REVELATION AT WHIPPLE

JANUARY 26, 2026 – At noon today I drove to the Whipple Building, headquarters of Minnesota ICE operations. The outside temperature registered 6F on my car dashboard—a veritable heat wave compared to last week’s deep freeze. High chain-link fences on top of Jersey barriers lined the approach. Behind the fence on one side was a line of demonstrators armed with anti-ICE signs. On the opposing side was . . . Fascism Central.

I parked in a surface lot on the demonstrator side of the access road. The lot was filled with dozens of vehicles. Parked near the entrance to the lot was a Hennepin County Sheriff’s deputy. Her window was open a couple of inches, and I figured I’d approach in a non-threatening way (my “ICE OUT!” sign not counting as “threatening”). She lowered her window farther and smiled. I was already smiling, and at a prudent distance from her squad car, I stopped, greeted her and holding up my sign said, “Say, I just wanted to tell you that I have new appreciation for real law enforcement.”

“Thank you,” she said. Her genuine tone and continuing smile told me which side she was on.

I continued along the icy path to join the demonstrators. In the hour I mingled with them, this is what I heard and observed:

Before reaching the main group of protesters, I encountered a man with impressive bearing, tall black boots, jacket, cap pulled down to his eyebrows, backpack and . . . flowered insulated tights. He carried three thick books in his hands.

His eyes lacked sparkle, but his words to me weren’t lacking volume: “Could your problems use a Bible?”

“No,” I said and kept walking. I wondered what side of the line he was on, but at least “Bible Guy” didn’t present himself as an agitator. He’s probably harmless, I told myself and continued.

Upon reaching the demonstrators, I saw a large heaping of baked goods, Caribou coffee dispensers, and cartons of packaged charcoal hand-warmers. The glazed donuts looked very tempting until I remembered my mission—join another crowd of like-minded Minnesotans determined to drive ICE out of the state.

I soon figured out the routine. As ICE vehicles entered and exited the parking lot of Fascism Central, the demonstrators shouted “Get out of our state!” and “ICE out!” and “Murderers!” and other phrases far less cordial. Notably, the ICE cars, SUVs and pick-up trucks entered and exited one after another—for the solid hour that I was on the ground there. The majority of license plates were Texas, Louisiana and Arizona. In most cases we could see through the vehicle window or the windows were inexplicably opened enough to reveal the faces of the occupants. Not once did I see a masked face. To my puzzlement, the overwhelming majority were men of color—some Blacks or mostly men whom I appeared to be Latino.

I wound up settling in next to a hatless guy (henceforth, “Hatless Guy,” because contrary to my usual practice, I didn’t ask him his name) of equal physical standing to Bible Guy. Next to Hatless Guy was a woman about my age but not quite my height and with ample lung power. She was bundled up for endurance against the cold. The hood and collar of her down coat allowed a glimpse of only a small portion of her face. I engaged in a spirited exchange with these two and others in our immediate vicinity. Several had participated in Friday’s march in downtown Minneapolis. It very much a Rockwellian scene, as these well-spoken people—dressed for standing long and defiantly in the cold—spoke of their motivations: “saving democracy,” “rescuing the country,” “getting rid of the fascists.” In short order I felt as if I’d joined a new team playing a familiar sport—demonstrating against the regime and its fascist methods—but with fresh new vigor.

During a brief lull in the cycle of anti-ICE chants hurled at departing and arriving agents, a guy on my right, stamping his feet against the cold, looked at Hatless Guy on my left and said, “Hey, man, how can you be out here with no hat?” I’d wondered the same thing.

“It’s warmer than it was last week,” said Hatless Guy, without missing a beat. Delivered with a chuckle, the response drew laughter from everyone who’d heard the exchange.

A few minutes later, Bible Guy passed along the line of demonstrators. I glanced at him as he approached our section. “Can I give anyone a Bible?” he asked.

“No thanks,” said Hatless Guy politely.

“Nope,” I said coldly, but I felt bad as the frost from my breath dissipated. “So,” I said, in a friendlier tone, “what’s your gig? Tell me, what are you offering?” I had no intention of engaging with the guy, and a large gap among his lower incisors made me feel worse over my initial “Nope.”

“I’m just out here bringing people closer to God, because God’s with everyone,” he said.

“Is he with those people over there?” I said, pointing at Fascism Central.

“Yes,” Bible Guy said. “He’s with everyone.”

I let it go at that, and Bible Guy walked on along the line of demonstrators.

“He’s okay,” said Hatless Guy. “He’s out here every day and doesn’t create any trouble.”

The style and substance of Hatless Guy’s ongoing conversation with me piqued my curiosity. He was quite erudite without being a know-it-all. By way of our talk I learned that he was a veteran; an Army Ranger, an infantry officer, a guy who’d seen and done a lot in his day in places where “politically-motivated civilian leaders rush in and well-trained, well-informed military leaders fear to tread”—to borrow from the famous line from Alexander Pope, “fools rush in where angels fear to tread”—my allusion to the American invasion of Iraq. This guy knew much about how the military and law enforcement operate—not only in the United States but in authoritarian regimes, (assuming we’re not quite there ourselves). He also seemed to know a lot about ICE and how it operates. At the heart of his presence there at Whipple, however, was his deep concern about what was happening to the country, to democracy.

