Neighbors: Blockades are pop-up parties that also slow down ICE agents
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Minneapolis residents are trying a new tactic to slow and deter federal agents from entering city neighborhoods.
The organizers call them filter blockades, they’re essentially pop-up block parties in the middle of city streets, and they’ve already earned the ire of border czar Tom Homan, who said during a press conference Wednesday that the blockades were illegal and wouldn’t deter his agents.
On Saturday, multiple blockades were set up across south Minneapolis. At one blockade on Cedar Avenue and 34th Street, residents dragged wooden pallets, signs and traffic cones into the intersection to set up a roundabout on the busy county road. A fire roared in the center of the roundabout and a big stereo bumped over the sound of passing cars.
Although there was a minor fender bender, most motorists slowed and carefully drove around the blockade, sometimes flashing a fist out the window or greeting the people on the blockade with the greeting, “F--- ICE.”
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Activists handed out fliers that urged “No compromise” with the Trump administration, vowed “to do everything in our power to fight for our communities” and handed out candy to kids.
An organizer who identified himself just by his first name Jesse said the point isn’t confrontation. He said the blockades across the city are organized autonomously by neighbors or neighborhood councils.
“It's a friendly wave to anybody passing by that's from the neighborhood,” Jesse said. “But if ICE arrives, it forces them to slow down. We can log their heading, we can log their plates and we can alert the neighborhood.”
State law makes it a misdemeanor to block a public right-of-way.
Interim Minneapolis Fire Chief Melanie Rucker said in a statement that being forced to reroute trucks can increase the risk to firefighters and those they serve. “Safety has to come first—every second matters when lives are on the line,” Rucker said. “When streets are blocked, it slows our response and limits access to critical resources.”
On Saturday, Minneapolis police maintained a low-profile presence at the blockade on Cedar Avenue. Lt. Deitan Dubuc, who was at the site for over an hour, told people on the blockade that he wanted to make sure that people could express themselves, but that no one would get hurt.
“People need to understand that we have a lot more things in common, than differences,” Dubuc said in an interview with MPR News. “These are uncharted territories, and we've never dealt with this before. So, how can we find a way to work together to make sure that we find that is safe for people, and also they feel respected?”
Dubuc, who said he was representing himself and not the department as a whole, told the crowd that he would bring their concerns to city leaders, but couldn’t make any promises.
Molly Priesmeyer, who lives nearby, told Dubuc that people were trying to protect themselves because city and state government had so far failed to do so.
“You all are not doing your job to actually build the cases that are necessary to bring charges against federal officers,” Priesmeyer told the officer. “So, if you are going to tell us…that you will go to the chief and say, ‘The community demands that you investigate and bring in [ICE agents] for charges,’ then that is something that will build a tiny amount of belief and trust in what you're saying.”
At a press conference on Wednesday, Homan said he had a message for people setting up blockades. "You really think you're stopping ICE and [Customs and Border Patrol] from doing their job? It's a joke,” Homan said. “The only people you're hurting is your own community who want to go and get groceries and pick up their dry cleaning or go to work, whatever. You're just hindering them. Stop.”
Homan said he called Minneapolis Chief Brian O’Hara on Monday and asked him to remove the blockades, and that the chief complied. Minneapolis police did not respond to questions about whether O’Hara ordered blockades removed Monday at Homan’s request.
A spokesperson for the city of Minneapolis said public works employees cleared debris and roadblocks from the streets with the assistance of the Minneapolis Police Department: “Given the high-traffic and high-speed block of some roadways, the city cleared the streets to ensure public safety for the neighborhoods and emergency vehicles.”
Minneapolis Spring, a group that serves as a clearinghouse for “the grassroots movement to defend Minnesota from ICE occupation,” said in a statement to MPR News that Trump administration officials have repeatedly allowed ICE to “murder, abduct and terrorize our people with impunity.”
”Instead, the people are organizing themselves to keep their communities safe,” according to a statement from Minneapolis Spring. “Everyone living here understands that the only people who protect us are ourselves, and this ‘draw down’ is not a meaningful step towards safety.”
M Nijiya, an owner of nearby Jackalope Tattoo, stopped to join Saturday when they saw the blockade.
Minneapolis police “are putting all their resources in the wrong areas,” Nijiya said. “They told us they don't have enough people to help direct traffic, but they've got three people to come here and give a bunch of protesters that are just being here trying to help the neighborhood crap.”
Nijiya doesn’t buy federal officials’ claims that they’re drawing down federal agents in the area or that the administration has somehow softened their rhetoric. They said the constant worries about safety make it hard to work or live their life normally.
“They've made it very clear that if we try to resist in any way, shape or form, that they will come for us,” Nijiya said, “and they will do to us what they did to Renee [Good] and what they did to Alex [Pretti] and to the many other black and brown people that this happened to before.”
Activists planned more blockades on city streets later this week.
