Adam Serwer

And I found that, you know, sort of profoundly moving because it's such a universalist sentiment.

It really reminds me of sort of the best of American ideals.

A big chunk of the people in Minneapolis, St.

Paul are in hiding, not necessarily because they're undocumented, but because they're afraid of being racially profiled by immigration agents who are not going to

treat them with any kind of respect and could possibly, you know, these encounters, people have gotten hurt or killed.

And they're doing it because they care deeply about the people around them.

I mean, look, this is organized, nonviolent opposition to a federal government that they feel is oppressing them or oppressing their neighbors.

And so they are opposing it.

It is a strategy of observation and to some extent interference in the sense that they are alerting people to ICE's presence so that ICE cannot operate secretly.

This philosophy that they've adopted, that your neighbors are your neighbors no matter where they come from, is more or less the opposite of what people like Vance believe.

They have continued to insist that there's something about diversity that is destabilizing, that makes people not trust each other, that makes communities less cohesive.

But in practice, you know, we can see in Minneapolis that it certainly does not have to be true because these people, no matter who they pray to, no matter what languages they speak, no matter what their jobs are, these are people who are trying to protect each other.

One thing I will say is that I talked to a young man at the protest in Minneapolis and it was pretty extraordinary.

You know, hundreds of businesses shut down last Friday and thousands of people poured into the streets.

And man, let me tell you, it was cold.

You know, it was between like minus 20 and minus nine.

Jeez.

The ink in my pen froze while I was out there trying to take notes.

But I talked to a young man and he was, you know, his family was from Uganda.

And, you know, his mom like was like, hey, you need to know where my passport is in case I get picked up.