But when I asked an organizer what they wanted to see out of press coverage, they told me they wanted people to see the beautiful things they are building here, and not just the worst stories of the worst of ICE's crimes.

What people are doing here is beautiful. It's a tragic beauty, but a real one

I don't want to paint a rosy picture, because it's a city under siege. People are being abducted all the time. One person told me about watching 1-2 abductions a day, just in her own work following ICE.

Another friend put it to me like this: "ICE has made the classic Nazi mistake. They've invaded a winter people in the winter."

Another person put it: "we're Minnesotans. We're excited to get out our real winter gear out of the box for the year."

He was an audio engineer whose kid went to school in the area. No way in hell was he going to let anyone come for the kids on his watch.

Today I talked with a 76 year old who'd been standing in the cold for hours guarding her neighbors. I was getting kind of chilly, even in the new winter gear i bought for this trip (and I live in the goddam mountains myself).

She didn't even have a hat on.

Before I came, I asked a local friend if the cold (it's going to be -20 or so in the coming days) would stop people from coming out. "No, we'll be there. It's ICE who can't handle it."

It's genuinely a leaderless (or leaderful) movement, decentralized in a way that the state is absolutely unequipped to handle. There are a few basic skills involved, and so people teach each other those skills, and people are collectively refining them.

I have been actively involved in protest movements for 24 years. I have never seen anything approaching this scale. Minneapolis is not accepting what's happening here. ICE fucking murdered a woman for participating in this, and all that did is bring out more people, from more walks of life.

Half the street corners around here have people--from every walk of life, including republicans--standing guard to watch for suspicious vehicles, which are reported to a robust and entirely decentralized network that tracks ICE vehicles and mobilizes responders.

I got in late last night. First thing this morning, I saw cars following an ice vehicle down the street, honking at it.

Later, we didn't drive more than three blocks before we found people defending a childcare facility. (The idea that people have to defend a childcare facility... let that sink in)