I share today the above two images – the first is a work of art, the second I screenshot from a recent news report. Both images reflect current events in the U.S. – events which for me and many others, generate feelings of sadness and outrage.
Artist
Christian Faltis says his latest painting depicts
Our Lady of Guadalupe “urging us to stop unjust arrests of immigrants” by
ICE.
One such unjust arrest occurred this past Tuesday (December 9) just blocks from my home in south Minneapolis.
Writes Matt Sepic of
Minnesota Public Radio News about this arrest:
Federal immigration agents tackled and arrested a Somali American man in Minneapolis on Tuesday and detained him for about two hours for no apparent reason other than his ethnicity. The man who was arrested said that the agents had trouble finding the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building at Fort Snelling while driving him there.
The 20-year-old was not suspected of any crime, and described his ordeal during a Wednesday news conference alongside Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Police Chief Brian O’Hara, who each denounced the agents’ actions.
Mubashir declined to share his last name out of fear for his and his family’s safety, but he gave a detailed account of the incident to reporters, who also viewed video that city officials shared recorded on a business’ security camera and a bystander’s mobile phone.
Mubashir, who moved to the United States as a small boy and became a naturalized American citizen, said that he stepped onto a sidewalk near 4th Street and Cedar Avenue during his lunch break when two masked men approached him. The Cedar-Riverside neighborhood is the heart of the city’s Somali American community.
Sensing trouble, he ducked into a restaurant. They followed him inside, dragged him out and forcibly arrested him. The agents handcuffed Mubashir, took him across 4th Street and pushed him onto his knees in the snow. One put him in a choke hold.
“I have my ID!” Mubashir shouted repeatedly, as heard on the video. The agents do not respond.
He added that the agents never identified themselves as ICE, and he feared that they could have been anyone. In the video, one agent is seen wearing a vest marked “POLICE FEDERAL OFFICER” the other’s is marked “POLICE ICE.”
Mubashir said that the agents put him in an unmarked SUV and asked to take his picture.
“I declined, because how will a picture prove I’m a U.S. citizen?” Mubashir said. “I told him I have my passport, it’s in my phone. Can I open it and show you? He declined. I told him can I give you my name and my date of birth. He declined.”
Mubashir said that the agents detained him in their vehicle for about an hour after he refused to consent to a photo. Mubashir said that they also tried to take his fingerprints but their digital reader wouldn’t work, so they drove toward Fort Snelling, where ICE has a detention facility, but they appeared unfamiliar with the area.
“While they were driving me all the way there, they were wasting time,” Mubashir said. “They kept going back on the same highway. I told them, ‘Are you guys lost?’ They said, ‘This is our first time taking someone in.’ They had their maps out and everything, and they were trying to intimidate me.”
Mubashir said that when they finally arrived at the Whipple Federal Building, the agents took him out of the vehicle and made him stand in the cold unless he consented to a face scan, so he finally did. He said that the face scanner appeared not to work either, so they took him inside the federal building. Mubashir said that they refused his request for water or to warm his hands.
Once inside, a staff member finally allowed him to turn on his phone and show his ID before releasing him. His parents picked him up.
Mayor Jacob Frey, who’s an attorney, said that the agents’ actions were blatantly unconstitutional.
“What we saw by these ICE agents that clearly did not know what they were doing was violence and unwillingness to hear the simple truth, which he was repeating again and again, which is, ‘I’m an American citizen.’”
Police Chief Brian O’Hara called it embarrassing to the law enforcement profession that the agents were wearing vests that said ‘POLICE.’
“Random efforts, including individuals who are American citizens are being stopped because they appear to be Latino or because they appear to be Somali, is wrong,” O’Hara said.
___________________
I have to say that not only do I find the racist rheoric of Trump and the actions of ICE dispicable but also the support such rhetoric and actions are receiving by some. I often encounter such expressions of support online in the comments of various Facebook posts. There’s just so much ignorance and vitriol out there when it comes to immigrants and/or those perceived to be in the U.S. illegally.
I tend not to respond to such comments, though recently found myself unable to resist replying to the following by “Mike”:
ICE serve their country not “one man.” Okay, so they wear intimidating clothes, but they are not “terrorizing” neighborhoods or “kidnapping” anyone; those they’re getting are illegal, and as illegals they are not gauranteed a trial. ICE is not sending these criminals to “concentration camps” they are sending them to detention centers waiting deportation. ICE agents hide their faces to protect their families from being targeted by thugs.
Here’s my response:
Mike, a few points:
1) While ever both the legislative and judicial branches of our government refuse to do their sworn duty to uphold the Constitution against an increasingly autocratic executive branch, then ICE truly is serving “one man.”
2) We don’t really know who ICE is deporting and to where, just as we don’t really know who the Trump regime is killing on those boats in the Caribbean. This is a corrupt and lawless administration. And it and those doing its dirty work WILL one day be brought to justice.
3) You must live in a bubble, or at least a place where ICE hasn’t shown up yet, because ICE is terrorizing communities and kidnapping people off our streets. There are numerous videos documenting this. And, again, we don’t know if those being hauled off are “illegals.” We DO know that in Chicago when ICE invaded and terrorized residents – U.S. citizens – of an apartment complex, the vast majority of those detained – over 97% – had no criminal convictions. And yet the whole purpose of this middle-of-the-night raid was supposedly to catch criminals. Either ICE is incompetent or it’s all about terrorizing and intimidating citizens. Maybe both. 4) ICE agents are hiding their faces because what they’re doing is immoral and often times illegal.
