Harassment of ICE personnel escalated in Minnesota after the Trump administration deployed roughly 2,000 immigration agents to the Twin Cities area, triggering organized activist efforts to trail and intimidate them. ICE harassment tactics included tracking agents’ hotel locations and staging late-night demonstrations, according to a Washington Free Beacon review of left-wing activist networks and their funding.
At the center of the campaign is the Sunrise Movement, a climate-focused group that has redirected local chapters to oppose the Trump administration. Sunrise Twin Cities hosts in-person “action trainings” on how to “stop ICE & build a revolution” and organizes “noise demonstrations” intended to make it “impossible” for hotels housing ICE agents to operate. Since 2019, the group has received $2 million from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, along with hundreds of thousands more from the Ford and MacArthur Foundations.
Sunrise collaborates with Unidos MN and Defend the 612, both of which operate networks designed to monitor and disrupt ICE activity. Unidos leads a “rapid response” hotline through its affiliate Monarca, dispatching trained “responders” to areas where ICE agents are spotted. Defend the 612 offers “ICE Watch Welcome & Orientation” sessions and provides resources for “Tracking Federal Agents,” including a list labeled “License Plates of Abductors.”
Another group, MN Ice Watch, promotes activist tactics such as “totally surrounding the officers who have the arrestee” and even “pulling and pushing an officer off of an arrestee.” These activities surged following the January 7 death of Renee Good during an ICE encounter in Minneapolis.
Funding for these groups traces back to major left-wing donors, including the Tides Foundation and the Sixteen Thirty Fund. Open Society Foundations defended its support, stating, “The Open Society Foundations support the fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution, including the rights to free speech and peaceful protest.”
