This Is Actually Happening
The story of what ICE is really doing seemed like one of those social media hoaxes. It's not.
Last night, a friend who I completely trust posted a story that seemed too far-fetched, too much like one of those confabulated social media rumors that someone had to have made up (the fact that it was on Facebook—the home of social media distortion—only added to the impression) to be believed. It felt like it couldn’t actually be real.
And yet it was.
It is the on-the-ground story of what ICE is actually doing in Minnesota right now: how a barely-trained1 horde of masked goons with guns are ransacking their way through schools, businesses, and neighborhoods and snatching anyone they please without cause and without legal authority—in fact, often in violation of the law. And about how American citizens are helpless against a government that is behaving like the stuff of Orwellian nightmares.
This morning, I set about fact-checking point-by-point through credible news sources and I was able to verify almost everything she passed along.
Though it wasn’t that hard to authenticate the core point of the story, since last night the Associated Press captured a shocking one-minute video of federal agents [note: this is uploaded to my Worth Knowing YouTube channel—so if you support this work, please subscribe to the channel while you’re there] pepper-spraying protesters outside a home where they then rammed the door and stormed inside to arrest a man. To be clear: this was illegal. The agents had a document signed by an immigration officer that allows them to arrest someone in a public area, but does not authorize forced entry into a private residence. This was therefore not a legal arrest. It amounted to a home invasion and kidnapping.
But who can stop them?
The writer Andrew Sullivan has been issuing a string of warnings on Substack with one key line repeated: “it is happening here.”
The below is what he means—THIS is what is happening here. I’ve quoted each item from my friend’s Facebook post below, along with my verification of all of the key points with sources footnoted.
I hope people will share this with anyone in their lives who is pro-Trump, but also pro-America, pro-Constitution, and pro-freedom. And ask them, is this what we stand for? Shouldn’t we all stand against this?
ICE agents are cruising areas with immigrant-owned businesses, and kidnapping patrons and employees alike. Yesterday they abducted two US citizen employees at a suburban Target, one who was begging them to allow him to go get his passport to show them.
TRUE: Local TV and online outlets have reported that federal agents are circulating and detained two drive-up workers outside a Target in Richfield, a Minneapolis suburb. Video of the encounter has circulated widely.2
ICE is going door to door in immigrant-heavy neighborhoods, asking residents where their immigrant neighbors live. Read that again. If it sounds like something out of your high school history textbook, that’s because it is.
TRUE: ICE is indeed going door to door in Somali neighborhoods and looking for people to grab. Somali-Americans are afraid to leave their homes without their passports. It is a literal “show me your papers” blitz.3
ICE is targeting schools and school buses. They pepper sprayed teenagers and abducted two school staff members at the high school up the street from me on Weds. Police are literally escorting school buses to ensure children can get to school and home safely. The Minneapolis Public Schools have moved to virtual learning for the next 4 weeks because it’s unsafe for children or teachers to physically come to school.
TRUE: Yes, ICE has actually been targeting schools, pepper-spraying people, and snatching staff.4 Schools have been closed and online learning has been offered instead through February 12 for fear that kids, parents, or teachers will come to harm.5 Editorial note: the fact that MAGA people lost their minds over school closures during COVID presents more than a little irony here. Editorial note two: ICE says it is targeting violent criminals, the “worst of the worst.” Among high schoolers?
They are targeting hospitals and clinics. Patients are scared and are canceling their appointments or just not showing up. Kids are missing their checkups and vaccines, folks aren’t getting their cancer care, etc.
TRUE: Local outlets report that federal immigration agents guarded a patient at Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC) in Minneapolis for roughly 28 hours, with the patient shackled to the bed at times.6 WCCO/CBS Minnesota reports that immigrants in the Twin Cities are avoiding hospitals and even emergency care out of fear of being detained.
They are smashing windows in cars and homes.
ALMOST CERTAINLY TRUE: The video shared above showed agents breaking down someone’s door without a legal warrant, after all. But in addition, a Wall Street Journal piece and other national coverage have documented ICE/Border Patrol smashing car windows during traffic stops in various cities.7
ICE is increasingly picking up Native Americans—again, targeting folks based on skin color alone.
TRUE: This is well-documented in many places, including here,8 here,9 and here.10 To repeat: masked agents are arresting Americans with darker skin at gunpoint.
They are arresting and beating legal observers. A friend of a friend had her arm broken yesterday. Folks are showing up at local hospitals, brought in in ICE custody, with severe injuries that are absolutely inconsistent with mechanism of injury reported by ICE. (Think: patient appears to have been beaten unconscious, while ICE agent says he slipped and fell.)
LIKELY TRUE BUT NOT SPECIFICALLY VERIFIED: It is clear that this is almost certainly true because there are dozens of videos available online of ICE agent abuses, while Trump administration explanations for ICE actions have frequently been plainly contradicted by video and eyewitness evidence. But I did not track down this specific person whose arm was broken, and could not access hospital records.
It’s not just Minneapolis; agents have been at Duluth high schools and have detained men on the job as roofers locally.
TRUE: Clearly.11
I can’t emphasize enough that these ICE agents do not have warrants. There are 2,000+ agents here and they are simply hunting for anyone that’s not white. It doesn’t matter if you’re a citizen or a green card holder, they will kidnap you first and ask questions later.
TRUE: We have seen multiple instances of being being detained, questioned, and grabbed off the street or out of their homes on flimsy, non-legal pretexts, or as in the case of the video above, documents that don’t authorize what the agents are using them for. The Supreme Court has allowed racial profiling, so it’s 100% sure that ICE isn’t going to need more encouragement than that.
The bottom line is, our fellow Americans are living in a police state. Which means, we all are.
Training length has been shortened from 5 months to 2 months during the recent hiring blitz of 12,000 new agents, according to legal scholar Kim Wehle
https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-news/video-border-agents-descend-on-richfield-target-store-arrest-drive-up-workers
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/11/ice-renee-good-minneapolis-protests-kristi-noem; https://abcnews.go.com/US/somalis-minnesota-ice-agents-targeting-community/story?id=128080449
https://www.fox9.com/news/ice-agents-outside-roosevelt-high-school-draws-conflicting-accounts-from-union-dhs
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/01/08/after-border-patrol-clash-at-roosevelt-minneapolis-schools-cancel-classes; https://sahanjournal.com/education/minneapolis-schools-online-learning-ice-actions-schools/
https://sahanjournal.com/immigration/hcmc-patient-arrested-immigration-agents-ice-unidos-mn/; https://www.audacy.com/wccoradio/news/local/twin-cities-immigrants-avoiding-hospital-fear-of-ice-agents
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/videos-show-how-ice-vehicle-stops-can-escalate-to-shootings-caf17601
https://ictnews.org/news/i-felt-like-i-was-kidnapped-ojibwe-man-recounts-ice-detainment/
https://nativenewsonline.net/currents/red-lake-man-kidnapped-by-ice
https://senatedfl.mn/native-american-caucus-members-condemn-detainment-and-racial-targeting-of-native-americans-by-ice/
https://www.northernnewsnow.com/2025/02/27/ice-arrests-several-roofers-duluths-lakeside-neighborhood/
Thank you for your work to confirm what’s going on there. My oldest is in college in Minnesota, and I am grateful to be able to share information that I trust with him.
Necessary info .
Lenny