Extract from ABC News
A federal law enforcement officer throws a tear gas canister to disperse demonstrators protesting ICE activity outside a federal building in Saint Paul, Minnesota. (Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
In the twin cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers have been deployed by the White House to detain so-called illegal aliens.
But, they have adversaries on every block — a network of everyday people who call themselves 'ICE Observers'.
"We've got volunteer patrol people on almost every corner just watching for ICE, keeping people safe," Reverend Ashley Horan tells 7.30.
President Trump calls them "agitators".
Reverend Horan — a Unitarian Universalist minister — is one of them, determined to stop ICE in their goals.
Reverend Ashley Horan says ICE "is operating like the Gestapo". (Facebook: Ashley Horan)
"There is massive resilience and anger and resistance and resolve," she says.
"We are not going to tolerate this. We are not going to be intimidated. We are going to protect one another no matter what."
Unlike ICE agents — with their tear gas and firearms — these volunteers carry walkie-talkies and whistles.
Among their main priorities are the local schools.
"We've got parents and community members who show up and watch at recess and at drop-off and pick-up times," she explained to 7.30.
Reverend Ashley Horan, pictured centre, with members of her church and other ICE observers. (Facebook: Ashley Horan)
While some parents are standing guard at the gates, others are escorting foreign-born staff members to and from their homes.
A culture of fear
Others have pulled their kids out of class entirely and the streets have been growing more tense by the day.
A protester with an anti-ICE sign in Minneapolis, Minnesota. ( Jim Vondruska/Getty Images)
There had been a constant fear that someone's child would be detained.
On Tuesday, that fear became a reality as Minnesota school officials claimed that ICE agents seized five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos from a running car while it was in his family's driveway.
Reverend Horan describes the actions of ICE agents as akin to a historically sinister agency.
"ICE is operating like the Gestapo and the secret police," Reverend Horan tells 7.30.
"Their playbook comes from slave catchers."
For Reverend Horan this is a deeply personal fight.
She has close relationships with the people she is trying to help, but they are living in fear.
"There are a lot of folks who are hiding and can't come out of their houses," she says.
"Some schools made the unprecedented decision to do online learning for the duration of this crisis through February, because so many students were not able to come to school or families were keeping their students home because they were too scared to bring them to the bus stops."
Reverend Horan lives in the central neighbourhood of South Minneapolis, a community she describes as "densely populated by immigrants" — one-third Latino, one-third Somali and the rest a mix of ethnicities.
Tensions have remained high between protesters and law enforcement in Minnesota. (Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
"They're worried about going to the corner store to get groceries, going to work," she says.
"Travelling between safe places is really dangerous for them."
'It's not constitutional'
According to Dr Emma Shortis, an expert on US security affairs at the Australia Institute, the Trump administration's second term has seen a dramatic escalation in ICE's powers, reach and funding, as other federal departments languish.
Scenes in Minnesota have appeared apocalyptic at times. (Madison Thorn/Anadolu via Getty Images)
"They are sending very clear signals to those ICE agents that they can, in the quite literal words of the president, do whatever the hell they want," Dr Shortis tells 7.30.
"It's not constitutional, it doesn't stand up against any legal arguments, but this is the new reality that the Trump administration is trying to create for itself and for the people who work for it."
Since its inception in 2003 following the September 11 terrorist attacks, the federal department has been a lightning rod for controversy, from claims of heavy-handed tactics to racial profiling.
Emma Shortis says ICE agents have been told they can "do whatever the hell they want". (ABC News: Michael Nudl)
In the past two years alone, there have been several wrongful arrests and at least 32 deaths in ICE custody.
"That's why ICE agents in particular have been given such licence to arrest people unilaterally, often without charge, often citizens, often children or young people, without giving those people right to due process," Dr Shortis says.
Shooting of mother was 'inevitable'
The shooting of ICE observer Renee Nicole Good has been a pivotal moment for many Americans
An ICE agent shoots Renee Nicole Good dead in Minneapolis.
While the White House and ICE officials claimed the agent acted in self-defence, bystanders say she was murdered.
"There is something about a moment like this where there's so much documentation and visual evidence that gives people an opportunity to say, I'm going to fact check this for myself," Reverend Horan says.
"I was with people on the scene who saw the original video.
Reverend Ashley Horan and her family, pictured left of centre, visit the Renee Good memorial. (Facebook: Ashley Horan)
"They were passing phones around showing what had happened, and it was so clear to everybody who saw it that they had just decided to take a human life.
"The most devastating moments for me this past week have been trying to talk to my brown children about why a woman who looks like their mum in a family that looks like their family, a block away from my house, was killed for doing the things that we have been committed to doing to protect our neighbours," she said through tears.
"It's been talking to my kids about how their friends are staying home from school because they're scared to come and get on the bus. No parent should ever have to do that.
"And I can bring you all the political analysis we want, but that's the part that sits right here on my heart."
Shooting by ICE agents in Minnesota incites national US protests (Tom Hartley)
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