Special Investigations

Press Freedom Defense Fund

Trump Wanted Minneapolis 15 Case to Be Another Prairieland. Instead, Twin Cities Rallied Behind Anti-ICE Activists.

The mainstream of Minnesota’s left-of-center politics — including unions, the backbone of Democratic power — are behind the radical left.

As the Trump administration unveiled an indictment earlier this year against 15 anti-ICE activists, many of whom identify as radicals, for purportedly tormenting federal agents last winter, a top U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official took the podium.

There were two types of protests, said Homeland Security Investigations special agent in charge Michael McCarthy, who oversaw the ICE agents in a St. Paul, Minnesota, field office who conducted the investigation.

“Peaceful protest is a protected right, and a cornerstone of our democracy,” said McCarthy. “When protest turns into rioting, violence or criminal activity, it becomes unlawful and it will not be tolerated.”

McCarthy’s comments stood in stark contrast with ICE’s record in Minneapolis, where a federal judge had been forced to issue an injunction to stop federal agents from pepper-spraying and arresting peaceful protesters during their enforcement blitz, dubbed Operation Metro Surge.

Legal experts, too, had criticisms of the indictment: The Justice Department, one pointed out, had concocted a federal conspiracy out of what would normally be misdemeanor charges.

Secret ICE Agent Tried to “Entice” Minneapolis Activists Into Confrontational Tactics

In the months since, criticisms of the case have only grown louder. Court filings revealed that McCarthy’s agents secretly infiltrated groups that preach nonviolence, including labor unions and nonprofits. They also wielded subpoenas in a fruitless hunt for financiers of “domestic terrorism,” taking a cue from President Donald Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 labeling swaths of the far left as terrorists.

The Trump administration has won some success in going after left-wing protesters under NSPM-7, but the Minneapolis case is proving to be more challenging.

In other prosecutions targeting activists, like the Prairieland case in Texas, mainstream groups have shied away from supporting the defendants. In Minnesota, though, groups once wary of being associated with the 15 defendants, many of whom are self-described anarchists, have rallied to their side.

Powerful labor unions that make up the backbone of the state’s progressive movement have raised funds on behalf of the defendants, incensed at the infiltration from federal undercover agents. Rather than dividing and conquering the left, the case has united it.

“They’re trying to split the movement and absolutely failing.”

“They’re trying to split the movement and absolutely failing.”

Supporters of the defendants, who have collectively come to be known as the Minneapolis 15, recently packed a bowling alley for a fundraiser. On October 3, hundreds of labor union members marched through downtown Minneapolis, demanding that the charges against the activists be dropped.

Meanwhile, the defendants themselves have so far mounted a unified, joint defense; none of them have taken a plea deal.

“They’re trying to split the movement and absolutely failing,” said Emmett James Doyle, a defendant in the case. “There’s been just complete solidarity behind us from basically every sector of Twin Cities life.”

“Can’t Indict 100,000 People”

Doyle’s ruddy face and wild beard would have been at home in Big Bill Haywood’s Industrial Workers of the World a century ago. By day he’s a union carpenter, by night he plucks a banjo and sings songs about America’s radical past.

Federal prosecutors allege that he brought those songs to life on the streets of Minneapolis.

In a 94-page indictment,........

© The Intercept