Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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From The New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is The Daily. For weeks, protests around Minneapolis have caught nationwide attention as the city shows open defiance to a federal immigration crackdown.
When our immigrant neighbors are under attack, what do we do?
But behind the scenes, a quieter, organized resistance has taken shape. Today, our producers Anna Foley and Michael Simon Johnson go on the ground in Minneapolis to capture that effort. And our colleague Charles Homans explains why the city has become ground zero in the fight over the government's deportation strategy. It's Wednesday, January 21st.
This is Michael Simon Johnson. I'm here with New York Times reporter Charlie Homans. And we are... What neighborhood are we in, actually?
So this is the Lynn Lake area of Minneapolis. We're in South Minneapolis, and it's named after this intersection that we're standing at, actually, which is Lyndale Avenue. and Lake Street. It's kind of the place where sort of the recent waves of immigrants and settled refugees and the Minneapolis of the kind of white liberal urban culture intersect.
And those groups have been kind of have been brought together in an interesting way by this ice crack down in the city. I mean, the thing that's different about Minneapolis compared to Chicago or Los Angeles or other cities that have been targets of this crackdown so far is that it's a very small city. It doesn't have that many people in it.
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Chapter 2: What events led to the protests in Minneapolis against ICE?
Yeah, we're always doing mutual aid, but we just expanded it and imploded ourselves with mutual aid, basically.
Well, let's go downstairs.
Yeah, sweet.
I'm now walking past the sci-fi fantasy dildo section. This is a lot.
Yeah. It was 11 boxes, which was kind of crazy.
Lots of boxes of diapers, lots of boxes of formula, wipes.
That is a huge problem.
Just so I have a sense. How many people have come by today, for example, to like pick up some... Hundreds of people.
Hundreds? Because I was getting anxiety. Probably a thousand people over the past couple of days.
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Chapter 3: How is the community organizing to resist ICE actions?
They are leaving their house to come here to get resources, even though they are at risk for being picked up by ICE. And they're all wanting to prove to me the validity of that. And I'm like, I really don't care. Like, you don't have to tell me because I know that the next person behind you has the exact same story.
It's like, there's no time to notice that there's a dildo on the wall because like your family is being torn apart.
That's what's in the store. I'm curious what you think it says about sort of Minneapolis right now that a shop like this is kind of on the front lines of the community response to the situation.
Sex workers and marginalized groups of people like that will radicalize you. I really learned in the strip club that everyone agrees with the revolution. We just don't all have the same language to talk about it. And I feel like we inspired a bunch of other businesses to begin taking in donations and distributing them to their neighbors.
And I've been telling people all day long, the more spots that we can pop up with resources, the harder time that ICE is going to have keeping track of where everyone is at. Because we've also had ICE agents follow people from our spot.
Wow, so they know.
Yeah.
What you're describing is a, at least citywide, I don't know exactly what the right word is. I don't know if it's like...
a movement I don't know if it's a network I don't know if it's like a change in realizing like oh they're really not coming something that happened in 2020 was the first time I realized like My neighbor's house is on fire and the fire department is not coming, so you better find a garden hose. Like, why am I, Ann Lehman at the Smitten Kitten, doing more than Jacob Fry?
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Chapter 4: What role does the Smitten Kitten play in the local mutual aid network?
People are putting their lives on the line who have children, you know, who are, you know, loved ones, you know, wives, you know, husbands. And as soon as I realize that, like, everybody's taking a risk, you might as well also take a risk for your community.
Taking a risk meant that instead of going out of her way trying to avoid run-ins with ICE, she took routes where she knew she might see them. So she could alert activists on a signal chat.
I would see suspicious vehicles and I'd be like, hey, there's a weird vehicle at the gas station at this cross section. Just letting you guys know. And, you know, sometimes people ask of you if you can, like, circle back. And I was not able to. I was very explicit. I was like, I cannot turn around, but here's the information. And that felt okay. I'm like, here you go. Hope for the best.
Hope this helps.
The network M is alerting on signal when she sees ICE. I got in touch with some of the people who are on the other end. These civilian patrols that have proliferated in cities like Minneapolis. People showing up where ICE is. I asked them if I could ride along to get a sense of what they're doing and what that's like right now.
I met up with two of these activists, Patty and Mitch, on Friday afternoon. I came to their house, on a block with lots of cute bungalows. They met me at the front door. But they stopped me before I came inside.
Would you mind verbally telling me that you're not with ICE, CBP, or any government agency, and then show me your press credential?
Yeah, I'm not with ICE. Here's my press credential. Come on in.
If you want to take a look. Yeah, I appreciate it.
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Chapter 5: How are residents responding to the fear of ICE raids?
Her eyes and throat started burning. Then, according to Patty, the agents then surrounded her.
And then proceeded to tell us that we were under arrest, took their... these instruments out of their vests and smashed in my front two windows and dragged us out of the car, put us in handcuffs and put us each in separate vehicles.
What was going through your head when that was all happening?
How are we getting arrested right now? We didn't do anything wrong. But we weren't committing any traffic violations. So it was like, how can this be happening right now? How am I in handcuffs?
How am I in the back of this unmarked car? Something that stood out from this story and other things this past weekend is just how unclear it is to the activists what could get them in trouble, detained or arrested. People seemed like they were trying to figure out the rules in real time. Is it blocking traffic? What's a safe distance to follow a car if you think it might be ICE?
As for Patty, whatever she'd done to get detained, she didn't get charged with anything. She was released later that evening, and she still doesn't know why they took her in. Now, a few days later, here she was, back out patrolling. About 20 minutes after we started staking out this one truck, the suspected ICE agent emerged.
This is him.
He got in his car and started driving. Do you want to start following him? Yeah.
Just at a pretty safe distance. How are you guys feeling right now? I am feeling a little nervous, but also also feeling like it's important that we stay out here, right? I think part of it is just knowing that the point of the arrests and the detentions is to instill fear and is to deter people from doing this important work.
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Chapter 6: What changes occurred in the community after the shooting of Renee Good?
Here's what else you need to know today. In a nearly two-hour speech in Davos to mark the first anniversary of his second term in office, President Trump listed a litany of grievances and accomplishments that wavered from his prowess as a Little League player to complaints about European allies.
He also said he'd learned that Rene Good's father had been a Trump supporter and said that he hoped that he still was. The administration has accused Good of being a domestic terrorist.
And the S&P 500 dropped more than 2% for the first time since October, as investors reacted to President Trump's increasing threat of higher tariffs on European allies, unless they supported his plans for America to take control of Greenland. Tuesday's trading was the first chance U.S.
markets had to react to the threats that Trump made over the weekend, when he also declined to rule out the use of military force to take over the country. Today's episode was reported and produced by Anna Foley and Michael Simon-Johnson, and produced by Caitlin O'Keefe, Nina Feldman, and Rochelle Banja, with help from Lindsay Garrison and Olivia Natt.
It was edited by Patricia Willans, Devin Taylor, MJ Davis-Lynn, and Ben Calhoun. Contains music by Marian Lozano, Alicia Beitube, Pat McCusker, and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Special thanks to Vivian Yee. That's it for The Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.
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