or honking car horns, and share information on neighborhood social media channels. They may follow agents’ cars and film the agents. They gather information on people who have been detained by the agents.
Videos taken by bystanders and neighbors already have become key pieces of evidence in Good’s death. In the aftermath, Gov. Tim Walz posted a video last week urging people to “peacefully film ICE agents as they conduct these activities,” which he said would help the state create “a database of the atrocities against Minnesotans, not just to establish a record for posterity, but to bank evidence for future prosecution.”
One observer, Flannery Clark, said the killing of Good served as a harsh reminder of the risks involved. “Anyone who’s been doing this work feels very strongly that that could have been any of us, particularly those of us who have children in the same age range as Renee,” said Clark, who has an 8-year-old son. “I think we’re all pretty aware now of risks that we could not have anticipated.”
She saw it play out at Roosevelt High School the same day that Good was killed, she said. “What I almost always have heard them say is that you’re impeding a federal investigation, or you’re blocking our ability to do our jobs, even when that is clearly visually not true,” she said.
“They will block an observer’s car and then say that the observer is preventing them from doing their job. They will threaten to, and sometimes do, break the observer’s car windows and drag them out of their cars.”
Clark said her last training session, in October, is no longer sufficient. “That’s not the fault of the training. It’s that the situation on the ground has changed so dramatically, and the escalations have changed so dramatically.”
Still, observers say that participating in the training is essential. Even if they haven’t had refresher training, they say they continually learn from each other on social media groups.
Another observer, who asked to be identified as Kats, the name she uses in activist circles, said it is no longer safe for an observer to work alone. A lone observer could respond to an alert of ICE presence by doing a “plate check,” honking their car horn or blowing a whistle. “Now they have become very reactive to our observations,” she said.
Sahan Journal has reviewed several social media videos in which federal agents can be seen walking up to observers and using physical force against them, and in some cases, detaining them. Some agents have been heard saying, “Have y’all not learned?” In the aftermath of Good’s death, Patty O’Keefe, a U.S. citizen and a trained observer who was arrested for obstruction, quoted one of the agents who detained her as saying, “Stop obstructing us; that’s why that lesbian bitch is dead.”
Ericka Zurawski, co-founder of the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC), said the content of training programs has changed only to the extent that it has added extra emphasis on safety. While training sessions have always discussed the possibility of violence by law enforcement, observers are now being advised to narrate their body movements.
“We’re basically following [what] little Black boys are told starting by age 6,” she said. “With one-on-one situations, whether they’re approaching in your car, or in person, don’t make sudden movements. If you plan to move the position of your body in any way, narrate it before you do it. Like, ‘I am going to move my right hand to the right’; don’t make movements that make them jumpy.”
“Following Black and brown leadership in this moment is the most helpful and essential thing that you can do, particularly in these mass movements,” she said.
In December, the Minnesota chapter of American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued ICE on behalf of six Twin Cities residents for the alleged mistreatment of observers.
On Friday, a federal judge in Minnesota ordered immigration agents to refrain from retaliating against people engaged in peaceful protests. U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez barred agents from using pepper spray or other crowd-control tools against protesters for protected speech and from stopping or detaining people in vehicles who are not interfering with enforcement activity. The injunction does not prevent agents from enforcing immigration laws, the judge said.
Responding to the injunction, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement that “D.H.S. is taking appropriate and constitutional measures to uphold the rule of law and protect our officers and the public from dangerous rioters.”
Federal agents cite a law against assaulting, resisting or impeding them in their duties, but Paul Sullivan, organizer at ACLU-MN, told Sahan Journal that is unlikely to hold up in court against someone who is only observing them since use of force is an essential element in the law.
Community organizations say that demand for observer training has shot up as people are seeking ways to respond to the sprawling federal law enforcement activity in the Twin Cities.
“Anecdotally, I’ve certainly seen the community step up in so many ways, especially since the killing of Renee Good,” Sullivan said. “People know that if somebody is going to protect our neighbors, if somebody is going to protect our children, our communities, that it is going to have to be us that shows up and takes out our phone and blows a whistle and makes sure that people know what’s happening.”
Jill Garvey, co-director of Chicago-based States at the Core, which supports community defense and immigrant rights groups nationwide, said attendance at a training session held the night Good was killed was double what organizers expected, despite being aimed at participants in Columbus, Ohio. A more recent training drew about 1,800 attendees, she said, compared with 800 to 1,200 people per session during the height of ICE operations in Chicago. A training held by Monarca a day after the second ICE shooting drew about 900 attendees.
While the elements of training differs from organization to organization, some broke down aspects of the trainings into the following broad categories:
Grounding it in the moment: While training is nationwide and open to everyone, Garvey said it is always adapted to the current experience of places where federal law enforcement activity is the most intense.
Documentation and gathering evidence: Getting details is the key aspect of ICE watch. A common way organizations and individuals have been doing that is through the SALUTE method, which stands for Size, Activity, Location, Uniform, Time, and Equipment.
“A lot of this is about collecting evidence of overreach, wrongdoing, unlawful behavior, overly aggressive behavior,” Garvey said. “Anything that ICE agents out there are doing that they’re not supposed to be doing, we want to capture.”
Knowing one’s rights: Sullivan said that the training provides a basic legal education specific to federal law enforcement: “For example, making sure people know that if ICE comes to a door in your community, you have the First Amendment right to shout to the person in that house, “don’t open the door, It’s ICE.” Ask them to see a warrant.”
De-escalate: The training also teaches people how to mitigate violence from law enforcement through de-escalation tactics.
This also includes maintaining a safe distance from federal agents, never touching an officer, asserting one’s rights and staying calm. “We talk to people about how to practice this at home, because in real life, our responses are not what we imagine they will be,” Garvey said.
Community building: Garvey stressed the importance of working with a community rather than acting alone.
Risk assessment: to gauge their tolerance of risk, and of those around them because they might subject themselves to threats or arrest. “Everybody needs to do what they’re comfortable with. Everybody needs to understand what their limits are like,” Zurawski said.
While training sessions have always discussed the possibility of violence by law enforcement, observers are now being advised to narrate their body movements. Credit: Chris Juhn for Sahan Journal
Despite the risks, observers like Kats and Clark said they do not intend to step back. “It’s scary, but I can’t imagine not doing it,” Clark said. “I think it’s the best of us as a community that when faced with unimaginable grief and horror, what people want to do is plug in and make a difference and help their communities.”
