Federal agents pepper-spray a protester holding a sign during an enforcement operation outside the Whipple Building ICE facility in Minneapolis on Jan. 11, 2026.
Photo: Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images
Donald Trump’s Department
of Justice unsealed a federal
indictment
on Tuesday announcing hefty charges against 15 anti-fascist protesters for alleged actions taken in response to the brutal U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement surge in Minneapolis earlier this year.
The federal prosecutor in the case, Minnesota U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen,
warned
that more arrests and charges could follow.
Once again,
prosecutors
are
throwing
extreme and
overreaching
charges at
activists
in a scrambling effort to criminalize organized, collective opposition to Trump’s most violent policies.
The Minneapolis indictment exemplifies the Trump regime’s escalating strategy: Criminalize whole political movements with claims of collective liability and “conspiracy,” and treat typical acts of protest, constitutionally protected speech, association, and political identification as criminal acts.
Call it the spaghetti-against-the-wall approach.
“Terrorist”: How ICE Weaponized 9/11’s Scarlet Letter
The indictment, Rosen said, is a part of Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum-7, or
NSPM-7
, initiative to
target and prosecute
leftists and anti-fascists as
terrorists
.
Minneapolis is not an incidental target for Trump’s Department of Justice. The city unleashed an oftentimes-inspiring response to the ICE crackdown:
mutual aid
organizing, confrontational protest, blockades, and
strikes
in response to brutality set a
national example
for how to fight back when federal agents descend on a city to
kidnap
our
immigrant neighbors
.
“Conspiracy” to What?
The “conspiracy” in Minneapolis according to the government, involves purported antifa activists acting with the aim of impeding ICE operations and injuring officers. Th
… [more]
