This just in…

Lynn Hinkle, our resident policy wonk, has shared position papers for what we know as “The 3.5% Rule”:

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Racial Justice ICE Resistance Activates 3.5% TC Population                WMRJMN v3

The “3.5% rule” originated from political scientist Erica Chenoweth and her co-author Maria Stephan in their 2011 book, Why Civil Resistance Works, If a resistance movement managed to sustain the active participation of at least 3.5% of the population, the campaign was historically successful in bringing about major systemic reforms or regime change. According to the underlying dataset (the NAVCO Project), nonviolent civil resistance was found to be twice as successful as violent armed conflicts.

Was the 3.5% threshold for revolutionary non-violent change met for Minneapolis and St Paul resistance to ICE ? Minneapolis population x 3.5%=15,000: St Paul population x 3.5%=11,000. UNIDOS multi-faceted training = 30.000 (subtract suburban trainees and add activated union, congregational members, businesses and students)  Yes, there is little doubt that the Minnesota ICE resistance exceeded the threshold of revolutionary resistance.

It is clear that the resistance to ICE in Minneapolis and St Paul during Operation Metro Surge activated the 3.5% of the population needed for regime change. The question is, to what degree was that resistance based on racial justice?  The answer lies in a careful examination of how multiple resistance events emerged in a racial justice context not just  an analysis of headcounts. 

To be clear, the TC resistance to ICE’s Operation Metro Surge was animated by a range of opposition to militarized tactics, family separation, brutal detainment methods and openly unconstitutional deportation enforcement tactics not a singular center organizing for racial justice and multiracial unity. The reality however of the racist core of ICE’s occupation called for centering racial justice regardless of white folks initial motivation resisting ICE. The facts are clear, U.S. District Judge Eric Tostrud, an appointee of President Trump wrote, “Plaintiffs (detainees) have made a clear showing that defendants have adopted a policy authorizing federal immigration officers to conduct investigatory stops based on ethnicity or race without reasonable suspicion that the individuals were violating immigration laws.” 

“No Justice, No Streets” Minneapolis stands up again to a surge of racial terrorism. 

Our Black neighbors saw the ICE activity as a clear expression of multi-generational anti Black terrorism. Our Black neighbors understood that the masked ICE thugs were not the gestapo but the deeply American and evolved manifestations of lynchings and other forms of anti-Blackness. Collective Black memory recalls how lynchings of Black Americans were treated as public entertainment and community spectacles for White populations. During the 19th and 20th centuries, these acts of racial terror were widely publicized, drawing crowds that sometimes numbered in the thousands, including families, community leaders, and law enforcement. Far from spontaneous mob violence, these highly ritualized killings were designed to reinforce white supremacy, instill terror, and force Black Americans into submission. The large and visible White opposition to ICE terroristic tactics against Black and Brown neighbors is foundational for even broader multi racial class mobilization. The murders of Alex Pretti and Rennee Good who were killed to drive other White activists away from racial justice work was an oft repeated tactic to intimidate White “race traitors” during the civil rights movement. The message is clear, work for racial justice expressing your class unity with Black and Brown neighbors and you will be tear gassed, pepper sprayed, beaten or murdered.

The multiple forms of the Minnesota ICE revolutionary resistance:

1. During the Twin Cities ICE occupation large White mobs disrupted ICE’s terrorizing our Black and Brown neighbors as the streets of Minneapolis turn Jim Crow Black codes upside down. Changing the darkest moments of our history into an act of revolutionary love – Multi Racial unity.  These events involved federal immigration agents (ICE) confronted by White community members  at Minneapolis and St Paul schools in response to aggressive ICE deportation operations, Over 1,000 parent and community volunteers formed “sanctuary school” human chains at dozens of schools, including elementary campuses, to disrupt federal agents targeting Black and Brown staff and children for abduction. 

2. January 23, 2026, A multi-racial crowd of 50,000 march thru Minneapolis downtown demanding “ICE Out Now” culminating organization of virtually every Twin Cities union, hundreds of businesses, residents and students. TC general strike – putting on display a whole of society non-violent resistance to ICE terrorism.

3. ICE Murders Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Instead of acting as a deterrent to Minnesota “Race Traitors”  these spectacle murders spur thousands more people being trained to do exactly what Alex and Renna were doing when they were murdered by ICE. 

4. Massive Multi Faith organizing involving the arrest of over 100 faith leaders representing 10,000 congregants protesting ICE violence and racial intimidation. Many denominations had already been engaged in significant reparatory activity to redress the harms of stolen land and Black enslavement. The City of St Paul had been doing city authorized reparations work for years.

5. Not just opposition to ICE anti-Black terrorism, but disruption of ICE collaborationist at Cities Church resulting in Federal charges against a multi-racial disrupter cohort led by several leaders of the Twin Cities Black liberation movement. “Righteous 38”

6. High integration of digital tools to coordinate the full range of resistance activities such as patrols, rapid response, safe rides, food shelves, rent support, etc. An already vibrant racial justice movement including SURJ, ISAIAH, UNIDOS scaled up training in the tens of thousands to match the surge in the ICE occupation. 

7. Significant development and deployment of singing resistance and support for self-care and recognition that we’re building a movement of revolutionary love not just a moment of resistance.

8. The racial wealth gap is clearly exposed as a systemic reduction of financial reserves affecting our Black and Brown neighbors who are unable to pay for rent, child care, food and other necessities that are forced to hide from ICE abduction. The impact is felt across the entire economy clarifying the need to address the racial wealth disparity not just ending non-white ICE terrorism.

9. The several months long Metro Surge proved that a significant White population of the Twin cities did engage in a form of wealth transfer as every non-white financial gap was being filled graciously by white folks – everything from rent, food, gas money, childcare etc., But just as notable was the volunteering to patrol, deliver groceries, prescriptions, secure rides to and from schools It is hard to quantify the full scope of this effort but it’s safe to say that thousands of white folks put in thousands of hours to protect and build community beyond resistance. While notable, this reparatory White activity was just as much the result of a deep local culture working to redress stolen land and stolen labor as spontaneous strong neighborly support,  

10. Despite 3.5% activation of ICE resistance in the context of racial justice the City of Minneapolis continued to undermine implementing a plan to stop Black displacement in the neighborhoods surrounding the site of George Floyd’s neo-lynching. Instead of working to repair the lost generational Black wealth compounded from 35W freeway displacement, Minneapolis used the noise from the ICE occupation to distract from its ongoing failure to stop Southside Black displacement.

11. Minnesota racial justice resistance to ICE was sufficient to derail Operation Metro Surge and is a clear people’s victory but it’s insufficient to abolish ICE much less the overall Federal anti-Black and Brown policies that systematically widen the racial wealth gap. Other metro areas need to take up the elements of the TC racial justice programs and the Twin Cities activists need to deepen commitment to those programs and engage Democracy Défense organizing to resist the next round of surging slave patrols disguised as some policing “authority”