This is both good and terrible to know.
We cannot resist tyranny alone. If you’re outside Minnesota, here are things you can do to help.·
· Call your elected officials. ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection are the “jackbooted government thugs” that the National Rifle Association spent decades pretending they wanted to protect us from. These agencies must be fully dismantled. ICE officers here wear no badges, cover their faces and operate with gross disregard for the U.S. Constitution they swore to uphold.
· Visit https://www.standwithminnesota.com to see charities, mutual aid funds, advocacy groups and crowdfunding campaigns you can donate to. The site includes links to contact corporations so you can ask companies currently collaborating with ICE to reconsider their choices. There are also links to Minnesotan news sources, and a message link to send words of encouragement to Minnesotan resisters.
· Push back on disinformation. Border Patrol Commander-At-Large Greg Bovino has repeatedly told unvarnished lies about what’s happening here, lies debunked by video evidence, lies that, as George Orwell put it, demand you reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. If you have family and friends who might listen to you, push back if you hear them repeating those lies. If you see these lies repeated uncritically in a media source, write in and complain.
· Do not apologize for being pro-immigration and pro-immigrant. We are lucky as a country that immigrants want to come here. Immigration is a gift. If you were born here, be clear in your conversations that you welcome immigrants, that you value immigrants, that you consider your immigrant neighbors to be an irreplaceable part of your community. If you are an immigrant, know that you have countless neighbors who believe that you belong here.
· Get ready for when it happens to you. Any big blue city — including Houston, Austin or San Antonio — could be next. Many of us here took legal observer training, sometimes called constitutional observer training or ICEwatch training. If you can find similar trainings near you, attend one. Get on Signal. Talk to your networks: the Parent Teacher Association at your kid’s school, your church, your board game group, your neighbors. Ask what people in your communities would need if this happened where you live, and think about what the rest of you can do to help. You can find a lot of useful how-to information at defend612.com under the “Resources” tab. (612 is the Minneapolis area code.)
It absolutely can happen here, or anyplace else you care about. Do what you can to resist this while we all still can.
In addition, Episcopalians on Facebook is urging a nationwide strike (for lack of a better word) on January 30. Do nothing, no work, no shopping, nada.