The seemingly spontaneous protests against ICE agents in Minnesota following the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti is actually well-funded and organized, the Daily Mail can reveal.
Behind the bullhorns and blockades lies a sophisticated network of national advocacy groups, labor organizations and deep-pocketed foundations pumping big money into what many left-wing activists portray as a crusade to help unfairly targeted immigrants – and to avenge what they see as the martyrdom of the two 37-year-olds.
Flush with millions in non-profit foundation cash and aided by labor unions and veteran national organizers, Minnesota’s increasingly aggressive anti-ICE protests are far from grassroots.
‘The chaos in Minneapolis is far from organic,’ Seamus Bruner, vice-president at the conservative Government Accountability Institute, told the Daily Mail.
‘What we’re seeing is what I call Riot Inc.’
And for now, the activists appear to be winning.
US Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino has returned to California and is expected to retire, with President Trump having sent Border Czar Tom Homan to the embattled state, snubbing controversial Department of Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem.
Trump has said that he ‘doesn’t like any shooting’ and suggested that federal agents may soon be scaling back their presence in the Twin Cities.
As thousands of protestors pour into the streets of Minneapolis in the wake of the ICE shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, the Daily Mail has uncovered the well-funded and organized activism behind it
In the wake of the protests, shake-ups in the Trump administration are being seen as a victory – with US Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino (right) expected to retire and border czar Tom Homan dispatched to the state, sidelining Department of Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem
The fatal shooting of Good, a mother of three, on January 7, ignited already simmering tensions.
And the death of Pretti, an ICU nurse, on January 24, may further stymie the arrest and deportation efforts of ICE and the Border Patrol in Minneapolis.
But if ICE leaves Minnesota in shame, it won’t be simply because federal agents got too trigger happy, according to some observers – it will be the result of a well-executed strategy to harass, provoke and intimidate them.
‘Normal Americans watching from afar may reasonably ask: how does this happen, and how do large, coordinated crowds suddenly materialize in subzero temperatures?’ said Bruner.
‘The answer is simple: they are deployed. As I told President Trump at the White House roundtable on Antifa, these protests don’t assemble themselves so we must follow the money. The signs, the slogans, the logistics, even the drumlines are pre-planned and professionally supplied.’
Roughly 20 to 30 separate activist groups and coalition partners are regularly involved in anti-ICE actions in the Twin Cities, along with numerous informal grass-roots networks and rapid-response crews that participate without public organizational names.
Minneapolis attorney Nathan Hansen, who’s been chronicling Somali-connected fraud in the city for years and following what he calls the state’s dangerous progressivism, says the anti-ICE protests are not surprising.
Behind the blockades is a sophisticated network of national advocacy groups, labor unions and deep-pocketed foundations pouring money into what many left-wing activists frame as a crusade to defend unfairly targeted immigrants
Renee Good was shot dead by ICE agent Jonathan Ross after attempting to flee the scene when agents asked her to step out of the vehicle on January 7
ICU nurse Alex Pretti was shot and killed while being detained by ICE agents on Saturday
‘Minnesota is like a testing ground for domestic revolutions,’ Hansen told the Daily Mail.
‘The people behind this are people who want nothing less than to overthrow the government.’
Investigative journalists like Cam Higby and Andy Ngo have infiltrated anti-ICE chats on the encrypted messaging app Signal, revealing complex training manuals and classes as well as elaborate protocols for tracking down, obstructing and impeding federal agents in the Twin Cities.
Methods include mobile, foot and stationary patrols, license plate checkers and instructions on how to stay anonymous, including an edict to delete all chats on Signal at the end of each day.
‘The quasi-police force uses a system called “SALUTE” which calls out the size of federal units, activity, locations, uniforms, times and locations,’ Higby has reported. ‘They then instruct their ICE chasers to follow and confront agents at their known locations.
‘ICE chaser operations go all night. The dispatch call is 24/7. These are messages screenshot at 2am asking for observers at a location with potential illegals.’
Ngo said he observed an atmosphere of ‘distrust and paranoia’ in the Signal chats with leaders making sure everyone uses aliases.
‘Right-wingers are trying to get into many chats right now,’ warned an administrator using the moniker ‘Moss’ when Ngo was in the chat.
‘Never put anything in Signal you would not want read back in court. No Signal group can fully protect you from unfriendly eyes.’
Tensions have been rising between protestors and ICE agents in the Twin Cities, with some observers arguing that agents could be pulled out as result of a well-executed strategy to harass, provoke and intimidate them
Higby posted to X on Saturday his infiltration of anti-ICE chats and messages on the messaging app Signal; his alleged findings showed them tracking down agents with the intention of ‘impeding/assaulting/and obstructing them’
Higby alleged these chats required protestors in ‘occupation’ or ‘shift’ positions to ‘undergo training’
The post also alleged that each chat has ‘patrol zones’ to ‘guide ICE chasers on where to go
Many leaders of the ongoing movement are not easy to identify, though there are some who don’t try to avoid the spotlight.
