Trump is testing the limits of his power as Minnesota bounces back

With 1,500 troops reportedly on standby to be deployed in Minnesota, tensions are rising in the state as protests against Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown continue. US officials say they are targeting the “worst of the worst” but critics warn migrants without criminal records and US citizens are also being detained.

“It could be anybody,” Sunshine said, as he drove through his neighborhood, St Paul – one of the so-called Twin Cities, along with Minneapolis. Snow and ice swirled over the tarmac in the bitter wind.

Sunshine is not a real name – she asked to use a pseudonym for fear of being targeted for her actions.

“I decided for my own safety to give them more space,” he said, referring to the unmarked patrol cars ahead, driven by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents he was trying to track down.

Every day, residents in loosely organized groups go around their neighborhoods trying to find ICE agents and film them, they say, to hold them accountable.

“I, we, have a legal right to drive on the streets of our own city and we have a legal right to observe (ICE agents), but they seem to have forgotten that,” Sunshine said.

The streets of Minneapolis felt like a battle of wills between a Republican president pushing the limits of his power and a Democratic city and state pushing back.

This week as the temperature dropped, protests against ICE agents outside the federal building hosting them intensified.

Minnesota officials urged protesters to remain orderly and peaceful, and local officials said the majority remained peaceful. But sometimes there are clashes, with the authorities deploying tear gas and pepper balls to break up the crowd.

On Friday, a US federal judge issued an order limiting the detention tactics that ICE agents can use against peaceful protesters in Minneapolis.

Judge Katherine Menendez said federal agents cannot arrest or spray peaceful demonstratorsincluding those who monitor or observe ICE agents.

Trump has vowed to continue his mass deportation drive in Minnesota, with thousands of federal agents being sent to the state.

Many of them were sent after the fatal shooting of Minneapolis woman Renée Good, 37, by an ICE agent on January 7.

the The circumstances surrounding his death remain disputedwith the Trump administration saying the ICE agent who shot her acted in self-defense, while local officials argued the woman was trying to leave and was in no danger. The FBI is investigating the shooting, but Minnesota officials say they have been denied access to evidence.

Good’s killing has focused the minds of many members of this community determined to reverse the Trump campaign.

In her car, Sunshine sees two unmarked cars with tinted windows containing ICE agents.

We follow them to a nearby neighborhood, where the two cars continue to drive slowly and repeatedly around the surrounding block, in what appears to be a diversionary tactic to take Sunshine away from a shopping center often used by immigrants.

“This is the game. But if they did this to me, they didn’t put their hands on someone,” he said.

“So, yeah, it’s gas money and it’s my time and I’m okay with that.”

In the week after Good’s death there was a second shooting involving a federal officer in Minneapolis.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said an officer shot a man in the leg in Minneapolis after being attacked with a shovel as he tried to arrest a Venezuelan migrant who entered the US illegally.

After the incident, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the agent was “beaten” and “beaten”, adding that ICE officials were “following the protocols we’ve been using for years” from before the Trump administration.

The man’s family disputed the DHS’s version of events in an interview with the Washington Post, saying he was shot at the door and not during a scuffle on the street.

Minneapolis is the fifth major city to be targeted in Trump’s immigration crackdown following his election pledge for the largest deportation operation of undocumented migrants in history.

The campaign, which remains popular with most Republicans and especially supporters of Trump’s Make America Great Again (Maga), has sparked a fierce backlash in Democrat-led cities where the operations are being carried out.

On Saturday, hundreds of demonstrators confronted and chased away a small group that tried to hold a pro-ICE and anti-Islam rally.

Counter-protesters gathered at the event organized by far-right activist Jake Lang, who was pardoned by Trump after being accused of crimes related to the riots at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. Lang promised to burn a Quran outside City Hall, but it is unclear if he followed through on his plan.

Minnesota is home to the largest community of Somali immigrants in the US, the majority of whom are US citizens. the the president said they should “return to where they came from” and described the community as “trash”. He launched the immigration crackdown in December after some Somali immigrants were convicted of a massive fraud on state welfare programs.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz recently said he will end his bid for re-election amid a fraud scandal. But he accused Trump and his allies of trying to exploit the crisis to play politics.

Against this backdrop, Trump threatened to appeal the Insurrection Acta 19th Century law that allowed active-duty military personnel to be deployed for law enforcement within the US, to quell the city’s resistance to its immigration campaign.

Last Friday the Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation of Democrats Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Freyaccusing them of trying to thwart federal immigration operations. Walz said the move was “using the justice system against your opponents”.

In a post on social media, Trump called the protesters in the city “traitors, troublemakers and insurrectionists” and accused them of being “in many cases, highly paid professionals”.

In response to this attitude, Sunshine says: “I’m definitely not paid.

“I think I did what I did because I loved my neighbors and I watched them being racially profiled on the streets of our own city.”

He added: “We have to protect each other.”

Federal agents have been accused of racial profiling by observers, something the Trump administration has denied.

Near a Mexican restaurant, we stopped the car and an observer who called himself Misko got out of his car, heading towards Sunshine, clearly distressed.

The two women hugged. Misko was having trouble breathing while narrating what happened.

“It was right around the corner. The two blocked me, then they came out. (One agent) had an assault rifle. He beat on my window,” he said.

DHS officials did not respond to questions from the BBC about the incident.

Despite the encounter, Misko later told me that he was unstoppable. As the president renewed his threat to send in the troops, Minneapolis felt the grip of a deepening crisis, and no one seemed ready to slow down.