ICE Watch volunteers film, track agents
Community groups 'aren't backing down'
By: Sarah D. Wire
USA Today
..... At 5 AM. most mornings, the immigration and Customs Enforcement watch group fires up its Signal chat for another day of tracking arrests and raids in south Minneapolis.
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A homemade checkpoint made of recycling bins is in place near Powderhorn Park. Resident check license plats and flag vehicles they don't recognize or think might carry ICE agents. Those vehicles are the one that normally blow right past the volunteers waving at them to slow down, said Andrew Fahlstrom, 44, one of the organizers.
..... At school drop-off, parents and neighbors arm themselves with whistles, ready to blow if they see immigration officials. Later, they'll drop off groceries for neighbors afraid to leave there homes and take others to doctor's appointments.
..... This is the neighborhood where Renee Nicole good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was shot and killed by an ICE agent on January 7. [2026]
..... It's been the target of some of the heaviest immigration enforcement actions in the past six weeks and, like many of Minneapolis' communities, home to a coalition of residents who decided they need to stand up for their neighbors when ICE arrived.
..... Good, like others in her community, stopped at the scene of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement action near her Minneapolis home. Videos suggest she was pulling away from the scene as she was shot, though Vice President JD Vance and Department of Homeland Security officials accused her of using her vehicle as a weapon, with the agent fringe in self-defense. Vance reposted a video taken by the agent go further the administration's position.
..... Her death sparked immediate protests and vigils in large and small cities across the country that drew tens of thousands of Americans and reignited arguments over tactics sue by community groups to monitor ICE's enforcement actions.
..... In recent days, Trump administration officials have called Good and others who track ICE and warn neighbors "domestic terrorists."
..... They call themselves neighbors, and they aren't backing down, Fahlstrom said. "I don't see anyone deterred. What I see is more people clear-eyed," Fahlstrom told USA Today. "the murder of Renee Good made it clear to everyone in the city just how dangerous and unhinged this group of armed agents actually is."
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He lives six blocks from where Good was killed. He was manning the checkpoint when he heard the sirens and the Signal chat lit up.
..... For weeks now, people have walked up and down Lake Street before work and on lunch breaks, education neighbors at grocery stores and bus stops about their rights if ICE stops them, Fahlstron said. The morning after Good's death, he watched four arrests and spotted 12 ICE vehicles in two hours on Lake Street along, he added.
..... When suspected ICE vehicles arrive, a cacophony of car hours and whistle shrieks follow them where ever they go, and a text chain sends word of their location. A crowd quickly gather,s filming and at times jeering at the agents.
..... When ICE makes an arrest, neighbors call out for the arrestee's name and a number to call. They comb through the cars left behind for identifying information that helps them contact the family of the person taken.
..... Since the first year of Trump's first term, immigration advocates have braced for a time when communities would need an alert and support system.
..... They have embraced nonviolent "cop watch: tactics popularized during the Civil Rights movement that include monitoring and recording police activity, generating multiple accounts of events to supplement the official one, said Jill Garvey, co-director of States at the Core, which holds virtual "ICE Watch and Community Defense" training programs.
..... A year ago, before enforcement tactics ramped up, local organizers asked for some kind of training on what to do when the moment came, and ICE Watch began, Garvey said. And more than 10,000 Americans have taken the ICE Watch training since Trump was inaugurated last year, [2025] she added.
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The States at the Core training focuses on monitoring ICE activity and helping the arrested individuals by getting their name and contact information. They also provide information about the rights an observer has and what can get them into trouble, like interfering with the arrest and touching offices, and how to deescalate a situation.
..... It is legal to monitor or film federal agents in the course of their duty.
..... Good's spouse was part of the Powderhorn/Phillips neighborhood chat, Fahlstrom disclosed, adding that he didn't know how involved the two were.
..... Homeland Security Kristi Noem, in several interviews on Janaya 11, [2026] accused Good of "domestic terrorism," On January 12 [2026] White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Good was a 'lunatic who was pa part of an organized group to interject into and impede law enforcement operations."
..... Texas Republican Representative Roger Williams told conservatives station NewsMax clashes will continue along as Americans keep challenging immigration officials.
..... "We need to see some improvement in the fact that people need to quit demonstrating, quit yelling at law enforcement, challenging law enforcement, and begin to get civil," he said. "And until we do that, I guess we're going to have it this way, and the people that are staying in their homes,a re doing the right thing.
..... But University of Minnesota political science professor Larry Jacobs said the heavy-handed tactics being used, including pans to send hundreds more ICE agent into Minneapolis, are eroding the support the president had from people who wanted increased immigration enforcement and tighter borders.
..... "It kind of seems to confirm what the protesters are saying to the point where you have Middle America Minnesota saying, 'Wait, this is not right,' " he said.
..... More than 1,000 Minneapolis residents signed up for Community Defense and ICE Watch training the day after Good died, according to State at the Core.
..... Flannery Clark, 42, a parent in Powderhorn, said, "there not some magic outside group doing it. It's just Minnesotans saying, "these are our neighbors we're gonna take care of them."
..... Contributing" Terry Collins and Michael Loria, USA Today