By Janice Hisle
Contributing Writer
A dark-colored SUV without a front license plate rolls through a neighborhood in St. Paul, Minnesota, putting civilian activists on high alert.
They know their targets — Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents — often drive this type of vehicle.
“They’re on the move,” an activist assigned to “mobile patrol” reports to a “dispatcher.”
The patroller requests “a plate check” and recites the SUV’s license-plate number.
After typing that number into a database of ICE-affiliated vehicles, the dispatcher responds, “No match.”
The motorist drives away, unaware that activists suspected he worked for ICE and were prepared to pounce.
That scenario, which independent reporter Cam Higby posted on X after he infiltrated an online ICE-watch group, happens regularly in Minnesota — the front line of a coordinated effort to thwart federal efforts to detain and deport illegal immigrants.
Unrest over ICE operations has spread to many other states, with tactics including peaceful protests, warnings to illegal immigrants who may be nearby, and violent grappling with federal agents. Some activists have inspired, encouraged, or helped to organize walkouts by schoolchildren to protest ICE.
This large-scale opposition is neither spontaneous nor “organic”; rather, it is a planned disruption that appears to be well-funded, said former CIA operative J. Michael Waller.
“This is a very, very well-organized movement that goes beyond merely a protest movement,” said Waller, who is a senior analyst for strategy at the Center for Security Policy. He said the movement “fits the definition of an early-stage insurgency.”
Anti-ICE activists frequently describe their groups as “grassroots” or “community-led,” and deny that they’re part of an orchestrated national effort. Some nonetheless admit that a government shakeup — or overthrow — is their goal.
Funding for some ICE adversaries has been traced to a complex web of financiers, including foreigners and people with “documented ties to the Chinese Communist Party,” a witness told senators recently.
The witness, who testified to a Homeland Security subcommittee, was Seamus Bruner, who has worked on books alleging high-level bribery by Democratic officials. He is vice president of the Government Accountability Institute, whose independent researchers track political-influence networks. They found at least $60 million was sent to more than a dozen anti-ICE activist groups in Minnesota and across the nation, Bruner testified on Feb. 10.
The institute’s data has not been made available for review.
Bruner said the money is funneled to ICE opponents from massive left-wing nonprofits. It flows through channels that hide the identities of donors, helping them “evade accountability” while also creating “the illusion of spontaneous public outrage,” he alleged.
This “professionalized protest-industrial complex,” in which instability serves as a political tool, is a phenomenon that Bruner called “Riot Inc.” in his testimony.
He urged senators to expose and disrupt these networks. “The United States cannot afford to treat this as coincidence or chaos,” he said.
Progressive organizations such as Media Matters for America have pushed back against allegations that the groups are coordinated.
“Some right-wing media figures baselessly claimed that foreign actors or governments are somehow behind the protests,” Media Matters wrote on its website last month.
The group accused critics of searching for a “bogeyman” to blame.
Minnesota state Rep. Pam Altendorf said that while many local people have joined ICE-opposition groups, she believes outside agitators are coming into her state, too.
“It’s being almost staged,” she said, noting that agitators seem to purposely be “putting themselves in situations to cause these reactions, and then they use these little clips … to keep on fueling the fire and fueling the rage.”
Constant beratement, threats, and even physical attacks keep immigration agents rattled, setting them up for miscues, she said.
“They’re on the verge of being pushed to a breaking point,” she said. “And when a crisis happens, like a shooting, then everybody says, ‘See, they’re out of control.’”
In Pursuit of ‘Revolution’
Nationwide, networks are recruiting, training and mobilizing anti-ICE activists; they also manage media relations and enlist legal aid, their websites show. Generally, these groups express a shared goal: Stopping immigration-enforcers from making arrests, which activists routinely call “kidnappings” or “abductions.”
Several ICE-opposing organizations also openly crusade for a bigger result: political revolution against Trump.
Revolutionary Communists of America wrote in a March 2025 statement on its website that it is trying “to build a communist party that can lead the working class to power, tearing down not only Trump but also the liberals and the entire capitalist system.”
