When Citizens Become Watchers: The Minneapolis Model of Resistance

65,000 people have been trained to watch the watchers. In Minneapolis, what started as a response to ICE raids has become something unprecedented in American civic life: a city-wide network of ordinary citizens who've transformed themselves into legal observers, community protectors, and democratic guardians.

The scene last Wednesday was visceral—tear gas billowing in 20-degree weather, protesters surrounding black SUVs, masked federal agents dragging people away. But beneath the chaos lies a meticulous choreography of resistance that's been months in the making.

The Anatomy of Organized Resistance

The movement didn't emerge from traditional activist circles. In a three-story brick building in south Minneapolis, Emilia Gonzalez Avalos trains everyone from 14-year-olds to 70-year-olds in the art of legal observation. The sessions include role-playing exercises where volunteers practice confronting ICE agents, learning everything from facial-recognition technology to proper bracing techniques to avoid being knocked down.

"We started in a very different tone; it was preventive," Avalos explains. Now, after the killing of Renee Good on January 7, "people are understanding the stakes in a different way."

The participants aren't your typical protest demographic. Dave, a driver's ed teacher, admits he "doesn't like confrontation at all." His 14-year-old daughter found the training "overwhelming" but necessary. A couple in their 70s, Dan and Jane, had never joined a political protest until ICE came to their granddaughter's school district.

What's remarkable isn't just who's participating, but how they're organizing. This is a leaderless movement that operates through encrypted Signal groups, with neighborhood-based networks that formed after George Floyd's killing in 2020. Volunteers patrol schools, restaurants, and day-care centers. They call themselves "commuters"—part joke, part operational security.

When Schools Become Battlegrounds

Amanda Bauer, a 25-year veteran teacher, describes the morning ICE agents in riot gear surrounded her elementary school. Students watched through windows as agents broke into apartments across the street. One child sobbed, "That's my house. That's my home."

"I never thought it would be our own government we had to protect the kids from," Bauer says, her hands still trembling two weeks later.

The trauma extends beyond immigrant families. School administrators have developed emergency protocols, communicating with parents by phone rather than email to avoid digital surveillance. Parent patrols stand watch outside schools, armed with whistles and encrypted apps.

For many residents, children became the moral fault line. The sight of their own grandchildren potentially witnessing violent raids transformed suburban retirees into daily protesters. Dan and Jane now deliver groceries to immigrant families and attend legal observer training. Last Friday, Dan joined thousands at a protest where his fingers were frostbitten in -9 degree weather.

The Economics of Fear

The human cost extends far beyond the dramatic confrontations captured on camera. The Karmel Mall, usually bustling with east African immigrants, sits nearly empty. Allison Sharkey of the Lake Street Council reports immigrant-owned businesses seeing sales drop by 80 percent. Many have closed entirely.

Ziad, a Somali refugee with a master's in public health, sips coffee alone in the deserted mall. His community center has closed, nobody's getting paid, and his children attend school online as they did during the pandemic. "Everybody is scared," he says, but adds with quiet defiance: "Trump will go and we will stay. We Somalis know how to survive."

When Faith Meets Resistance

Religious leaders face their own moral reckonings. Pastor Ingrid Rasmussen of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church was thrown to the ground by plainclothes officers while wearing clerical robes during a June raid. She's been arrested twice more since then, including at the Minneapolis airport protest.

"We're going to have to live with our discomfort in making other people uncomfortable," Rasmussen reflects. Her church, which survived the 2020 riots when "everything to the west of our building burned," now serves as a sanctuary for a congregation that includes many immigrants.

The moral questions are stark: When does protest cross into violence? When is civil disobedience justified? How do you maintain community trust while defying federal authority?

The Bigger Picture: Democracy in Practice

What's happening in Minneapolis echoes resistance movements from Cairo's Tahrir Square to Hong Kong's democracy protests—ordinary people creating parallel systems of organization when they lose faith in existing institutions. The difference is this is happening in America, in response to American federal agents.

Chad Knutson, a documentary filmmaker, describes his conversion moment: watching ICE agents mock Renee Good's memorial, taking her rose and laughing. "I grab my keys, I grab a coat, and drive over," he recalls, his voice thick with emotion. Now he brings coffee and megaphones to daily protests at the Whipple Building, ICE's local headquarters.

The movement's decentralized nature makes it both resilient and unpredictable. Vice President Vance has dismissed it as "engineered chaos," but the reality is more complex. There's no central command, no traditional leadership structure—just thousands of trained observers connected by encrypted networks and shared moral outrage.