By Linda Loew
On the list of recent attacks on free speech and the right to protest is the June 16, 2026, indictment by a federal grand jury of 15 people on felony charges related to protests against Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota. There, between December 2025 and February 2026, hundreds of thousands of people confronted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) thugs in massive, sustained protest actions in defense of their immigrant neighbors, politically defeating the surge. In addition, tens of thousands of people were trained as rapid responders to help protect immigrants’ rights.
The Minnesota 15 — as the defendants named in the indictment are now known — are fighting back, not just on the legal front but by building solidarity with their cause. During an October 3, 2026, rally against ICE terror in Minneapolis, speaker Marcia Howard, president of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) Local 59 teacher chapter, focused on the need for solidarity with the 15 activists. Many in the crowd carried signs in support of their defense.
Howard noted that two of her members are among those charged in this case. She linked the Minnesota 15 to other cases, including the attack on 39 people present during a protest against ICE at a church service. Howard noted that one of them is journalist Don Lemon, whose only reason for being on the scene was to report on events.
“They could’ve gotten all 3800 of my members,” the MFT president said, “but they only plucked two…. Let’s be honest. This is our ‘I am Spartacus’ moment.”
“Who else could they have gotten in the state of Minnesota?” Howard asked. “They could’ve gotten me! Did I stand up for my constitutional rights, did I observe? Yes, I did. And I’d do it again. Did I stand up for my neighbor? Yes, I did. And I’d do it again.”
Recent meetings in Chicago, Illinois, and Madison, Wisconsin, have shown the potential for broadening the defense of the Minneapolis 15.
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CHICAGO, Illinois
On October 1, 2026, about 100 people packed the room at Haymarket House to “Hear from the Minnesota 15.” Organized by the Committee to Defend the Minnesota 15 — Chicago, and endorsed by more than 20 organizations, the forum featured accounts by Isaac Sant and Callum “Cal” Robinet, two of the defendants.
Sant and Robinet shared how their home was violently raided in the middle of the night, followed by arrests and charges of “conspiracy to impede or injure federal agents.” To date, the government has not cited any injury to federal officers or evidence of any criminal activity.
Alderman of Chicago’s 25th ward, Byron Sigcho-Lopez, a long-time civil rights advocate and community leader, chaired the forum. He connected Minnesota’s Operation Metro Surge to Operation Midway Surge in Chicago, both invasions by ICE and Border Patrol that led to tens of thousands of residents being criminalized and dehumanized.
Sigcho-Lopez noted the recent one-year anniversary of the killing of Silverio Villegas-González, a Chicago father on his way to work, by a federal agent during a traffic stop. Neither the shooter nor the government have been held accountable. Tied to the murders of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, he declared, this shows that “the fight belongs to all of us.”
‘Antifa’ — a label to crush dissent
Most of the Minnesota 15 defendants are members of Direct Action Minnesota, and alleged members of “Antifa.” There is, of course, no such organization. “Antifa” is just an adjective, short for anti-fascist, and is a loose description of a political view. Nevertheless, the current administration in Washington has popularized the term in its slanders against opponents of its policies and as justification for its unconstitutional assault on activists in Minnesota and across the nation. “Antifa is just a blank label used to crush dissent,” Sigcho-Lopez said.
Robinet, a union electrician and labor organizer, responded to the government charge by saying, “To be anti-fascist is to be human!”
Robinet recounted waking up in the middle of the night in June to the sound of shattering glass, as agents clad in military armor invaded his house. They demanded that he walk barefoot across the broken glass they had created. He refused. After smashing the front door, they also held young roommates at gunpoint, with helicopters hovering overhead and a surveillance van outside.
Sant, who was not home at the time, describes himself as “a healthcare worker and a revolutionary anarchist.” During the raid, the federal agents took his computer. He was later arrested.
Both Sant and Robinet face a host of charges in addition to “conspiracy” — including “interstate stalking,” but all agree that their real “crime” is being among the thousands of civilian rapid responders who used their First Amendment rights to witness, document, and protest the lawless actions of federal agents in Minnesota.
