ICE vs ice videos from Minnesota put the agency’s weaknesses on display

Minneapolis is currently inundated with two kinds of ice—both of which make it hard for residents to move about the city. The bone-chilling winter cold has left icy deposits on streets and sidewalks, while the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has run roughshod over them in what the Department of Homeland Security calls “ the largest DHS operation ever .” As anyone who’s ever set booted foot in Minnesota in winter can attest, gravity and overconfidence are no match for one of the world’s most slippery surfaces. Given the abundance of cameras that tend to follow ICE agents, it was perhaps inevitable that there would be multiple viral videos of agents absolutely biffing it on literal ice throughout the Twin Cities. The surging popularity of these videos, though, suggests ICE’s critics are getting a lot more out of them than cold comfort. Midwestern progressives may have cheered such content no matter the context, but given recent events, the videos have taken on deeper resonance. Minneapolis has been at the center of a political firestorm since December, when President Trump seized on reports of social services fraud in the city , perpetrated in part by Somali Americans, to denigrate the area’s entire deeply rooted Somali community. On January 6, DHS announced it was deploying as many as 2,000 agents into the city to crack down on fraud and, of course, undocumented immigrants. By the following afternoon, an agent had shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in broad daylight . In the days since Good’s killing, tensions have erupted in Minneapolis and rippled across the country. Massive protests have sprung up throughout the Twin Cities, as well as from New York City to Portland, Oregon . Local politicians and national figures like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have called out Trump for lying about what happened to Good, while Minnesota and Illinois have sued his administration to block the surge of federal agents. For now, though, the DHS incursion into Minnesota continues, disrupting the normal flow of day-to-day life in the Twin Cities . ICE is reportedly conducting door-to-door raids in some areas, and in one highly publicized incident , agents violently detained two U.S. citizens, one of whom is 17 years old, while they were working a shift at Target. (Both were later released, reportedly with injuries .) After agents started showing up at local schools , several districts have switched to remote learning . Some restaurants have closed their doors indefinitely , while touring acts have postponed shows in the city , citing the welfare of attendees. In fact, the only people who seem to want to visit Minneapolis at the moment are MAGA influencers hoping to squeeze some content out of the carnage. Given the dark, authoritarian overtones of DHS’s citywide siege, it’s no wonder viewers are rejoicing in videos of ICE agents busting ass. @typicalelliott ThislllllIce attacks Ice making ice fall. Ice proceeds to shoot ice #ice ♬ Richard Strauss-Valzer from Der Rosenkavalier – 中国爱乐乐团 First, came the...

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