After ICE raids, tear gassing protestors, and two killings, DHS “border czar” Tom Homan arrived in the Twin Cities to announce a winding down of immigration enforcement. But the battle has merely moved from the streets to the underground, and the city remains under siege.
is a policy reporter at The Verge covering surveillance, the Department of Homeland Security, and the tech-right.
Minneapolis was not the war zone I expected to find. Depending on who you are and where you live, things can seem, for a few fleeting moments, almost normal, like a few blocks or neighborhoods over people aren’t being tear gassed or rounded up by ICE or, in two tragic cases, being gunned down by federal agents. Even now some people walk their dogs, run errands and buy groceries, meet friends for dinner and drinks. Daily life has become sinister in its banality, because Minneapolis remains a city under siege. ICE and CBP agents roam the streets, though their tactics have shifted as of late: No longer acting like an occupying army, the Department of Homeland Security now operates like secret police. They do their best to blend in, to look like the people they terrorize, and in this, they often fail. Everyone knows that they’re there, that they’re watching. But they aren’t everywhere — not at once. The fear is that they will arrive at any moment, that they will take someone, that they will arrest or attack or kill anyone who gets in their way…