Sant and Robinet were part of a community self-defense campaign on behalf of their neighbors and loved ones, a largely non-violent patrolling and witnessing of crimes being committed by ICE and Border Patrol agents, an occupying force of up to 4000 who abducted and detained residents without warrants or due process.
‘Blunt force trauma to the social fabric’
Robinet described being on site when Renee Good was murdered. January 5–14 was “Hell Week,” he said, with ICE black-bagging victims’ heads and zip-tying their hands. It was “blunt force trauma to the entire social fabric,” he explained. “Everyone in the Twin Cities knows someone who was kidnapped.”
Robinet described the January 23 day of ‘No Work — No School — No Shopping’ when hundreds of thousands — including airport workers, Amazon warehouse workers, an entire ATT call center, and teachers — did not show up for work. At least 50,000 Minnesotans took to the streets in subzero weather to march against ICE terror that day.
Eleven of the 15 defendants are unionists, Robinet noted, but the outrage about what was happening in their cities and to their neighbors mobilized people well beyond organized labor.
Two days later, after the January 24 killing of Alex Pretti, the CEOs of more than 60 companies asked US president Donald Trump for a “de-escalation of tension.” Shortly thereafter, the hated Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino was fired, and the government began a drawdown of personnel in the streets. Ultimately, it was the organized resistance of the Minnesota population that led to this pullback of immigration forces.
The defendants noted, however, that the abductions have not ended, and that responders remain vigilant even today as the tactics of federal authorities have shifted. The remaining 400 immigration agents in the Twin Cities are still snatching people up and raids and arrests continue in Chicago and elsewhere in the country. ICE agents increasingly show up in Minnesota courtrooms and are now allowed, due to concessions by state officials, to enter any jail.
The speakers pointed out that most rapid responders who had earlier been indicted have been freed, with the government focusing its campaign of intimidation on the organizers. As outlined in their indictment, organizing, going to meetings, and simply chatting have become the basis for declaring a “conspiracy.” These bold attacks on First Amendment rights and free speech aim to label left-wing political activists as “terrorists,” when it is, in fact, the federal government and its henchmen who are acting like terrorists.
Conspiracy charges as government fallback position
The Minnesota 15 indictment is only part of this picture. In Texas, draconian sentences of up to 100 years have already been handed down to the Prairieland defendants, who faced state and federal charges for a July 4, 2025, protest outside an ICE detention center. A gag order placed on the Minnesota defendants, prohibiting them from speaking to their co-defendants, is similar to that in the case of the Michigan 8, also charged with “conspiracy” for participation in solidarity actions with the Palestinian people.[1]
“The no-contact order is another tactic to divide and prevent organizing,” Robinet explained. In the case of Sant and Robinet, who are roommates, the judge felt compelled to suspend that no-talking rule.
“No one is coming to save us,” Robinet said in response to questions about their future prospects. “History is not changed by individuals, but by thousands and thousands of people taking thousands of actions to change society.”
In a strategy that goes well beyond the legal fight, Robinet and Sant are together taking their case to all who will listen, making a political case for not only their freedom, but for the democratic rights of us all. They are receiving and welcoming requests to tour and speak, and are building solidarity, not just focusing on what happens in the courtroom alone.
While their lives, and many others, have been upended with job and housing losses, Sant pointed out, “We are not heroes; those would be hunger strikers in 10 different detention centers, such as Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, and those immigrants who have died.”
The event was sponsored by the Chicago Committee to Defend the Minnesota 15, and endorsed by About Face: Veterans Against the War; Alliance for Community Services; Chicago Anti-War Coalition; Chicago Area Peace Action; Chicago Committee Against War and Racism; Chicago Committee to Defend Tom Alter; Chicago Cuba Coalition; Chicago For Abortion Rights; Chicago Solidarity; Chicago Worker Solidarity Network; Greater Chicago Industrial Workers of the World; Haymarket House; Illinois Green Party; Partisan Defense Committee; Pilsen Defense and Access; Refuse Fascism; Socialist Alternative; Solidarity Now!; Stop Trans Genocide; Trans Intergenerational Mutual Aid Project; and Tzedek Chicago.