Many are clergy leaders and figures tied to the Black Lives Matter network.
Nekima Levy Armstrong, a Minneapolis civil rights attorney and former president of the Minneapolis NAACP, played a key role in recent anti-ICE actions – including the controversial church protest in St. Paul last week.
Armstrong, 49, led the protest, she said, after learning that David Easterwood, a St. Paul field director for ICE, was part of the church’s ministry team.
She was arrested with Chauntyll Louisa Allen and William Kelly aka ‘Woke Farmer.’
A flashier local leader is a self-identified Antifa member and Antifa recruiter in Minneapolis named Kyle Wagner who had 40,000 followers on Instagram until his account was deleted Sunday.
Wagner, who goes by the name KAOS, calls himself a ‘master hate baiter’ and occasionally cross-dresses in his videos, regularly exhorts his followers to protest against ICE and upped the ante this past weekend.
Nekima Levy Armstrong, a Minneapolis civil rights attorney and former president of the Minneapolis NAACP, is a key player in the protest’s organization and was arrested during a church protest last week
Chauntyll Louisa Allen and William Kelly aka ‘Woke Farmer’ were also arrested during this church protest
A self-identified Antifa member and recruiter in Minneapolis, Kyle Wagner, escalated calls for residents to mobilize last week, declaring: ‘It’s time to suit up, boots on the ground,’ and urging protesters to ‘get your f***ing guns’
‘Hi, my name is Kyle, I’m Antifa, and there’s so much rage in me that I’ve had to record this like 15 times trying to get the message out,’ he said in one now-deleted video made the day of Pretti’s killing.
‘It’s time to suit up, boots on the ground,’ he added. ‘No, not talking about peaceful protests anymore.
‘We’re not talking about having polite conversations anymore…. This is not a f***ing joke. There’s nothing fun to chant about it. Get your f***ing guns and stop these f***ing people.’
An anti-ICE activist using the handle Vitalist International posted on X recently that ‘Minneapolis could be our Fallujah,’ referencing the bloodiest battle of the Iraq War.
‘Going to Minneapolis to get in a fistfight with ICE is completely reasonable strategically, since pinning them down in a city with popular and well-organized resistance is better than the whack-a-mole game we have been playing for the past year.’
Indivisible Twin Cities, which calls itself a ‘grassroots group of volunteers,’ is one of the central linchpins of the organized resistance in Minnesota.
But its real power comes from Washington, where parent organization Indivisible Project pulls in grants by the millions – much of it from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations – sometimes funneled through intermediaries like the Tides Foundation.
Kate Havelin of Indivisible Twin Cities told the Daily Mail the local organization does not receive money from the national headquarters, however the national organization’s website states clearly that it shares resources that it pays for with local chapters.
‘Our efforts are exactly what they look like – local people organizing in their own communities,’ Havelin said. ‘We aren’t receiving funding from any “Indivisible Cities” operation in DC, and our work isn’t propped up by national dollars
The national Indivisible Project, which provides organizing tools and strategy, has received millions in foundation funding from groups including Soros’s grantmaking network. Public records show that it received $7,850,000 from Soros’ Open Society Foundations between 2018 and 2023.
George Soros’s Open Society Foundations funnels millions in grants through intermediaries like Tides to national advocacy networks such as the Indivisible Project, which then support local activist groups backing the blockades and protests
Fiscal sponsorship is another tactic used by large protest organizers in Minnesota, allowing campaigns to raise and spend money without normal public disclosure – for example, organizers used the crowdfunding platform Chuffed to raise $993,782 to support the protests
ICE Out of MN is another big protest brand, hosting online briefings and circulating activist toolkits.
But like many of the big-name activist organizations, it’s a coalition project under the umbrella of existing organizations through ‘fiscal sponsorship’ – a setup that lets campaigns raise and spend money without disclosing who’s writing the checks.
The Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation has been identified as a key fundraising beneficiary for ‘rapid response’ actions.
Attempts to reach ICE Out of MN were not successful.
Crowdfunding platforms like Chuffed supplement the big money, collecting small-dollar donations for ‘legal defense’ and ‘frontline organizing,’ almost always listing a nonprofit or labor sponsor as the beneficiary.
Chuffed did not respond to a request for comment.
‘It’s a shell game: money enters at the top, gets funneled through intermediaries, and comes out at the street level looking like community organizing,’ said one conservative activist who did not want her name used because she’s already been doxed.
‘It’s a business model that hides who’s really calling the shots.’
