Life Under ICE Occupation: 10 Minneapolis Residents on Their New Normal
Two weeks after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer fatally shot Renee Nicole Good, daily life in Minneapolis shifted irrevocably. More than 2,000 federal agents have been deployed across the city, officially to locate undocumented immigrants. Schools, churches, and childcare centers have all been targeted—there is no true safe haven from ICE enforcement in the Twin Cities—and in response, local residents have organized to build community-led rapid response networks to protect their neighbors.
Minneapolis is not the first U.S. city to face an ICE siege, and it will likely not be the last. After courts blocked former President Donald Trump’s earlier mobilization of the National Guard in California and Illinois, Trump has stated he is considering deploying active-duty U.S. troops to Minneapolis under the 19th-century Insurrection Act. Even if that extreme step never moves forward, billions in federal funding have flowed to ICE, enabling roaming teams of armed, masked agents to operate across the country with little oversight.
To understand what daily life feels like in an occupied American city, WIRED spoke to 10 residents from a range of backgrounds about their new routine. All have quickly adapted to a reality where keeping neighbors—and themselves—safe is a shared collective responsibility. Interviews have been condensed and edited for clarity.
Anonymous, 37, elementary school teacher
I start every morning by getting dressed and grabbing my whistle, just in case I spot ICE nearby so I can alert everyone else. When I get to work, we try to keep things as normal as possible for the kids, but there’s a constant undercurrent of anxiety for all of us teachers.
It’s worst at recess: I’m scanning the perimeter the whole time, one eye on the kids, one eye on anything out of the ordinary. Today there was a helicopter hovering low over the school, and it’s stressing the kids out. For a lot of us adults, it brings up PTSD from the George Floyd uprisings. Back then, our city was flooded with extra energy and chaos, but this feels different. That was mostly anger; this is a deep, constant fear.
If ICE is spotted nearby, you blow the whistle to tell everyone to get inside. The kids know the drill. We had an age-appropriate conversation about it: “There’s some unsafe stuff happening right now. If we’re outside and something unsafe comes, just like when it starts pouring rain, we’ll blow the whistle and head inside early.”
I have to remember to blow it slowly, because the kids are used to hearing quick, sharp whistle blasts from neighborhood alerts about ICE, and that spikes their stress. One kid told me on recess recently, “Make sure you blow it slow so we don’t get scared.”
Brandon Sigüenza, 32, volunteer observer detained by ICE
I’d never done legal observation before January 11, the day I was arrested. A friend asked if I’d come with her, and I said sure. A neighborhood text group had reported that a legal observer had been pepper sprayed near my friend’s house, so we went to check on people and document what was happening. There were two unmarked SUVs parked right in the middle of the road, with multiple observers surrounding them honking their horns. We approached from the east, and when the agents turned 270 degrees and started driving south on 16th Avenue, we were the first to follow them. We only followed for 40 seconds, less than a full block. It was my first time ever seeing an ICE car, let alone following one.
My heart was pounding. When they pulled over, I told my friend who was driving, “Breathe, just take deep breaths”—but I was really saying that to myself. She’s super brave, and she yelled at them: “We aren’t obstructing you. You can drive forward.” There were no cars blocking them when they pulled over; they blocked us in, so we couldn’t go forward and observers behind us meant we couldn’t back up.
ICE agents got out and surrounded the car. One was filming me. They never said they were ICE, but I knew. I’d never seen an agent in person before, so I was nervous. My friend kept yelling, “What law did we break? We aren’t obstructing. Get the fuck out of our way.” All I could do was say Renee Good’s name twice. She was all I could think about, and I didn’t know what else to say.
When the agents started heading back to their SUV, one grabbed pepper spray from his car, walked over to us, and sprayed it straight into our car’s air intake vent. The two SUVs pulled forward another 30 seconds, then stopped again. My friend yelled, “The car is in park, you can drive forward!” She told me later she was thinking of Renee Good, and didn’t want them to have any excuse to claim they couldn’t move. We put our hands up. An agent snapped, “Shut the fuck up.” One came to my side and said, “You’re under arrest.” I just kept my hands up and waited for instructions—I didn’t know if he wanted me to get out or stay in the car. At one point, an agent said to my friend: “You need to stop obstructing. That’s why that lesbian bitch is dead.”
Then he smashed the passenger window. Another agent smashed the driver window at the same time. The doors were unlocked, but they never even tried to open them—they just smashed the glass. All I could think about was Renee Good and what happened to her, and I knew I had to stay calm to de-escalate. I kept my hands up and slowed my breathing as much as I could. It felt surreal, like I was watching it happen to someone else, but the sound of the glass shattering was so loud and chaotic. (Later, when they frisked me at the detention facility, they found glass shards in my coat pocket.)