Over $2000 was raised during the Chicago gathering to go toward defense efforts.
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MADISON, Wisconsin
In the spirit of “An Injury to One is An Injury to All” around 130 people gathered in the Madison Labor Temple on October 4, 2026, to watch a new and rousing documentary film When Ice Melts and to hear a panel discussion around the themes of support to the Minnesota 15 and defense of the right to organize.
Organized by the Madison Free the 15 Defense Committee, the event was broadly endorsed by The Havens Wright Center for Social Justice, The Progressive Magazine, Wisconsin Bail Out the People Movement (WiBOPM), Voces de la Frontera, and labor organizations — including United Electrical Workers 1186; American Federation of State, County, & Municipal Employees Local 1; United Faculty and Academic Staff (UFAS) Local 223; and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Wisconsin. Several socialist groups, Jewish Voice for Peace, South Central Federation of Labor, A Room of One’s Own, and Madison World Beyond War were also among the endorsers.
Victoria Gutierrez, a long-time nurse and labor organizer, welcomed the crowd. “Organizing is not a crime! Defending our community is not a crime! Defending our neighbors is not a crime!” she said.
The 119-minute film When ICE Melts — Testimonies from the Front Lines was produced by Kip Hedges, a Delta airlines baggage handler and resident of one of the neighborhoods in the Twin Cities most deeply affected by Operation Metro Surge. It contains compelling and graphic testimony from trade unionists, historians, and members of the Minneapolis and St. Paul communities, ordinary people who became part of the massive network of rapid responders and protestors when ICE and Border Patrol invaded their communities.
The film includes footage of some of the key turning points in the resistance. Among those were the cold-blooded murders of legal observer Renee Good and Alex Pretti and the call to stay home from work, school, and shopping on January 23, 2026.
Much of the film is based on interviews with participants in that resistance:
- Kieran Knutson, president of Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 7250, highlighted the aggressive targeting of the Somalis and the more than 80 community response teams that formed in addition to those in the Somali communities.
- Mutual aid coordinator Shannon Gibney spoke of the “sense of shared humanity” that arose as neighbors watched neighbors being snatched. “How dare you!?!” was the feeling she described.
- Monique Cullars-Doty, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter, hailed the growing involvement of new activists, including in the suburbs and beyond. With whistles everywhere to alert people to ICE presence, cars circling in every neighborhood, she said, “We saw many white people coming to the defense of immigrant neighbors, and black organizers were emerging too. The Trump administration did not expect this.”
- Civil rights attorney Nekima Levy-Armstrong described the grocery and meal deliveries that built on the organizing that followed the murder of George Floyd. Much of the infrastructure of response teams, based on schools, existed before ICE showed up.
Legal defense intertwined with building solidarity, fundraising
The spirit of solidarity, so vividly depicted in the film, continued in the panel discussion that followed.
Amy Lewis, co-president of American Federation of Teachers Local 223, and labor organizer Bryan George Pfeifer, co-founder of WiBOPM and a member of the Steelworkers union, co-chaired the panel. They underscored the intertwined goals of raising funds and building solidarity.
Filmmaker Hedges then explained how he used a $300 video camera to record events, sensing a need to put this experience out there. He outlined what he thought are the three key lessons of the resistance:
First, working people must depend on themselves, no one else, to save us. No politicians will do this, and union support is still weak. Second, he noted the fact that the Democratic Party did little to nothing while many in law enforcement helped ICE do their dirty work. Third, he said, “Mass action and direct action gets the goods! What we won, we won in the streets!”
