Minnesota and the Threat of American Authoritarianism

In the span of three weeks, federal ICE agents have killed two American citizens on the streets of Minneapolis. Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother and poet, was shot three times through her windshield on Jan. 7. Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse who cared for veterans in intensive care, was shot ten times on Jan. 24—video shows border patrol agents pinning him down before killing him. Neither had a criminal record. Neither was the target of any immigration enforcement action. 

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The government-sanctioned violence unfolding in America is not about immigration. It is about whether armed federal agents can occupy American cities against the will of their citizens, target communities based on race and ethnicity, and kill people with impunity. It is about whether the president can lawfully deploy military force against citizens exercising their First Amendment rights. Ultimately, it is about an authoritarian grab for power, whether our fragile democracy can repel it, and what it will take for Americans to take action. 

The Trump Administration has sent what officials describe as the largest immigration enforcement operation in American history to Minneapolis—up to 3,000 federal agents for a metropolitan area of 3.2 million people.

These federal agents have used tear gas, flash grenades, and pepper spray on protesters. They have raided hospitals and homes. They have detained U.S. citizens, including a 23-year-old woman who says agents physically and verbally assaulted her. President Donald Trump has justified the crackdown with racist and inaccurate assertions that Minnesota’s Somali community—most of whom are American citizens—“contribute nothing” and are “garbage.” This community has built lives, businesses, and families over decades and is a fundamental part of Minnesota’s economic and social fabric.

Trump has also threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy military troops to suppress what he sees as an insurrection. But this decision would be over the objections of local officials and in conflict with the eyes of observers, who simply see their neighbors exercising their constitutional right to free speech. Though Trump appeared to adjust his tone in recent days, the threat remains.

This is how democracies slide into authoritarianism—not all at once, but through a series of brazen and unconstitutional actions, carried out by the government, that accumulate until they become irreversible.

Nonprofits like the National Immigration Law Center have spent the last year responding to one crisis after another. We are mounting legal challenges against the administration’s unconstitutional acts, working with congressional champions to hold the line, supporting families torn apart, and collaborating with activists who now fear for their lives at the hands of the very government sworn to protect them.

Make no mistake, this fight is not just about protecting immigrants—it is about protecting American democracy. And increasingly, more Americans are heeding the call.

On Jan. 23, thousands of Minnesotans marched through downtown Minneapolis in subzero temperatures. Hundreds of businesses closed for a general strike—the first in the city since 1934. Unions, faith leaders, nurses, teachers, and neighbors stood together and said “enough.” They did not cower in fear. They did not wait. They understood the urgency of the moment and stepped up with courage and resolve, inspiring the rest of America.

To be sure, what is happening in Minnesota will not stay in Minnesota. It did not begin there, nor will it end there. But the patterns will be the same, and as authoritarianism spreads, eventually, no one will be safe. In Minneapolis, they started with immigrants and Somali families. Then, they targeted protesters. The net grew wider as the politicized Justice Department targeted city and state public officials who spoke out. They arrested two Black women for interrupting a service at a church. Eventually, it will be anyone and everyone who dares to resist. If the Insurrection Act is invoked, there may be no going back. 

Still today, even as we watch the pillars of our democracy being quickly dismantled, too many Americans remain silent: people who are uncomfortable with what they are seeing but have not yet acted, people who believe this does not and will not affect them, people who are afraid of speaking out, or those who take our democracy for granted and believe it will withstand no matter what.

The only thing that can stop this assault is us—all of us—speaking and acting in unison.

Inaction is a choice—and history will record it as such.

Minnesota is calling. The moment to act is now.

America, what are you waiting for?