Social-media mainstay Will Stancil has been following ICE around the city. This is what he has seen.

Minnesota resident Will Stancil is a lawyer, policy researcher, and onetime candidate for the state’s house of representatives who has long been a voluble progressive presence on X and Bluesky. Over the past week, Stancil has become a mainstay of citizen patrols, tracking ICE agents around the city in his Honda Fit and sharing his experiences with his 100,000-plus followers. On Friday, I spoke with Stancil about what he has witnessed over the past few days.

…

Do the videos we’ve seen — of violent arrests, of agents deploying flash-bangs and tear gas on bystanders — capture the full extent of what’s happening?

No. In the private rapid-response channels, people will share many, many videos, and they don’t want to bring them public because they don’t want to be identified. People are worried. So there’s lots and lots more private stuff that is never circulating. The other thing is I think it’s really difficult to capture. The last few days have been calmer. But for the first week or so, it was really hard to convey the unrelenting pace of this stuff. I had a journalist come ride along — he just published an article about it. I had been talking about how crazy it was, and I could tell he was a little bit skeptical. He thought, Okay, maybe we’ll see an ICE car. In a two-hour ride, we chased four ICE convoys onto the highway, saw someone violently abducted alive in front of us, then saw a separate ICE convoy tear-gas a major commercial intersection for no reason at all. In two hours.

We have these rapid-response channels. I mean, I got to the point where — and this is very difficult to do — but I got to the point where I mute them or turn them off or leave them when I come home in the evening because getting the constant updates — as much as I want to be informed of my community, if I’m not out there and can’t do anything about it, I am a raw nerve all day and night. I come home and I just have to lie on the couch and just shut everything off and shut my brain off because you’ll go insane hearing about what all they’re doing.

Archived at https://archive.ph/fiwGH

    • tabarnaski@sh.itjust.works
      711·
      13 days ago

      It will officially be once Waltz orders the state national guard to defend the city from ICE. Which is why he doesn’t.

      • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
        10·
        12 days ago

        He’s walking a knife edge right now. MAGA is looking for an excuse to go fucking crazy violent and suspend elections, and Walz doesn’t want to give it to them.

        We’ll see what happens AFTER the Midterms. Whatever the outcome, MAGA will use it as an excuse to crank up their violence, and I doubt governors and mayors will continue to be as accommodating.

      • samus12345@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        10·
        13 days ago

        The state national guard can become federalized in a moment if Trump says so. Don’t count on them being any help unless they’re willing to disobey orders.

        • brygphilomena@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          15·
          13 days ago

          I’ve been advocating for months now that blue states need to get their state guard going.

          It’s like the national guard, but entirely run by the state. It cannot be federalized. The downside is that they often share membership with the national guard and often get their training through the national guard and federal military branches.

        • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          12·
          13 days ago

          Yeah, there have been a few instances of that happening. Notably, it happened when the governor of Arkansas tried to use the national guard to bar black students from entering a (recently desegregated) white school in 1957. Eisenhower federalized the guard, and ordered them to protect the black students instead. And the governor was forced to watch as all of “his” troops (who were already on the ground and ready to work because the governor had called them in) about-faced and started following the POTUS’ orders instead of his. It backfired on the governor pretty spectacularly, because they wouldn’t have been in place to enforce the desegregation unless he had ordered them to be there in the first place.

          And Walz isn’t dumb. He undoubtedly knows that story. He doesn’t want a repeat of that, where he calls in the guard, then has them turned against him.

            • btsax@reddthat.com
              91·
              13 days ago

              Eisenhower orchestrated the 1953 Iranian coup, overthrowing a democratically elected government, and installed an authoritarian, US-backed puppet. He also overthrew the democratically elected government of Guatemala at the behest of a banana company (United Fruit, now Chiquita).

              Every new Republican advances the evil, because it’s never punished.

            • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
              51·
              13 days ago

              I just had a horrific thought that old tricky Dick Nixon may actually end up inheriting that title just because of how bad everyone after him has been. Like compared to Trump the war on Drugs ain’t fuck all, and compared to Bush jr Vietnam was practically a peace operation.

      • otter@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        10·
        13 days ago

        But, the “other side” is brandishing free speech, equal rights, fair wages, safe housing, and more! 😭😱

      • innermachine@lemmy.world
        8·
        13 days ago

        What’s happening in our country is a political genocide. Us citizens that don’t agree with the administration are getting hounded by federal masked agents. I’m just glad in my relatively unpopulated and very dem area I have yet to see ice or any nonsense. The “city” I live in wouldn’t qualify for a small town in neighboring states so I get a bit shielded from all the crap going on, but I fear that means I can make no meaningful impact before it’s too late because by the time they come for small America there won’t be an America as we would like to know it.

  • ChillPenguin@lemmy.world
    55·
    13 days ago

    And yet, every time I talk to right wing people around here. They’re like “well this just happened because of the fraud. They can’t detain legal immigrants” as my list of people around me grows as citizens get detained and taken to Texas.

    Wake the fuck up.

    • SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world
      21·
      13 days ago

      Those idiots will perpetually double down on their identification. They are like the people who were dying of covid and still claimed in the hospital that they didn’t have it. You could march them off to prison and they’d probably claim the police were secretly left wing something or others.

      • duncan_bayne@lemmy.worldEnglish
        9·
        13 days ago

        Are you guilty?’ said Winston.

