JANUARY 16, 2026 – As if the record needed to reflect any further the state of winter in the state of Minnesota . . . “Let the record reflect,” as a deposing lawyer will often say (for the record), that ice abounds this year, in both its traditional form and its newly encountered goon-squad configuration. Given the extreme hazards presented by each of these versions, the jury is still out as to which poses the larger threat to our safety.
To attain a degree of relief from news of the latest shenanigans of the long arm of the law(lessness) of government-issued ICE, today I ventured out to “Little Switzerland.” As I reported previously, recent weather patterns have transformed the local skier-friendly Alps into the explorer-challenging arctic. The only skiable zone in this vast ice-covered region is the face of St. Moritz, where the dedicated park crew has been making, then grooming artificial snow.[1] Five rotations up and down the mountain, supplemented by long figure-eights across the summit, serve as my daily workout. Transit from street to the “mountain” snow entails a treacherous journey across large sheets of sheer ice, navigated safely only by crawling on my hands and knees.
Nearly everyone in these parts has a personal “ice slip” story or can recount the painful tales of acquaintances who have. Trips to ER are a common feature of these stories. Just this afternoon I heard about an acquaintance landing in ICU for several days with a head injury resulting from an ice slip. People over a certain age are particularly vulnerable, and we vintage residents of the “North Star State” have learned to assume the precautionary “penguin gait” when walking outside and to lean forward to avoid hitting the back of the head when falling. Winter ice on walking surfaces is an inescapable risk with which we Minnesotans have been long familiar, but familiarity with the problem provides no guarantee of exemption from ice slips.
And then there’s ICE, a new phenomenon that clashes with “Minnesota Nice,” which is very much a part of our “brand.” May that reputation survive “Trump ICE.” Trump ICE is as cold and cruel—and increasingly, indiscriminate—as any form of frozen H20. As with Minnesota ice, Trump ICE often lies in ambush, then without warning, brings a victim to heel (or face, knees, or back). The arrestee—birth-right citizen, naturalized citizen, permanent green cardholder, undocumented individual, Trump ICE doesn’t care, especially in the absence of “papers”—is then stuffed into a waiting Trump ICE SUV and whisked off to the Whipple Building on the grounds of old Fort Snelling adjacent to the international airport. What happens after that is anyone’s guess.
Videos—and first-hand accounts by people we know—of local Trump ICE operations abound. However one might feel about immigration and immigration policy, no decent person can condone or acquiesce in the brutal and lawless tactics of the government’s enforcement agents. What’s currently unfolding in the Twin Cities is a defining juncture for the entire country. Either we are a nation of personal decency and dignity, governed by laws within the bounds of our Constitution, or we are a tyrannical dictatorship subject the whims of a madman—his “morality”; his “mind”—and the inevitable chaos and disorder that will follow his demise.[2] At the moment, control of the future is subject to a tug-of-war, not simply between left and right or between Democrats and Republicans, but between (a) the freedom to thrive within the broad boundaries of the common good, and (b) the stifling narrows of harshly bigoted tyranny.
Knowing people across our community as I do, I hold to guarded optimism that enlightened forces will prevail. Today a close contact recounted an encounter he had yesterday with a group of “working guys” who were self-identified Trumpers. When this crew expressed enthusiastic support of Trump ICE operations, my contact took them on in dispassionate argument.
“If that’s your position,” he said, “then you’re not seeing what’s going on.”
“Okay, so they get a little rough,” said one of the fellows, “but they have to—after all, they’re going against people who’ve broken the law.”[3]
“Not true,” said my contact. “They’re profiling, arresting people who look different, and often wrongly. I know people who are passport carrying American citizens who’ve been harassed and arrested—and not gently, either.”[4]
“It’s all being exaggerated by the left,” said one of the other “working guys.” “ICE guys aren’t Nazis.”
My contact kept his cool in pushing back. “Have you seen any of the many videos that have been posted online over the past week?” he asked. “Because these guys absolutely are operating like the Nazis did. Let me show you some of those videos.” With that, my contact played a fair number of videos posted by witnesses to recent ICE agents in brutal action.
The “working guys” had not seen these videos, and my contact could discern that by their facial reactions before they said anything. But then one of them said, “Well, okay, but they’re not being sent to the gas chambers.”
Yes. You read that last line correctly—and just as my contact heard it.
“No,” he said, “but what’s happening now in Minnesota is exactly what led up to the gas chambers of the Holocaust.”
My contact said that this encounter had definitely affected the “working guys.” They had now seen a side of the current crisis that their own information silos had prevented them from seeing. My contact had created an information opening. We can hope that by cracking open the door, this citizen—who, by the way is well known and respected by the “working guys”—has, in his own effective way, helped the side of enlightenment in the current tug-of-war that plays out in our Land of 10,000 Ice Slips.
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© 2026 by Eric Nilsson
[1] I always go out of my way to extend pre-emptive compliments to avoid being kicked off “the mountain” by the grooming crew when the place is officially closed.
[2] Of all the likely scenarios awaiting us, his demise (death or incapacitating disability) is of high probability, given his age in combination with his poor diet, lack of fitness, and outwardly observable signs of ill-health.
[3] This is a favorite argument of the regime. It is patently disingenuous. In the first place, as the evidence reveals, all too many of the people arrested are not in violation of the law. Second, apart from legal status, many of the detainees have been denied due process. Third, if maintenance of “law and order” were the core driver of Trump ICE operations, the regime would hire an equal number of additional agents to arrest speeders on the nation’s highways (as just one example of other “law-breaking” by millions of people). Finally, the richest irony of the current crackdown is that it’s been ordered by a president who has been sued and held liable; charged and convicted more often, for greater sums and more serious criminal infractions than—I dare say—any elected federal official in living memory.
[4] My contact, a naturalized citizen, now carries his passport whenever he leaves his house, but he and similarly situated friends and acquaintances worry about the ongoing threat by the Trump Administration and Republican officeholders to “de-naturalize” naturalized citizens. Acknowledging that this threat has chilled his First Amendment rights, my contact confided that he’s keeping his head down; not attending protests or speaking out publicly. This is more firsthand evidence of the wreckage caused by the current regime.
