The Trump regime’s deployment of more than 2,000 ICE agents and Customs and Border Protection officers to Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota in January, brutalized, arrested and killed city residents that ignited national outrage and coast to coast protests. The federal government’s violent assault, met by mass organizing of peaceful resistance, culminated in the ICE agent shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Video recordings and bystander accounts found both Good and Pretti were peaceably exercising their rights to observe law enforcement actions, and innocent of any conduct that justified the lethal ICE agent response that resulted in their deaths.
Today, many in the Twin Cities are still recovering from the trauma inflicted by Trump’s ICE invasion called “Operation Metro Surge.” But on June 16, in another federal government action seen as an attempt to criminalize dissent and free speech, the Trump Department of Justice indicted 15 individuals in Minnesota associated with the group Direct Action Minnesota on charges of conspiracy to impede federal officers, stalking, and assault. The DOJ linked the defendants to antifa.
Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Pastor Doug Pagitt, executive director of the Minneapolis-based national organization Vote Common Good, who was on the front lines in solidarity with the Twin City’s massive civil resistance to the January ICE invasion. Here he talks about the trauma his city experienced, and this latest attack on free speech with the Department of Justice indictments of 15 Minneapolis anti-ICE activists.
For more information, visit Vote Common Good at votecommongood.com.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Pastor Doug Pagitt (14:06) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the related links section of this page. To subscribe to our podcasts, email newsletters, our Trump authoritarian playbook Substack or social media, subscribe here.