        ’Of course I’m guilty!’ cried Parsons with a servile glance at the telescreen. ’You don’t think the Party would arrest an innocent man, do you?’ His frog-like face grew calmer, and even took on a slightly sanctimonious expression. ’Thoughtcrime is a dreadful thing, old man,’ he said sententiously.

    • IamSparticles@lemmy.zipEnglish
      191·
      13 days ago

      I still pop my head into Facebook from time to time, mostly because I have some groups I need to keep track of. Unfortunately, my feed keeps getting slammed with news posts, too. And because of the way the algorithm works, the top comments on every one of them is some MAGA jackass who doesn’t have a clue. A couple days ago, when that family got tear gassed in their car and their infant child ended up in the NICU, every single article had some asshole posting “Why are they bringing their baby to a riot?” right underneath it. But of course, you don’t see all the responses explaining that no, they live there and were just on their way home when they ran into the mess and tried to turn around. But all those responses are the reason Ace McFucknut is the top comment. Engagement FTW, am I right?

      I officially hate this world.

      • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
        6·
        12 days ago

        If it’s anything like Tiktok, 75% of them are bots who never respond to comments, have similar profile pics and all have 50 followers who are also bots.

        • IamSparticles@lemmy.zipEnglish
          6·
          12 days ago

          Oh I deleted my NextDoor account years ago. That site has always been a cesspool. For whatever reason, people on NextDoor have always been perfectly happy to spout bigoted/racist crap at their neighbors.

          • Jumbie@lemmy.zip
            6·
            12 days ago

            It hasn’t changed. A few days ago ICE was spotted in an adjacent neighborhood.

            I made a post linking to the article and simply stated “ICE spotted in neighborhood.”

            Then I stayed silent and watched. HOLY FUCK that was an eye-opener. If I trusted my neighbors before I sure as fuck don’t now.

            Also, in typical rightwing fashion, they reported the post and it got hidden because “it created danger for the community.”

            Here’s one screenshot as an example:

  • BanMe@lemmy.world
    42·
    12 days ago

    ICE just deployed in my Southern capital city - bluest areas only, of course - and the local business owners quietly formed a pact to refuse them service and we all started privately sharing info about them. Just to note that ICE will come to other cities and it’s important to know ahead of time what you’ll do, and if you plan on being near them, what lawyer you or your family might call - or have a canary pact with (if you don’t hear from me, I am missing).

    If you’re white, help protect those who aren’t. Let them know immediately as you hear about ICE movement in your city. Make sure they aren’t blindly walking around neighborhoods where they might be kidnapped off the streets.

    Form private networks and use them. Neighbors, affinity groups, whatever tools you have available, or can build now, are the tools you’ll use. Think ahead.

        • AnarchistArtificer@lemmy.worldEnglish
          10·
          12 days ago

          TL;DR:

          • Fight if you can

          • Flee if you must

          • But always resist

          Connect with networks in your community. We need to rely on each others’ support to get through this, no matter how the situation develops

          The person who replied to you said “Fight”, and they’re not wrong, but I want to emphasise that there are people whose personal circumstances mean that they feel they need to flee, and that is okay. You should not feel guilty if this is something you genuinely need to do.

          If you need to flee, do so by relying on your community. Don’t do things along. Look for ways that you can resist while still keeping yourself safe, and use your community connections to support other people who need to flee. There are some people who are not as able to fight, but there are still ways they can contribute.

          To give an example of the kind of thing I mean (albeit in a far less explosive context, because I’m not in the US), I am physically disabled and have a bunch of other factors that mean I am not safely able to attend most protests, even as a legal observer. However, there have been a few times where I have been on standby, parked near the police station overnight, waiting for people to be released. This is because UK police tend to make a lot of arrests at protests and either not charge you, or charge you at a later point. They tend to let people out in the middle of the night, and they often do not have resources to travel home, or easy ways to contact people for help. When people in my network find out which station arrested protesters have been taken to, we can coordinate to ensure that there’s definitely going to be someone there when they are let out.

          Like I say, that’s an example from a very different political climate. Things on the ground where you are is changing so fast that I can’t possibly know what kind of support roles are both relatively safe, and useful right now. This is why it is crucial to connect with your communities. Figuring out what works is a work-in-progress, but I am confident that there are ways you can help contribute to the resistance efforts while also relying on your community to help you or your loved ones flee if you need to.

          Things are awful, and it sucks. Nothing is safe right now, even fleeing. But we have a duty to do whatever we can to reduce the harm done to the people in our communities. At times like this, all we have is each other, so let’s look after each other.

      • Scirocco@lemmy.world
        1·
        12 days ago

        Where does this say that this tradeshow is DHS/Law Enforcement related?

        I see no information beyond that of the company

        Could be a funeral industry show for all we know?

    • LesserAbe@lemmy.world
      25·
      13 days ago

      I’ve been reading “Fighters in the Shadows” by Robert Gildea, it’s about the resistance in France during World War 2. It’s funny how big the tent can be when you’re fighting fascism. They had people from all across the political spectrum, urban and rural, French plus countless other nationalities, and they were pursuing a really wide spectrum of activities.

      If you read Stancil’s feed these days he’s really doing the work, plus publicizing the issue. I don’t think it makes sense to prioritize social media grudges at the moment.

      • otter@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        4·
        13 days ago

        prioritize social media grudges at the moment.

        One more way we keep ourselves divided and infinitely goatsied —but, at least we’re unified in the pounding. 🤢🤌🏼