Organizers in Minnesota’s Twin Cities region planned a series of demonstrations and trainings from Feb. 25 through March 1 under the banner “Bring the Heat! Melt the ICE!”, including actions at the Minnesota State Capitol and at hotels they say are housing federal immigration agents, according to organizing materials obtained by the advocacy group Defending Education and reported by The Daily Wire.
Organizers described the planned actions as part of a long-running local campaign opposing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). A “welcome packet” for participants said: “For months now, the Twin Cities have been at the forefront of a struggle against ICE in this country… there’s a long journey ahead of us on the road to abolishing ICE, and we’re just getting started.”
According to the same materials, organizers listed demands that include removing ICE from Minnesota; releasing detained people described as “our abducted neighbors”; closing facilities they called “detention camps”; a statewide eviction moratorium; dropping charges against protesters accused of confronting ICE officers; amnesty for undocumented immigrants; and abolishing ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, and prisons.
The organizing push followed public statements by White House border official Tom Homan about reducing the federal enforcement footprint in Minnesota after what he described as increased cooperation from local law enforcement. Reporting by The Washington Post said Homan indicated federal operations would return to an “original footprint,” with a smaller security force remaining temporarily. A separate report published via Yahoo News, citing Fox News coverage of a Feb. 4, 2026 press conference in Minneapolis, quoted Homan as saying a drawdown of about 700 personnel would take effect immediately.
Protest plans included decentralized actions at hotels named in a spreadsheet obtained by Defending Education. A calendar shared in those documents instructed participants: “Grab some friends, noisemakers, and head to a hotel that houses ICE on this list… these are autonomous and decentralized.” The same Daily Wire report said the hotel protests were being organized in part by the Sunrise Movement.
The calendar also listed multiple actions at the Minnesota State Capitol on Thursday and Friday, including what it described as a student walkout and sit-in organized by “Twin Cities student organizers.” Organizers also advised participants against documenting illegal activity, writing: “In the event that somebody around you is engaging in illegal activity, do not take photos or videos of that, unless it is to record an interaction with law enforcement. Don’t write in incriminating ways about illegal activity you observe or participate in.”
Another element promoted in the calendar was “school patrols” intended to monitor areas near schools for immigration enforcement activity. The calendar claimed that in Minneapolis “ICE incidents occurred at or within two blocks of public schools every single day for 6 weeks straight,” and said organizers responded by running “about 3000 patrol shifts per week.” Those figures were not independently verified in the materials reviewed.
Trainings listed in the calendar included a session at Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church on creating “sanctuary schools,” described as being hosted by Take Action MN, and another at First Universalist Church described as being hosted by the Minnesota Federation of Educators on organizing schools as “bases of the working class.” The calendar described “sanctuary school teams” as groups of educators and caregivers who provide protective presence, rapid response, and mutual aid while organizing around longer-term policy demands.
The Daily Wire report also listed participating groups as including Spring House Ministries, Red Pine Revolutionary Collective, Twin Cities Democratic Socialists of America, and Indigenous Roots. It reported that organizers planned to provide free food through a group called Seeds of Peace, arrange lodging in private homes, and raise money via ActBlue for food, training, and accommodations.
The welcome packet included the slogan “Eat First. Then Smash the State,” and said Muslims observing Ramadan would be prioritized for dinner meals, according to The Daily Wire’s account of the documents. Practical guidance in the packet encouraged use of the encrypted messaging app Signal, asking people their pronouns, and supporting Mexican restaurants in Minneapolis and St. Paul; it also warned that “right-wing influencers and government agents” had infiltrated local “rapid response systems,” the document said.
The calendar and welcome packet also encouraged visits to sites connected to George Floyd’s 2020 killing and to the location where Renée Nicole Good was fatally shot during a January 2026 immigration enforcement operation. In the materials cited by The Daily Wire, organizers wrote: “As resistance grows, so does our collective grief about those we have loved and lost in the struggle for liberation… please do so with respect and reverence.”
Good’s death has been the subject of national coverage and competing accounts. Federal officials, including Department of Homeland Security leadership, said the ICE agent involved acted in self-defense after Good used her vehicle as a weapon, while witnesses and video analyses reported by major outlets have disputed key aspects of that characterization.
Erika Sanzi, a senior communications official at Defending Education, criticized the involvement of educator- and student-linked groups in the organizing effort, telling The Daily Wire that “groups of radicals and revolutionaries” were becoming embedded in K–12 institutions through unions and training programs, and calling the protests “highly coordinated by outside actors.”
