Kristi Noem visited the Twin Cities and decried out-of-control crime. Is a federal occupation subsequent?
Division of Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem speaks throughout a press convention at a federal workplace constructing on October 20, 2025, in Bradenton, Florida.
(Octavio Jones / Getty Pictures)
Fort Snelling, Minnesota—On Friday, beneath blue skies and orange leaves, a bunch of protesters gathered exterior the Bishop Henry Whipple Constructing and held a second of silence for individuals who have been killed, detained, or disappeared by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Chants of “Say his title!” adopted, because the protesters waited for a press convention from Kristi Noem, the secretary of the Division of Homeland Safety.
The Bishop Henry Constructing, the place deportation hearings happen, is situated simply minutes from the Minneapolis airport on Fort Snelling, which homes a army landmark of the identical title. Dred Scott and his spouse were enslaved at Fort Snelling earlier than unsuccessfully suing for his or her freedom. Fort Snelling additionally served as a concentration camp for Dakota folks following the US-Dakota Battle. At Friday’s noon gathering exterior Bishop Henry, Brooke Bartholomew, cochair of Twin Cities Democratic Socialists of America, related these camps to ICE detention at the moment.
“There’s a transparent via line between that genocidal settler-colonial authorities and at the moment’s racist, fascist regime,” she advised a crowd of dozens via a megaphone. “What’s been taking place throughout this nation and different elements of the world is what trendy fascism appears like,” she added, from elevated militarization to the creation of a racialized Different as a scapegoat for social issues.
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Simply after 4:30 pm, Noem took to a podium inside Bishop Henry to reiterate DHS’s dedication to “making America protected once more” by ridding the nation of “the worst of the worst,” a phrase persistently utilized to immigrants of colour. In entrance of her, assault weapons have been splayed out on a desk, alongside piles of confiscated medication. On both aspect was an outsized {photograph} of individuals her workplace had arrested. Their names weren’t listed, however their nationalities have been: Mexican, Salvadoran.
To a room stuffed with reporters and people watching on reside stream, Noem boasted about Operation Twin Shield; warned of increasing ICE operations, made attainable by the current, speedy hiring of latest officers; and expressed her company’s need for extra detention partnerships and law-enforcement agreements within the state. She additionally requested Minnesotans to help regulation enforcement, citing a rise in violence towards officers. Given the town’s recent history with police, it’s an ask that may probably go unanswered.
By the point Noem made her deal with, the protest exterior the ability had grown to a number of hundred folks. Many Twin Cities residents have been bracing themselves for Noem to announce the deployment of the Nationwide Guard. When requested about such plans, she deferred the choice to President Donald Trump and as an alternative spent her time laying the correct pretense. She scolded incumbent Mayor Jacob Frey, who’s up for reelection on November 4, and Governor Tim Walz for his or her lack of cooperation, which she mentioned has triggered an increase in violent crime. According to Minnesota Public Radio, crime in Minneapolis peaked in 2020 and 2021.
“I don’t understand how he sleeps at night time,” Noem mentioned of Walz on the press convention, in reference to his dubbing ICE a “modern-day Gestapo” earlier this year. Noem gave the impression to be laying the grounds for sending in troops someday sooner or later. Claims of unchecked crime have been used to justify Trump’s deployment of the Nationwide Guard to Chicago, Memphis, and Washington, DC. In Chicago, federal brokers carried out Operation Midway Blitz, used pepper spray and tear gas towards journalists and protesters, and killed a person during an immigration raid.
In September, the Division of Justice sued Minnesota over its sanctuary insurance policies. Minneapolis and St. Paul have separation ordinances prohibiting metropolis staff, police included, from imposing federal immigration legal guidelines. Nonetheless, Walz has rejected the assertion that Minnesota is a sanctuary state and isn’t any stranger to activating the Nationwide Guard himself, as he did within the wake of the Minneapolis rebellion in 2020.
“Minneapolis residents…nonetheless recall the trauma of the 2020 Nationwide Guard deployment, when peaceable protesters for racial justice have been met with tear gasoline, rubber bullets, and militarized pressure,” Robin Wonsley, a democratic socialist elected to the town council in 2021, mentioned. “Seeing troops in our streets once more would reopen deep wounds.”
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State Senator Omar Fateh, a democratic socialist seeking to unseat Frey, echoed the sentiment, telling me, “If Trump tries to ship troops right here and re-traumatizes our residents who lived via 2020, they’re going to should undergo us first.” A core a part of his platform is guaranteeing native authorities is the final line of protection towards the Trump administration, together with strengthening the aforementioned separation ordinance and arresting federal agents who put on masks.
“Trump’s deployment of federal regulation enforcement and Nationwide Guard to cities throughout america has felt like an try and rerun the summer season of 2020, solely with a distinct final result,” mentioned Stuart Schrader, an affiliate professor of historical past at Johns Hopkins College and writer of Badges With out Borders: How International Counterinsurgency Remodeled American Policing. He added that it shouldn’t be stunning that the GOP would goal Minneapolis. In spite of everything, throughout the first Trump administration, the town “touched off a worldwide motion towards police violence.”
No matter whether or not—or when—the Nationwide Guard is deployed, a coalition of resistance is assembling. The protests exterior the Bishop Henry Constructing related the dots between disparate social issues—Allison Gunderson of the MN Anti-Battle Committee, for one, famous that US destabilization overseas creates immigration crises to start with—but additionally to hyperlink the grassroots responses to them.
The Folks’s Motion Coalition Towards Trump was fashioned earlier this yr and contains organizations such because the Democratic Socialists of America, Black Lives Matter MN, the Twin Cities Coalition for Justice (created in 2015 after two Minnesota police officer killed Jamar Clark), the Local weather Justice Committee, the Abortion Motion Committee, the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Motion Heart, and Asamblea de Derechos Civiles, to call a number of. Organizers have mentioned they wish to make “united towards fascism” not only a slogan however a actuality.
Minnesota’s protesters perceive the paradox of the current. On the one hand, their battle has large priority. On the opposite, it has solely simply begun. As Noem wrapped up her remarks, tons of exterior the constructing chanted in unison: “You don’t scare us. We’ll be again.”
