The People of Minneapolis stopped DHS in their tracks: Now Trump wants revenge
DOJ arrests 15 activists, teachers, union representatives, and organizers under under rhetoric of "domestic terrorism"
Officials from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) arrested 13 activists, trade unionists, and teachers in Minneapolis on June 16. They pulled teachers from classrooms in front of their students, and others from their homes, charging some of the union leaders and activists with “criminal conspiracy,” and all for “conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer.”
The charges stem from the unionists and teachers’ efforts in organizing popular resistance against US President Donald Trump’s “Operation Metro Surge,” in which DHS personnel flooded the streets of Minneapolis in an aggressive migrant roundup that also killed two US citizens, and at least one legal migrant.
It is part of a larger crackdown in which the US justice system is being used to criminalize dissent, and perhaps more importantly, enact revenge on those who have defeated or embarrassed Trump.
Minneapolis committed the cardinal sin of achieving both, and very publicly. Popular networks in the city organized aid for migrant workers in hiding, sustained and constant protests that slowed down DHS activities in the city, and publicly turned the tide against Trump’s most aggressive and public migration crackdown policies.
And the people of Minneapolis’ resistance inspired similar efforts to pop up across the US. Republicans facing tough midterm elections began criticizing draconian anti-migration strategies. Trump was forced to retreat.
Then-chief of DHS field operations, Greg Bovino, was promptly fired, and new leadership promised to take a softer tack. Gone were the massive public deployments, the deployment of the National Guard to cities that resisted his fascist policies, and the slick videos of ICE ripping people from their beds decked out in military kit.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin has since frequently stated that his primary goal is to keep his department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) out of the daily news headlines.
Trump has tried since he came to office to demonize dissent to his policies, including designating “antifa” a domestic terrorist group — a designation that does not exist and which the White House has no legal power to enforce.
Minneapolis was not the first to mount a massive popular resistance to ICE/DHS kidnapping operations, but it was by far the most organized. Thousands of observers collaborated with any civic organization interested—from church groups to unions to direct action networks on the ground to reading groups composed of middle-aged participants—to use every path of resistance available to them.
They stopped the behemoth in its tracks. Trump never got over it.
Since then, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has been trying to set a precedent that allows them to prosecute critics. They have been focused on leftists generally, but hold a particular ire for those who resist fascism.
That’s exactly why the DOJ and DHS are going after the activists who organized grocery deliveries for migrants afraid to leave their houses during the DHS crackdown in Minneapolis, created open-source software that allowed any citizen to report ICE activity, organized marches, and protested outside of detention facilities.
DHS strategy to criminalize dissent under an overarching charge of “criminal conspiracy “ has precedent, set by DHS last year. Prosecutors successfully used the legal strategy to convict protesters who demonstrated outside the Prairieland detention facility in Alvarado, Texas, convicting defendants of “terrorism” charges.
One of the convicted defendants was jailed for moving “zines,” pamphlets criticizing DHS and offering tips on resistance.
The 13 arrested in Minneapolis are part of charges the DHS has launched against 15 activists in the city.
“As alleged, these defendants, which included members of Antifa groups, engaged in an unrelenting campaign of harassment and violence targeting federal and local law enforcement,” stated Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, in a DHS press release.
The union members, teachers, and activists sometimes organized under the name Direct Action Minnesota, which the DOJ describes as a terrorist organization.
The DOJ seems particularly offended that one of the associated working groups, the Black Cat Workers’ Union, has a graphic of the burning of the Minneapolis Third Precinct Building on the Facebook page.
The burning happened in response to the killing of George Floyd, and had a higher approval rating than Trump did at the time.
The DOJ describes those accused of “coordinated violence targeting federal law enforcement officers in an effort to cause chaos and impede law enforcement operations.”
Union representatives in Minneapolis reject the accusation as “absurd.”
Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou, president of the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, told Workday Magazine, “Working people from all walks of life across Minneapolis and its suburbs stepped up for their neighbors throughout Trump’s Operation Metro Surge. Tens of thousands of Minnesotans exercised their constitutional rights throughout this past winter — foundational American freedoms such as the rights to peaceably assemble and advocate for change. Today’s federal indictments impacted several of our union members who used their voices alongside many other workers to call for an end to ICE’s so-far unaccountable violence.”
Gabiou described widespread and clearly legal coordination among hundreds of civil groups, and accused the DOJ of criminalizing 1st Amendment-protected speech.
Trump has lost the political and moral debates over his draconian and fascist migration policies. Left without recourse, he has turned to criminalizing dissent — and most especially effective resistance. Organizers in Minneapolis won by every measurable metric, strategically, tactically, politically, and in terms of optics.
Trump wants to make sure no one achieves a victory like that against him again.
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