On the ride to the facility, one agent warned me: “What you’re doing is really dangerous. We’re after really bad guys.” When we pulled into the garage, I saw a 20-something East African woman in detention, and she reminded me of so many of my friends and coworkers. I asked the agent, “Is she one of the bad guys?” He didn’t answer.
I knew Minnesota lawmakers had been denied access to the detention building just the day before, so I made a point to remember everything I saw. When I was being booked, there were 20 or 30 Brown people waiting in line, most Hispanic, some East African. My friend and I were taken to a separate table for U.S. citizens, marked with a little sign that said “Obstruction.”
An agent frisked me, took my passport, put it in a mesh bag, and had me sign a form for my personal belongings. They put foot shackles on me and took me to the holding area for U.S. citizens. I was put alone in a 10x10 foot cell, with yellow painted walls and a concrete bench. My friend was in the cell next to me, separated by two-way mirrors, so I yelled through the wall, “I love you. It’s okay.” That made an agent uncomfortable, so he moved me to a holding spot in the hallway where I couldn’t see or talk to her.
They read me my Miranda rights before giving me one phone call, then put me back in my cell for my 8-hour detention. When they walked me to the bathroom, I passed through more of the facility and saw how most people were held. The cells were the same 10x10 size as mine, which had just me, but these held 12 to 15 people. I had room to lay down on the concrete bench; they had no room at all. Most people stared at the floor, walls, or ceiling—there was almost no conversation. I heard screaming, and I heard crying so loud I’d never heard anyone cry that hard. As I passed one cell, I saw a woman using the bathroom, and three male federal agents were standing there watching, making small talk about where they were from and their kids.
Three different agents brought me into an interrogation room. They said, “I’m not ICE, I’m with Department of Homeland Security Investigations. It looks like you’re in trouble, but maybe we can help you out.” They asked me if I knew protest organizers, if I knew about any planned bombings, if anyone planned to shoot an ICE officer. I said no. I’ve never even met a protest organizer, I don’t know anyone who wants to commit violence, and everyone I know who does legal observation is just trying to prevent violence. I don’t have any undocumented family or friends, and I refused to cooperate with their questioning. That was it, they sent me back to my cell. They offered the same deal to the person in the cell next to me.
Later, a woman messaged me on Facebook. She sent a photo of a man and said, “This is my boyfriend. I saw your post about being detained. He was picked up Sunday. Did you see him in there?” I just broke down crying. I kicked myself for not looking closer at every person I saw.
Adam Wish-Werven, 37, indie record label owner and parent
Even though ICE hasn’t detained me personally right now, I feel the weight of what’s happening to everyone else. Minneapolis feels almost like a ghost town most days, with big bursts of frantic activity when ICE agents are spotted—people running around, dozens of people gathering with their phones to document.
Most days I drop my 2-year-old son off at daycare then work from home. Most of the daycare staff are people of color, and you can see how anxious they are, how much less happy they seem than before. The owners sent a mass text through our daycare app outlining their ICE protocol. They said they would comply with any “audits” that come in—they used that neutral language that sounds acceptable to mainstream America, which makes sense because they’re small business owners trying to avoid trouble. What that means, I think, is if ICE shows up with a warrant, they’ll let them inside and let them take whoever they came for.
I can’t imagine my 2-year-old witnessing violence. It’s deeply, deeply upsetting. We just want to enjoy our son—he’s our only child—and we have no idea when the right time is to talk to him about any of this.
Aide Salgado, 41, consultant and investor for Latino businesses
I grew up in Minneapolis. My family started our business on Lake Street back in 1996 or 1997, when no one wanted to be there and rent was cheap. We built a business that became a core part of the Latino community, and in a lot of ways, we helped build this neighborhood from the ground up.
Lake Street was where dreams were built. Every building, every business was built with hard work and sacrifice. It’s where people found community, collective power, and where so many women found economic independence. That’s why it’s such an iconic place, and why it’s become a battleground now.
After the pandemic and the 2020 uprisings, when so many local businesses needed help, I started doing full-time consulting in 2020. I keep drawing comparisons to 2020, because back then no one knew when it would end, no one knew how devastating it would be emotionally and financially—and that’s exactly how it feels now.
I recently started offering free 20- to 30-minute consultations for any business owner that needs to talk through what’s happening. The first week of January, I started getting flooded with calls from community members—daycare owners, restaurant operators, barber shop owners—all saying, “I need to talk, can we build a contingency plan?”
Some are angry. Some are pragmatic. Some cry. A lot of the time I cry with them, then we hug, and I tell them: “I’m so sorry you’re going through this. This will pass, but you still need to eat, you still need a roof over your head. I can’t help with legal issues, I can’t make ICE go away, but I can help you get your finances in order so you can rebuild when this is over.”
A lot of these small businesses won’t survive this. And the ones that do make it will be left badly damaged, financially and spiritually. But I also know resilience is our community’s superpower.
