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As the Trump <\/span>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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cPeaceful protest is a protected right, and a cornerstone of our democracy,\u201d said<\/a> McCarthy. \u201cWhen protest turns into rioting, violence or criminal activity, it becomes unlawful and it will not be tolerated.\u201d<\/p>\n McCarthy\u2019s comments stood in stark contrast with ICE\u2019s record in Minneapolis, where a federal judge had been forced to issue an injunction<\/a> to stop federal agents from pepper-spraying<\/a> and arresting<\/a> peaceful protesters during their enforcement blitz, dubbed Operation Metro Surge<\/a>.<\/p>\n Legal experts, too, had criticisms of the indictment: The Justice Department, one pointed out<\/a>, had concocted a federal conspiracy<\/a> out of what would normally be misdemeanor charges.<\/p>\n In the months since, criticisms of the case have only grown louder. Court filings revealed that McCarthy\u2019s agents secretly infiltrated groups that preach nonviolence<\/a>, including labor unions and nonprofits. They also wielded subpoenas in a fruitless hunt for financiers of \u201cdomestic terrorism,\u201d taking a cue from<\/a> President Donald Trump\u2019s National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 labeling swaths<\/a> of the far left as terrorists<\/a>.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n In other prosecutions targeting activists, like the Prairieland case in Texas<\/a>, mainstream groups have shied away<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n Powerful labor unions that make up the backbone of the state\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re trying to split the movement and absolutely failing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n 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.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the defendants themselves have so far mounted a unified, joint defense; none of them have taken a plea deal.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re trying to split the movement and absolutely failing,\u201d said Emmett James Doyle, a defendant in the case. \u201cThere\u2019s been just complete solidarity behind us from basically every sector of Twin Cities life.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Doyle\u2019s ruddy face and wild beard would have been at home in Big Bill Haywood\u2019s Industrial Workers of the World a century ago. By day he\u2019s a union carpenter, by night he plucks a banjo and sings songs about America\u2019s radical past.<\/p>\n Federal prosecutors allege that he brought those songs to life on the streets of Minneapolis.<\/p>\n In a 94-page indictment, prosecutors claim that Doyle and the other 14 defendants were members or associates of a group called Direct Action Minnesota that \u201cinfiltrated and exploited lawful protests\u201d to target ICE.<\/p>\n Prosecutors painted a dark picture<\/a> of DAMN. Their tactics allegedly included blocking access to a federal building used by ICE with disabled cars or trailers, bringing shields and gas masks to protests, and, in one instance, following an ICE agent across state lines to his home in Wisconsin.<\/p>\n Government attorneys also leaned heavily on the defendants\u2019 comments to each other in private messages<\/a> about their frustration with more mainstream protesters and the need for \u201cmilitant\u201d action.<\/p>\n Despite the prosecutors\u2019 claims about rioting and violence at the June press conference, however, the top federal prosecutor in Minnesota, U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen, was unable to identify injuries to federal officers when reporters pressed him.<\/p>\n There are committed anarchists among the defendants charged in the indictment, several defendants told The Intercept, but there was little difference between what they did and what thousands of Minneapolis residents did during the federal immigration crackdown.<\/p>\n Ordinary Minnesotans walked frigid streets with whistles<\/a> dangling from their necks to alert their neighbors about ICE raids. They sent license plate numbers<\/a> of federal vehicles to Signal group chats. Members of rapid-response networks trailed<\/a> suspected agents in their cars.<\/p>\n The indictment is replete with examples of protesters trailing agents in vehicles, a tactic known as \u201ccommuting.\u201d Yet that was a tactic so widely employed by rapid-response groups in Minneapolis that it was even adopted by a congressional candidate<\/a> in a suburban district who recently won his Democratic primary.<\/p>\n \u201cI think there are people in the government who really do believe that there is like a small cabal of people who are fomenting all the dissent, and if you get rid of them, that everyone will be quiet,\u201d Doyle said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s fundamentally wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n Doyle, like the four other defendants interviewed by The Intercept, declined to discuss the specific allegations in the indictment, citing advice from his attorney.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re just trying to find people to make examples of.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Still, another defendant, Treasure Thoreson, was adamant that none of the defendants ever used violence. Thoreson is a special education teacher whose elementary school\u2019s lanyard was still dangling from her neck during a recent interview. She believes the group was targeted because of its radical views.<\/p>\n \u201cThey clearly had people that they had identified as problematic in some way and have been trying to tie these people to leading the resistance,\u201d Thoreson said. \u201cThey can\u2019t indict 100,000 people, so really, they\u2019re just trying to find people to make examples of.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
\u201cCan\u2019t Indict 100,000 People\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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