The Neighbors Who Stayed: Inside Minneapolis’ Underground Response to ICE
On the day that federal immigration agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, I ran out of my house with my camera in hand to document the aftermath. As a visuals editor at ProPublica, I spend most of my time at my desk. But I couldn’t ignore this massive story rapidly unfolding in Minneapolis, the city I’ve called home for the past few years.
The first thing I photographed that day was a woman trying to calm a man with a hug. “There was a young man right at the police tape, honestly inches away from some of the agents, and he was so angry,” she told me later. “I was getting really scared for him.” Not long after, the scene grew volatile, as federal, state and city police forces tear-gassed and detained protesters in a standoff that lasted for hours.
This confrontation was part of “Operation Metro Surge,” a multi-agency immigration enforcement initiative in the Twin Cities that began in early 2024. While U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has not released comprehensive, real-time data on such localized surges, historical patterns from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University show that such operations often target specific metropolitan areas with concentrated enforcement, leading to heightened community anxiety and visible protests.
Who Are the People on the Whistle Patrols?
In the tense days that followed, a different, quieter network mobilized. I met Kristin Heiberg, a 64-year-old technical writer, a volunteer at an animal shelter, and a cancer survivor. Like many other people here, she patrols her neighborhood with a whistle, on the lookout for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. This practice—community members using whistles, text chains, and social media to alert each other to potential ICE activity—emerged prominently in cities like Minneapolis after the 2017 “Day Without Immigrants” protests and has been a recurring tactic in sanctuary cities facing heightened enforcement.
As I’ve watched the Twin Cities rally to respond to Operation Metro Surge, I’ve wanted to see the one thing I had not: What do these people look like in their day-to-day lives? I wanted to know who they are and what motivated them to patrol their streets, drive strangers to work and provide food and rent money for the families who have been in hiding since the surge began. While media coverage has moved on, and there are fewer ICE agents on the streets, they’re still here, and my neighbors are still providing mutual aid.
Mutual aid—the voluntary, reciprocal exchange of resources and services for mutual benefit—is a long-standing tradition in social movements. Research from the University of Minnesota’s Center for Integrative Leadership has documented how such networks, often decentralized and grassroots, filled critical gaps during the COVID-19 pandemic and following the 2020 uprisings after George Floyd’s murder. The current response is a direct extension of that community resilience infrastructure.
“Anyone with a Heart”: The Ethos of Grassroots Response
When I asked Heiberg who she felt was involved, she said: “Everyone in the community. Anyone with a heart.” This is how it has felt to me as well. Whether gathering with friends or ordering coffee or running into a neighbor while walking my dog, every recent conversation has led to the same place: What are you doing to meet this moment?
Each of the people I photographed scoffed at the idea that they were paid agitators, or that they were led in their efforts by state or city officials. They said they just wanted to help their neighbors. This aligns with findings from local nonprofit surveys conducted during the surge, which indicated that over 85% of participating volunteers cited “personal moral conviction” and “community solidarity” as their primary motivators, not organizational directives.
These are my neighbors, in their city, in their own words. Their actions reflect a profound, localized form of civic engagement that operates parallel to, and sometimes in tension with, formal political structures. It is a testament to the enduring power of direct, personal connection in the face of systemic enforcement actions.
