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Democracy Now! producer John Hamilton reports from Minneapolis, where residents say ICE agents are violently targeting legal observers and community members as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants. Patty O’Keefe, who was arrested while monitoring ICE activity in her vehicle, said agents “broke our two front windows and dragged us out,” then taunted her in custody. She said one agent told her, “You guys got to stop obstructing us. That’s why that lesbian bitch is dead,” referring to Renee Good, the mother of three shot dead earlier this month by an ICE agent.

Indigenous residents have also been detained. “Nobody is more American than the American Indian,” Oglala Sioux attorney Chase Iron Eyes told Democracy Now!, adding ICE’s actions against Native Americans are “a legal impossibility.”

This comes as the Pentagon has placed 1,500 soldiers on standby for a possible deployment to Minnesota, just days after President Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act. The Trump administration has also reportedly opened criminal investigations into Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, all while declining to investigate Good’s killing.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Minneapolis, Minnesota, as the Pentagon has placed 1,500 soldiers from the 11th Airborne Division in Alaska to be on standby to possibly be deployed to Minnesota, just days after President Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act as protests continue over ICE’s immigration crackdown.

The Trump administration says it’s opened criminal investigations into Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who have sharply criticized ICE’s tactics. In a statement, Walz said, quote, “Weaponizing the justice system and threatening political opponents is a dangerous authoritarian tactic,” unquote.

This comes after the FBI reportedly opened a civil rights probe into the ICE agent who killed Renee Good, but then pivoted to focus instead on whether Good and her widow assaulted the agent.

Meanwhile, on Friday, a federal judge ordered ICE agents to stop arresting or pepper-spraying peaceful demonstrators in Minneapolis.

On Sunday, demonstrators disrupted Sunday services at a church in St. Paul to protest one of the church’s pastors, David Easterwood, who they say is a top ICE official in the Twin Cities.

JONATHAN PARNELL: Shame on you! Shame on you!

NEKIMA LEVY ARMSTRONG: David Easterwood is a pastor here. He is also the director of the field office for ICE in St. Paul. So, someone who claims to worship God, teaching people in this church about God, is out there overseeing ICE agents.

AMY GOODMAN: The Department of Justice says it’s opened an investigation to the protesters.

In another development, the Trump administration is being accused of denying legal counsel to many arrested during the immigration sweeps. Multiple attorneys say they’ve been blocked from seeing clients held at the Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis.

Meanwhile, ICE agents continue to carry out raids. In St. Paul, armed, masked agents battered down the door of a home and — without a warrant — arrested a man led out of home in his underwear in subfreezing weather. It turned out the man was a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Laos.

For more, we go to Minneapolis for a report from Democracy Now!’s John Hamilton on the ground there this weekend, speaking with people about how communities are organizing against the ICE raids.

JOHN HAMILTON: James Schwesnedl is a volunteer with a community rapid response group on the lookout for federal agents in his Minneapolis neighborhood.

JAMES SCHWESNEDL: Just driving around my neighborhood, kind of picking an area to just keep an eye on, looking out for any ICE or Customs and Border Patrol.

JOHN HAMILTON: Hundreds of legal observers like James now patrol the streets of the Twin Cities each day on the lookout for masked federal agents in unmarked vehicles.

JAMES SCHWESNEDL: And then I’m on a Signal chat with people in my neighborhood here. And then there’s people all over the neighborhood who are following that Signal chat. And if they see a message that ICE is, you know, passing through their block or getting out of their cars on their block or the next block over, they’re ready to run out and, you know, videotape, do constitutional observing, blow whistles, let neighbors know that ICE is on the block and it’s not safe to come outside.

JOHN HAMILTON: Activities like these are protected by the First Amendment, but that hasn’t stopped federal agents from deploying violence against people who track their movements.

ICE AGENT 1: Get out! Get out of the way! Move your car now! You’re obstructing! Get out of the way!

ICE AGENT 2: Get out of........

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