Socialist groups have espoused similar aspirations in recent months.
A youth-led activist group, Sunrise Movement, wants Trump “kicked out of power,” said Aru Shiney-Ajay, a Minnesotan who serves as its executive director.
In the meantime, Sunrise Movement is trying to make Trump’s actions “backfire” this year, Shiney-Ajay said during a Jan. 28 online meeting about ICE-opposition efforts.
Old Tactics, New Tech
Anti-ICE groups’ methods mirror those used by insurgents around the world for decades — but supercharged with new technology.
“It’s all really old tactics that are just modernized for the digital age,” Waller said. “The battle is being fought in the digital sphere. That’s where people are going to get riled up, both to join the insurgency and to become radicalized.”
Waller said he has closely followed the work of Higby and others who are mounting an online counterattack.
Although a number of tactics were unknown to outsiders until Higby reported on them, some activists have disclosed considerable information.
Upon confirming an ICE presence, activists send out electronic messages summoning protesters or “rapid responders” to come to the scene.
St. Paul City Councilmember Hwa Jeong Kim has served in that role. She allowed an Axios journalist to report on her rapid-response duties one day in late January.
“Constitutional observation is, in my mind, a type of nonviolent, peaceful protesting,” Kim told Axios.
After arriving at ICE scenes, rapid responders honk car horns and blow whistles. Those sounds warn potential immigration enforcement targets to stay away while protesters spill into the streets and use their cellphones to record officers’ actions. Activists believe that the commotion may deter agents from taking more people into custody, Kim told Axios.
“Trained legal observers” video-record ICE interactions. Some activists may then post the footage online. The footage also could become evidence in court cases.
Meanwhile, activist networks gather information on ICE agents and their vehicles; some make the information public, a practice known as “doxxing” that can lead to threats and actual attacks against the officers.
Sometimes, activists use vehicles or their own bodies to block ICE agents or even assault them.
Homeland Security has reported that increasing numbers of vehicles are being used to attack ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel. That escalation began shortly after January 2025, when Trump launched an illegal-immigration crackdown as a cornerstone of his second presidency.
Anti-ICE forces also have targeted independent reporters, including Higby. On Jan. 12, he was with fellow reporter and influencer Nick Sortor when activists surrounded their Jeep, spray-painted it, smashed its windows, and threatened them; Sortor called 911 and drove away.
Some activists, if given the chance, may try to free a suspect that ICE has caught. That practice, known as “de-arresting” or “un-arresting” someone, dates to the 1960s. Its use became more organized under Antifa and anarchist movements in the 1980s.
Techniques can include opening car doors to release arrestees, grabbing the arrested person, or “pulling and pushing” an officer to break his grip, according to a “De-Arrest Primer” posted on an anarchist blog.
That primer, dated 2024, was used during a recent New York City training of anti-ICE activists, said Manhattan Institute investigative analyst Stu Smith. He posted a video and photo from the training on X.
In a newer twist to their methods, activist networks are using encrypted messaging apps such as Signal to keep communications secret.
Higby’s posts show videos and screenshots of Signal chats, revealing how activists track ICE, send out alerts, and assign disruptors to various roles. Organizers frequently delete messages and start new daily chats to avoid detection, he reported.
In addition, anti-ICE groups are using a method established in the military to standardize how they report on ICE. The mnemonic, SALUTE, stands for “Size, Action, Location, Uniform, Time (Date), Equipment.”
That procedure and others used in the Signal groups are outlined in a “best practices” guide available online; its authorship is undisclosed, but multiple activist groups are linked to versions of it.
Many ICE-watching Signal groups exist in Minnesota, each with up to 1,000 members, Higby reported in a viral Jan. 24 video that drew more than 23 million views on X and prompted the FBI to launch an investigation.
In response to Higby’s findings, retired Green Beret Eric Schwalm of Georgia wrote on X: “When your own citizens build and operate this level of parallel intelligence and rapid-response network against federal officers … you’re no longer dealing with civil disobedience.”
Savannah Hulsey-Pointer contributed to this report.
