The app for independent voices
The progressive narrative on ICE Watch is that they’re just there to “observe”.
I caught up with Andrew Fahlstrom, who helps lead Defend the 612, a hub for these volunteers. He estimates there are tens of thousands of them citywide. In the conversation below, edited for length and clarity, he shares how this massive movement formed, how ICE is responding (poorly), and how people in other cities can prepare for the next invasion.
“What we’ve noticed in Minneapolis,” he tells me, “is that having people outside, having people ready to respond, having people connected and communicating about ICE activity has kept so many people safe—more than we’ll ever know, more than we’ll ever be able to track.”
However, that narrative collapses when you consider that Renee Good was part of ICE Watch, and she was not “observing”, but interfering.
Alex Pretti may have started out observing as part of ICE Watch, but he, too, crossed the line and became part of what he was supposed just be watching.
If ICE Watch had confined itself to merely observing and recording ICE activities, their actions would be controversial to some but no more than that. If ICE Watch had confined itself to merely observing and recording ICE activities, they would have the unequivocal support of libertarians such as myself.
But ICE Watch has not confined itself to observing. ICE Watch has interfered. ICE Watch has crossed that line from observing into criminal violence.
ICE Watch has gotten people killed by crossing that line.
ICE Watch are not the good guys here. They are not the righteous ones.
ICE Watch made themselves part of the problem.