Hedges stressed the importance of January 23 — the day of “no work, no school, no shopping”— in breaking the back of the ICE surge. “There was a clear chain of events from working class organization.”
Hedges urged organizations to “put down sectarian weapons…. We must build a common project around a common enemy. That is how we win.”
Alec Stewart, one of the Minnesota 15 defendants is a restoration ecologist and wildlands firefighter for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. He reiterated a common theme among the defendants, “We are not special; we are part of tens of thousands of people who mobilized to keep our neighbors safe.” These attacks were designed to “divide us by attacking the most vulnerable, and workers showed up to defend one another.” He also made the link to struggles on a global scale, noting that the “same rubber bullets they used against Palestinians, they used on us.”
Bruce Nestor, an attorney for the Minnesota 15, lives near where Renee Good was murdered and was called to the site of the murder of Alex Pretti. He referred to the January 23 walkouts as a “beacon of hope.” Even though kidnappings and deportations continue, the fact that ICE was forced to pull back was a victory brought by the mass resistance.
Enhanced machinery of repression against gov’t opponents
Nestor placed the Minnesota events in the context of the enhanced machinery of repression now being used, noting how the abduction of Mahmoud Khalil outside of Columbia University in New York spearheaded the use of masked agent abduction; masked federal agents with paramilitary garb now interact routinely with protestors, including from the labor movement.
Andy Thayer, an organizer of the Chicago Committee to Defend the Minnesota 15, commented that “all institutions have failed us.” However, he cautioned, while we confront fascist methods and the proponents of fascism, we are not in fact living under fascism at this moment; this is not 1930s Germany. He said that we still have power to mobilize and must defend and use the democratic freedoms that we still have.
“In our living memory we have birthed the black power movement, women’s liberation movement,” Thayer noted. These were the basis for every victory we have attained, not the actions of politicians, including those of the Democratic Party.
“There will be peaks and valleys,” he said, as we mobilize our resistance. He emphasized that need to continually reach out and involve new people.
CWA Local 7250 president Knutson commented on the federal spying on activists, saying, “Unions are not in a separate box from social movements in the streets.” Of the workers kidnapped from workplaces, dozens were from unions. That is why, he declared, unions have a responsibility to get involved. The labor organizations can be, and were, pushed by political developments.
The producers of When ICE Melts want to get their film out widely. It can be a great accompaniment to educational forums and solidarity panels to spread awareness about the Minnesota 15 Defense campaign, and the struggles of all those fighting unjust indictments and convictions. For more information, the filmmakers can be contacted here.
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Events like the Chicago meeting and the Madison screening and panel discussion can help spearhead the building of bridges between defense efforts taking place all over the country. Shining a light on the Prairieland ICE Detention Center defendants in Texas, the Michigan 8, Texas State University professor Tom Alter, and the students targeted at universities across the country is critical to undermining the efforts by the US government to quell dissent and continue its draconian policies unhindered.
Everyone at the Madison gathering agreed that sharing these experiences of mass action and community organizing promotes a feeling of hope, that we are not alone. As Robin, one of the independent socialist organizers interviewed in When ICE Melts, declared, “The rest of the country sees it can be done—we can bring the billionaires to heal. When everyone comes together as a community, we believe another world is possible!”
The Minnesota 15 defense committee website can be found here.
Linda Loew is a member of the Committee to Defend the Minnesota 15 – Chicago. Minneapolis residents Bill Scheer and Sandi Sherman contributed to this article.
NOTES
[1] Earlier this year, federal prosecutors secured their first successful conviction on the basis of “antifa terrorism” in the Prairieland case in north Texas. In this case, 16 defendants faced federal and state charges following a non-fatal shooting by one of the protesters at a July 4, 2025, “No ICE” demonstration.
The Michigan 8 are a group of current and former University of Michigan students and one university employee who were indicted in May 2026 on federal charges, including conspiracy to transmit threats in interstate and foreign commerce. The charges stemmed from their participation in Palestine solidarity actions.
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Categories: Democratic Rights