For the past week, anti-ICE activists have been posting information and questions about where ICE agents might be staying in Minneapolis. Last night, activists held a rowdy protest in front of the Graduate hotel on the University of Minnesota’s campus, where they believe officers are staying.
Nearly one thousand activists showed up with musical instruments, cowbells, whistles, and signs, and there are reports that the building was vandalized during the protest. Police showed up in riot gear to break up the protest and help hotel security prevent demonstrators from entering the building.
It’s now common for protesters to track and post the locations of officers’ hotels, whether to boycott the hotel chain, to harass hotel management, or to demonstrate at the hotel. ICE Watch, the online community monitoring law enforcement officers’ movements, brands itself as something of a neighborhood watch organization. National Review recently reported on what ICE Watch encourages its members to do: not only track but, in some cases, obstruct or impede ICE. This week’s hotel protests are the latest example of how ICE Watch mobilizes to achieve its campaign of, as Dan explained the other day, thwarting “the enforcement of laws passed by Congress” and/or provoking “conflict and confrontation with armed federal agents in the hope of discrediting the enforcement of those laws.”
On Signal and WhatsApp chats, on Instagram, on Reddit, and on other online forums activists have been speculating about the location of officers’ hotels for days. As activists began to report the hotel online, others called the hotel and in some cases showed up at reported locations to demand that hotel employees deny service to ICE. Activists also tend to leave bad review of these hotels online.
More information is coming out about the mobilizing techniques of different ICE-tracking groups. USA Today confirmed yesterday in an interview with a local ICE Watch organizer that Renee Good’s partner, Rebecca, was “part of the Powderhorn/Phillips [ICE Watch] neighborhood chat.” According to Defend 612, that neighborhood group tracks, follows, and attempts to disrupt ICE vehicles. According to a newsletter posted on January 1, in late December, “a hero community member was behind a confirmed ICE vehicle and honking to warn others.” Moreover, “local neighborhood chats activated, 2 other cars joined in, and neighbors came out to the streets.” According to the group, ICE left the scene shortly after.