At one point he called my attention to all the occupied vehicles in the ICE lot and the black uniforms of the people that entered and exited those vehicles from time to time.

“See those guys?” he said. “They’re positioned to jump into action if they see us storm the place . . . like we’d even try, but there they are, in place to put the hammer down if we were stupid enough to attack them.”

After letting that bit of shocking information sink in, I asked him, “So, what is the profile of these ICE guys, anyway?”

“Upwards of 80% are Black or Latino, mostly Latino.”

“Wait a sec. That’s counter-intuitive,” I said.

“Look, I know how dictators operate among themselves and it’s not pretty. They’re always making deals that no one sees; deals helping each other.

“These guys? I think most of ‘em are from El Salvadore—people beholden to Bukele . . . you know Trump’s buddy, the dictator of El Salvadore. They’re given all sorts of incentives—cash, even American citizenship—if they sign up as ICE agents.”

“Whoa! Then how do you explain the Texas, Arizona, Louisiana license plates?”

“Oh, those are all rented vehicles. You see, Trump is too cheap to pay their air fares to Minnesota. They have to get here on their own, so they get themselves to the border, they’re let in, and then they have to rent vehicles and drive them here and wherever else they’re assigned.”

“What evidence do you have for this?” I asked.

“I’m just connecting the dots,” he said. He seemed to have plenty of dots to connect, given his background and observations. I learned that he was a regular at Whipple, exceptionally well informed about current events, about ICE, and perhaps most telling, about intelligence gathering and governmental operations at a level to which the average (well-informed) person is simply not privy.

When I realized my feet were now ice cubes, I told Hatless Guy—and the others around us—that I had to bow out on account of the cold.

“Oh, you don’t need to apologize at all,” said the woman in the black down coat. “You stay out here as long as you can and as often as you can, but there are so many ways we can join the fight against ICE.”

“That’s right,” said Hatless Guy with no sign he was yet the least bit cold without a hat. “I know people who just don’t feel safe coming out here or to other demonstrations, so they volunteer at a church to fill grocery bags with food that other volunteers take to homebound immigrants. Or they sign up for classes to learn about the law and what rights the immigrants have, what ICE can and cannot do by law and they become peaceful observers like the people here wearing those vests.”

I thought of the phone conversation that Beth and I had had just this morning with . . . Sorry, for his own safety I can say no more, but we told him we were here to help in any way he could. He thanked us but wouldn’t accept help because, he said, “When would I be able to pay you back?” Beth and I were stunned: And this is the kind of person our country wants to kick out?

My fellow democrats—small “d”—gave me a warm, cheerful send off. “See you out here again soon!” –or a variation—I heard multiple times, as I left. On my walking route I saw another deputy’s squad parked, engine idling. I approached his vehicle—more confidently this time, given what Hatless Guy had told me about the multiple deputies parked all around the area on the anti-ICE side of the feeder road. “The deputies are our friends,” he’d said. “They’re here to protect us, and they do. A few times Trumpers have shown up with the clear intent to do harm. They bring poles with flags attached—like the January 6 crowd—except the poles are way bigger than what’s necessary to hold a flag. They’re poles used to hit people, to do harm. Whenever that happens, we immediately alert the sheriff deputies and they jump right to. They’ve arrested the troublemakers. That’s why we feel safe here.”

As I walked up to the deputy’s pick-up squad, he lowered his window. He was a burly guy; not the least bit flabby but of a build no halfway intelligent trouble-maker would tangle with. Yet his countenance was friendly, cheerful. I told him the same thing I’d told his colleague earlier. He thanked me. I didn’t expect him to volunteer anything further, but he did: “You wanna know the big difference between them and us?” he said, pointing at the ICE parking lot.

“I can think of a lot of differences,” I said.

“Training,” he said. “We’re trained; they’re not.”

I told him how much I—how much everyone out there—appreciated his service and that of all the other deputies out there.

On my way home, I pondered what Hatless Guy had told me about the possibility—probability?—that lots of ICE agents were hired out of El Salvador as part of some crazy almost underworld operation. The more I thought about it, the more it explained: the masks; the absence of identification (badges; nameplates); the lack of training, as evidenced by the startling disregard for standard operating procedures involving law enforcement personnel (e.g. de-escalation; non-use of lethal force except as a measure of last resort; being placed on administrative leave any time the officer’s firearm is discharged; securing the scene of a shooting to preserve and collect evidence; in investigating the actions of an officer of an agency, tapping a different agency to conduct the investigation). But most of all, Hatless Guy’s theory explains the brutal and wildly disproportionate gangland violence by ICE agents—not to mention the blatant disregard for rights guaranteed by the Constitution. What the world has seen are methods of south of the border criminal gangs, not trained American law enforcement personnel.

I’ve neither heard nor read anything about this, but it’s such a plausible theory, it needs to be investigated forthwith—by journalists, while they still can, and by Congress before it’s been completely self-neutered. When I described the Hatless Guy’s theory to our son Cory, who is also a student of ICE operations, Cory agreed that it explained a lot. He then took it a step further: “If it turns out,” he said, “that Trump is doing some clandestine deal to allow into the country the very people he promised to kick out, namely the equivalent of gang members, MAGA will go ballistic, and Trump will finally go down.”

As I said, this all needs to be investigated immediately and all the way to the truth.

Subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

 

© 2026 by Eric Nilsson