Why Minneapolis?

Humanity's greatest achievement -- cities, and the societies they create -- are under attack. Cities are imperfect. But what's better?

Protesters take to the streets in Minneapolis, January 24, 2026. Source: gettyimages.com

I had another post lined up for today, but circumstances demand something different. It’s time for me to comment on what’s happening in Minneapolis and in America.

Yesterday, Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse from Minneapolis, was shot and killed by federal agents as he, and many others, protested against the immigration enforcement actions taking place there. This comes just more than two weeks after the shooting and killing of Renee Good on January 7, while also protesting immigration enforcement.

In early December, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency (CPB) ramped up immigration enforcement activities in Minneapolis, under the name Operation Metro Surge. As in other cities where similar actions have taken place, like Los Angeles, Chicago, New York City and Portland, OR, federal agents have been deployed to detain violent, undocumented immigrants and prepare them for deportation. Resistance from protesters has been rising in Minneapolis, and federal agents have responded with increasing force.

Last fall when Chicago experienced its ICE/CPB surge and protester resistance, I thought it was a turning point in the effort to militarize immigration enforcement in the U.S. I knew Chicago leaders and residents would respond, and they did. On September 12, 2025, Silverio Villegos Gonzalez, an undocumented Mexican immigrant from suburban Chicago’s Franklin Park, IL, was shot and killed by an ICE agent during a traffic stop. Local protests in the Chicago area escalated, but while they were definitely spirited, they remained peaceful. By Thanksgiving, the federal agencies quietly scaled back operations in the Chicago area.

Now Minneapolis is in the spotlight. Why? Three thoughts to mind.

This is the frontline of the culture war. It’s time to view the Trump Administration’s immigration enforcement efforts in military terms, not simply public policy. When I try to think of American parallels to what’s happening today, I think of protesters in Boston resisting the Crown because it had an unbothered attitude on taxes in the colonies, and the actions taken by British Redcoats to quell the resistance, leading to the U.S. Revolutionary War. I think of abolitionists in the North decrying the South’s slave society, and the stranglehold Southern states had on the federal government, leading to the U.S. Civil War. It’s clear that Trump and his advisers see this as one of those moments in American history where we need to evaluate what we believe – and act on it.

Minnesota and Minneapolis are specifically being punished by the Trump Administration. I imagine that the Trump Administration views the state and its largest city, as both a sore spot yet also an easy target. It’s a sore spot because as recently as January 6, 2025, Trump has expressed views of Minnesota as a “corrupt” state that he won in each of his presidential runs:

“While slamming Minnesota as “corrupt,” Trump falsely claimed: “I won Minnesota.” He lost Minnesota in all three of the 2016, 2020 and 2024 elections. (He did add moments later in the Tuesday speech that he was “surprised three times” in Minnesota, a possible concession that he had lost, but he suggested this was because “those elections are corrupt.” There’s no basis for that claim.)”

But I also imagine that the Administration has a particular contempt for Minneapolis, the city where the protests after the killing of George Floyd in 2020 sparked national and international protests during the midst of the pandemic. I would not be surprised if Trump believed that Somali immigrants in Minneapolis, who number around 80,000 in the Twin Cities metro area, are personally responsible for the “corruption” he cites, as well as the resistance that Minnesotans have expressed.

I have a sense that Trump sees Minnesota as an easy target because if he breaks the will of Minneapolis, St. Paul and the Twin Cities area, he can actually win Minnesota – a state that leans towards the GOP outside of the Twin Cities.

Cities are being scapegoated. Nationally. Minneapolis is the immigration enforcement target now for its role in recent history. First as a city with a high-profile police execution that kicked off worldwide protests, and more broadly as a city and metro area that attracted a large Somali immigrant community – racially, culturally and religiously exotic to most Americans – over the last 30 years.

You know, I think it’s ironic that words like civilization, city, civil, citizen are all derivatives of the Latin civis, meaning “citizen” or “townsman”. That root also extends to civitas, meaning city or community, and civilas, meaning “relating to a citizen,” “public,” or “courteous”. There was a time when Western civilization believed that being a citizen, in a civil society, doing civic things, in cities, was noble, honorable. Now I see there’s a segment of the American population that wants to move away from that noble and honorable vision, permanently.

Replaced by… what, exactly?