JANUARY 30, 2026 – After my daily ski outing at noon, I returned home to “de-ice” over lunch and the latest news about ICE. When I saw live coverage of the mass demonstration underway in downtown Minneapolis, six miles from our driveway, I left word with Beth, who was out, and headed down to join the protest, just as I had a week ago.
My dashboard thermometer showed 9F—a veritable heat wave compared to MINUS 9F during last week’s demonstration. By the time I’d parked in the same ramp as last Friday, the earlier mass of people concentrated around the Federal Courthouse, Minneapolis City Hall and the Hennepin County Government Center had disbursed in multiple directions like stars in a rapidly expanding universe and re-formed into countless groups, marching this way and that up and down the sidewalks throughout the central business district.
I enjoyed numerous individual encounters, exchanges and substantive conversations, to which I strove to give as much encouragement as I drew from each. The first was with a young couple as we exited the ramp and headed across the street to join a pod of other demonstrators. “I’m so damn mad,” I said, “I had to do something today, like show up.” They expressed agreement.
Upon reaching the plaza outside the Government Center I approached a woman who was carrying an “ICE OUT!” sign and heading for the light rail station. “Where’s the center of the protest?” I asked.
“That way,” she said, turning and pointing toward the IDS Center. “I’d stay, but I’m frozen. I’ve been out here for an hour and a half,” she added with a smile. “Not bad for a 70-year-old, do you think?”
We chuckled together. “Not bad at all,” I said. “I’ve got you beat by a year, but I just got here, and I’m already cold!”
“Cold or not, it’s really important to be out here,” she said.
“Absolutely.”
Among the many demonstrators crossing the plaza I saw two men talking, one holding high a sign that read, “Orange Lies Matter.” I stopped to capture a photo of the sign and was brought into the conversation. We talked at length about the state of the democracy and why it was so important to resist the regime and keep the pressure on without let-up but always peacefully.
I then joined a parade of protesters carrying all sorts of clever signs—“Too Little Cardboard, too Many Outrages”; “Give us our Amendments Back”; “Don’t Slip on the ICE. Abolish it!”—and headed up Sixth Street. At the intersection of Sixth and Second Avenue, volunteer observers, identifiable by their bright green vests, directed traffic as if they were highly trained traffic cops—in the complete absence of any actual police.
If the F-bomb over “ICE” made regular appearances among the signs, people were otherwise completely civil and orderly. The propagandistic notion that anyone among this set of protesters was a “paid agitator” is downright laughable.
A block farther, I encountered a group of half a dozen volunteers handing out coffee and Cliff bars to demonstrators. By this time my hands were so frozen, I couldn’t operate the camera on my iPhone. I accepted a cup of the hot beverage to warm my hands. “It’s good for that!” said the woman who handed me coffee straight from the large heated dispenser. A few paces beyond the coffee stand, a young couple was handing out packaged high-end 3M masks for facial protection against the cold.
Even in the cold, people’s spirits are upbeat in the fight against ICE. Our motivation and determination are strong, bolstered by the knowledge that Trump’s vengeance against Minnesota has backfired in a very big way. We will not stand down until ICE is withdrawn.
After another half hour walking in various columns of protesters heading in every direction, I darted inside the Wells Fargo tower to seek refuge from the cold. I was surprised that others hadn’t already done so—or followed my example. I rationalized that I’d already exhibited my Minnesota-cold bona fides by skiing up and down St. Moritz a bunch of times—and in the wind. No need to apologize, I told myself.
By the time I found my way back to the ramp, many other protesters were departing at the same time. Their politeness on the sidewalks carried over to our “zippered” approach to leaving our parking slots. Perhaps people were so relieved to be inside their vehicles with heat and fans turned to “High,” they didn’t care how long it took to exit. But I noticed how people knew instinctively how to alternate movements, how to accommodate one another, and how to exercise patience—all without patrol or guidance. The process was emblematic of the way people here are conducting themselves in their very earnest defiance of the Trump regime’s crass and heavy hand.
As I left downtown, I reflected on what I’d heard on the radio on my way to the protest. MPR was broadcasting some kind of forum on the ICE enforcement crisis, and one of the speakers, an erstwhile Republican, said, “I’d vote for a Republican today if could find one. But there aren’t any—at least of the sort that existed before Trump.” He then explained that he’d kept in touch with a group of his high school buddies who’ve moved to Florida. When one emailed negative comments about the protests in Minnesota, he (the forum speaker) said, “Without being here, you have no idea what’s going on.” I immediately thought of Beth’s brother who winters in Florida and has sent her texts highly critical of “leftwing radicals making a mess of Minneapolis.”
The moderator then asked the speaker, “What do you say to people in other parts of the country about what’s going on here?”
I paraphrase here, but in essence, this was the forum speaker’s response: “I say, what’s going on here is a groundswell resistance that is very much a grassroots movement. And it’s more than thousands of people showing up at public demonstrations. It’s people quietly helping their immigrant neighbors; people looking after one another, bringing food to people afraid to leave their homes, helping people with their rent or house payments when they’re too afraid to go to work and aren’t getting paid, parking outside schools to warn school staff of any ICE agents lying in ambush. It’s the whole community coming together.”
I then pondered the mini-bus/van I’d seen parked on Fourth Avenue with a web address written prominently on the side: “ImmigrationDefenseNetwork.org.” Behind that organization, I knew, were lots of volunteers and donors countering the cruelty exercised by the Regime.
Finally, I recalled the conversation I’d had with the two men with the “Orange Lies Matter” sign. One was a white guy in his sixties; the other was a Hmong-American, naturalized after immigrating 25 years ago. We agreed that the ICE raids had stirred a great awakening and produced a significant positive effect. In expressing our common outrage, we’ve discovered our collective strength. We’ve learned the essence not only of democracy and good citizenship but of human decency. In the manner of religious believers giving applied meaning and purpose to their beliefs, we’re exercising our Constitutional right to free speech in vocal support of the principles set forth in the rest of the Bill of Rights—and 14th Amendment.
The former Republican on the radio was right: the under-reported good that’s happening here will best the bad that’s been visited upon us. May that good prevail across the rest of the country.
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© 2026 by Eric Nilsson
