In St. Paul, the capital of Minnesota, the service had just begun. Under the light walls and modern stained glass windows of the Cities Church, facing the organ which dominates the assembly, a group of demonstrators entered the temple last Wednesday and interrupted worship to protest against the federal immigration police. The activists unfurled their banners and chanted their slogans. And summoned the faithful to listen to them. The scene, filmed, is playing in a loop on social networks. The location was not chosen at random: one of the pastors is also a local executive for ICE, the federal immigration police.
In this Protestant America of the Midwest where the church still gives rhythm to social and community life, the Saint-Paul episode marks a hardening of the methods of the ultra-left. Since the return of Donald Trump to the White House and the relaunch of a firm migration policy, demonstrations against ICE have spread to major Democratic cities. The protest has mutated. She is no longer content to express disagreement. Make way for obstruction, by blocking federal agents and exposing their identities.
The protest progresses in Democratic cities
The climate further hardened at the beginning of January, after the death of Renée Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother, shot several times during an immigration operation in Minneapolis. The circumstances remain disputed and the testimonies contradictory. Vice President J.D. Vance got involved, declaring that the agent who fired “benefited from absolute immunity” and that the death of Renee Good was “a tragedy of her own making”. On the activist front, the verdict was immediate. ICE was found guilty, its agents likened to an out-of-control militia. In this mechanism, antifa groups play a central role. Police stations, detention centers, courts: any space frequented by federal agents becomes a stage.
It must be said that the Twin Cities (as the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area is nicknamed) form a progressive bastion in the heart of the Midwest. Minneapolis was the epicenter of the riots sparked after the death of George Floyd in 2020. Minnesota, which has not voted for a Republican in the presidential election since 1972, also hosts the largest Somali community outside Somalia, in a local context weakened by a recent case of massive social fraud involving Democratic elected officials and subsidized associations.
Permanent tension
For several weeks, a name has been recurring in processions and on signs: Greg Bovino. A senior operational immigration official, he embodies, for the militant left, the face of repression. His silhouette, his long dark coat, his cowboy gait and his tough actor’s face fuel hackneyed comparisons with the Gestapo. At 55, Bovino is not an ideologue. Commander in chief of ICE operations, he is an officer responsible for implementing decisions who does not hesitate to come into contact with antifa, sometimes with tear gas grenades in hand. In the polarized America of 2026, image trumps function.
On the ground, ICE agents work under constant tension. Their movements are reported online, their names circulate. Discouraged, some have resigned, while local Democratic elected officials weakly condemn the excesses. Associative and activist networks are gathering around this confrontation, partly financed by large progressive foundations linked to the Soros galaxy, who see the confrontation with ICE as a major ideological front.
Faced with this escalation, the executive has chosen to take control again. Last Thursday in Minneapolis, Vance spoke. Federal agents “do their job”he insisted, calling on local authorities to cooperate instead of looking elsewhere. “The temperature needs to drop”he pleaded; a message addressed as much to activists as to Democrats in Minnesota.
The same day, two figures from the local left were arrested: Nekima Levy Armstrong, a lawyer and longtime activist, and Chauntyll Allen, an activist known in the Twin Cities, suspected of having orchestrated the break-in at the Cities Church. The Justice Department has opened an investigation. A way of showing that even here, in this progressive bastion, there are borders that must not be crossed