David Brauer, 66, former journalist
Legally, I’m a U.S. citizen, so ICE has no jurisdiction over me at all. But I never leave the house now without a backpack full of supplies: pencil and paper to document anything that happens. I always wear my heaviest layers, because it’s cold here right now, and I could end up stuck somewhere cold for hours if I get detained. I turned off all biometric unlocking on my phone—I only use a passcode now, because if they take my phone, they can just hold it up to my face and unlock it if biometrics are on. I carry my passport card with me everywhere, just in case.
Lori Norvell, 54, school board member
It’s 14 degrees out right now, but people still walk their dogs around the neighborhood just to patrol. When they leave the house, they bring a whistle, a mask, and a bottle of water to stay safe. We’re all in constant text threads, so at any minute you could get an alert that ICE is nearby, and you need to get in your car and go help.
I take different routes when I drive, just to check in on vulnerable areas that need extra eyes. When I go to the gym, I drive down toward George Floyd Square on surface streets instead of taking the highway—just so I’m there if someone needs a bystander to help stop something.
Yesterday I left the gym, and a vehicle pulled up and just sat there, with heavily tinted windows. I stopped, pulled out my whistle, and just waited. It turned out they were just meeting someone, another car pulled up, and I heard them laughing and talking. But that hyper-vigilance never goes away. We’re always checking, always looking out for each other.
We used to never lock our front door. Now we lock it all the time. We don’t know when ICE will show up in our neighborhood. It feels like there are no rules, no laws anymore. Everything you used to believe— that the government would look out for you— that’s gone. The government is working against us right now. It really feels like we’re completely on our own.
Ryan Ecklund, 45, realtor detained after filming federal agents
I wasn’t looking for ICE. On Monday morning, January 12, I dropped my son off at school at 9:30 and drove home. I realized I needed to stop at the grocery store for yogurt and pears, it’s less than a mile from my house. When I pulled into the parking lot, I saw what was clearly an ICE vehicle: blacked out windows, out-of-state license plate, driver wearing tactical gear and a face mask, driving up and down the parking lane.
In that moment, I thought it was my responsibility as a member of this community to hold them accountable. I wasn’t trying to catch them doing something wrong for a viral video, I just wanted them to know we see them, we know they’re here. So I grabbed my phone, hit record, and started following the vehicle. It was a silver Ford Explorer. They parked sideways, and I parked a few spots away. Then the Explorer backed up right behind my car so I couldn’t leave.
The passenger agent got out and walked to my driver’s window. I was still recording, so I rolled the window down and said, “Good morning, what can I do for you?” He grabbed his own phone, took a photo of me, said nothing, and walked back to his SUV, and they drove away slowly.
I kept following. They turned out of the shopping center onto the main road, turned into my neighborhood, then onto the street my house is on, then into the cul-de-sac I live in. I realized they’d run my photo through facial recognition or run my license plate to find where I lived. They led me right to my front door, clearly to intimidate me, to show me they know who I am and where I sleep. It was a fear tactic, pure and simple. They aren’t here to find violent immigrants, they’re here to scare everyone, and that’s exactly what they did to me. They couldn’t have been clearer about their message.
I kept following them out of the neighborhood. A few minutes later they stopped in the middle of traffic on a main road, and both agents got out. I rolled my window down again and said, “What can I do for you?” One agent said, “This is your only warning, you aren’t allowed to follow us.” I said, “I don’t need a warning. I’m a U.S. citizen, I’m allowed to record your movements in public. I’m not blocking your investigation or your car, I’m not causing a scene. I have every right to record you.”
They got back in their car and kept driving. Then another unmarked ICE vehicle, a black Ford F150, joined them in front of me. We drove about 200 feet off the main road, and both cars boxed me in so I couldn’t leave. Five ICE agents walked up to my driver’s door. One said, “You were warned, you’re breaking all kinds of laws.” My door was unlocked, so he just opened it. He never told me to get out. Then another agent climbed into the car, pulled me out, pushed me to the ground, and cuffed me. They took my phone and left it in my car, so I couldn’t document anything after that. (Later, my wife used my phone’s location tracking to find my abandoned car. There was an active real estate listing across the street, so she called another agent who got Ring camera footage from the homeowner, which is how she confirmed I’d been detained.)
They picked me up and walked me to a white unmarked passenger van, put me in the back seat, and three agents drove me 25 minutes to the Whipple Federal Building near Bloomington. I kept telling them I’m a U.S. citizen, what they’re doing is illegal and unconstitutional, they’re violating my rights. I told them they’re terrorizing our communities, making people scared and paralyzed, and they should be ashamed of what they’re doing. They barely responded.
When we were going over an overpass to get on the freeway, a bald eagle flew right overhead. The passenger agent said to the driver, “Hey, there’s a bald eagle—do you know what that means?” The driver said, “God is on our side.” (The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment regarding the detentions of Sigüenza and Ecklund.)