4) This idea that because the people ICE are “getting” are “illegal” they are therefore “not guaranteed a trial,” is incorrect. The U.S. Constitution applies to non-citizens present in the United States, protecting them with the fundamental rights of due process (fair treatment), free speech, religious freedom, and protection from unreasonable searches, as these rights extend to “all persons” or “people,” not just citizens. Exceptions include certain political rights, such as voting, which are reserved for citizens. Although the extent of these protections can vary depending on circumstances, such as location (e.g., border vs. interior) or status (lawful vs. undocumented), the core constitutional guarantees overwhelmingly apply. Also, it’s not just people here illegally that ICE agents are racially (and thus unconstitutionally) targeting and detaining. They’re also taking U.S. citizens, a reality that continues to be well documented.
Christian Faltis painted a powerful picture to draw attention to – and help stop – unjust arrests of immigrants by ICE.
I waded into the cesspool of online punditry and shared facts in a respectful way with someone whose misinformed views I find adhorrent.
Others are serving as
observers when ICE shows up in their neighborhood.
Others, still, are
banging pots and pans outside the hotels where ICE agents are being housed.
In short, people across the Twin Cities metro are doing what they can to non-violently denounce and disrupt the terrorizing and often uncontitutional activities of Trump’s
fascist goons. And they are doing so in ways that feel true to who they are.
The key is to do
something. Join us, won’t you?
Related Off-site Links:
Activists Turn to Noise Demonstrations at Local Hotels to Get “ICE Out of Minnesota” – Chris Juhn (Sahan Journal, December 12, 2025).
How Is the ICE Surge Affecting Somali Minnesotans? – Hannah Ihekoronye (Sahan Journal, December 12, 2025).
Should You Call 911 on ICE? What Can Local Police Do, If Anything? – Mohamed Ibrahim (Sahan Journal, December 12, 2025).
The Lies Americans Tell Themselves to Justify State Violence Against Migrants – Scott Hechinger (Zeteo, December 12, 2025).
What to Do and Not to Do When Monitoring ICE Agents and Immigration Actions in Minnesota – Cathy Wurzer, Gracie Stockton and Lukas Levin (MPR News, December 11, 2025).
ICE Agents in Cedar-Riverside Acting “Without Regard for Civil Rights,” Minnesota Rep. Mohamud Noor Says – Clay Masters and Gretchen Brown (MPR News, December 11, 2025).
Minneapolis City Council Bolsters Ordinance That Prevent Police From Helping ICE – Howard Thompson (FOX 9 News, December 11, 2025).
ICE Agents Tackle and Arrest American Citizen in Minneapolis – Matt Sepic (MPR News, December 10, 2025).
Minnesota Arrest Highlights Concerns of Racial Profiling in Immigration Enforcement – Abdirizak Diis (Somali Media MN, December 10, 2025).
Augsburg University President Decries 'Illegal' Arrest of Student by ICE Agents – Brianna Kelly (Bring Me the News, December 9, 2025).
Minneapolis Woman Recounts Being Detained by ICE – Felicity Dachel (KARE 11 News, December 9, 2025).
ICE in Minnesota: Agents Pepper Spray Crowd in Cedar-Riverside – Kyle Brown and Richard Reeve (KSTP News, December 9, 2025).
ICE Arrests Observer, Maces Press and Detains People as Agents Are Confronted Across Minneapolis – Unicorn Riot (December 9, 2025).
UPDATE: “Battle of the Cold”: Tensions Rising Two Weeks Into ICE Surge in Minnesota – Jon Collins (MPR News, December 16, 2025).
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Susie Hayward on What’s Happening in Minneapolis
• Photo of the Day – December 5, 2025
• Omar Fateh: Quote of the Day – December 4, 2025
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – June 20, 2025
• An Incident That Feels “Ripped from a Dystopian Novel”
• “This Is What Fascism Looks Like”
• Jason Stanley on How Fascism Works
• James Greenberg on Trumpism: “The Tactics Are Unmistakable”
• The Choice Before Us
• James Greenberg: “The Choices We Make Matter”
• Khalil Gibran Muhammad on Donald Trump’s Militarization of Law Enforcement
• Jason Duchin: “It’s Here, and We Are Sleepwalking Through It”
• Marianne Williamson: “We’re Moving Into Totalitarianism”
• Garrett Graff: “America Tips Into Fascism”
• James Greenberg on the Identity Politics of MAGA
• Jason Duchin: Quote of the Day – September 24, 2025
• Derek Johnson on the “Courage to Call Fascism by Its Name”
• James Greenberg: “I Am in Mourning for America”
• “If a Praying Minister Isn’t Safe, None of Us Are”
• James Greenberg on Trump’s “Larger Design” – the Construction of a Military Dictatorship
• Historian John Lestrange on the Meaning and Manifestations of Fascism, Past and Present
• Protesting Trump’s “Dystopian” Immigration Policies
• The Declaration of Resistance
Image: Artist unknown.
