ICE in the Streets, Fire in Our Eyes

A first-hand account from the Bro-Tex raid, Saint Paul

“Monarca Alert! Heavy enforcement operation gathering at Bro-Tex. Need Upstander Legal Observers.”

— 9:03 a.m., the call that split the day open

Yesterday morning, my phone convulsed with that message, the kind that doesn’t ask if you’re ready but demands that you become ready. I bolted into the cold, toward 800 N Hampden Ave, where the industrial quiet of Saint Paul had already begun to tremble with purpose. Upstanders streamed in like veins of lightning converging on a single strike point.

Police tape carved a flimsy citadel between us and the building. Behind it, masked agents from ICE, DHS, FBI, the whole alphabet-letter syndicate posted like bored executioners waiting for the curtain to rise.

We watched.

We recorded.

We blew our ICE whistles like shrill war cries.

We held the line.

At first, it was a slow drip of dread. Then someone shouted:

“THEY’RE TOWING THE CARS!”

And the day snapped.

The South Side: Seizure

The South side became the stage of the taking.

DHS agents funneled detainee, our neighbors, coworkers, uncles, friend, into vans like smugglers packing stolen cargo. Upstanders surged forward. The response?

Pepper spray.

Directly, in the face. No hesitation.

People staggered back screaming, clawing at their eyes, stumbling through the artificial fog of state-sanctioned cruelty.

The North Side: Uprising

On the North side, the machine shifted gears. ICE vehicles, a dodge charger, vans and trucks, all began moving in formation preparing to spirit people away toward detention sites.

Upstanders refused to yield.

Bodies in the roadway.

Hands on hoods.

Voices cracking from shouting.

Agents shoved people aside with dead-eyed aggression. Pepper balls cracked against asphalt and shins. A woman leapt onto the hood of an ICE vehicle, a solitary figure against a metal beast. The car lurched ten feet with her still on it before an agent ripped her off.

Another Upstander blocked the convoy with his own truck. Feds yanked the door open; the crowd shoved it back closed.

“DON’T GET OUT OF THE CAR!”
“HOLD THE LINE!”

Elsewhere, an Upstander screamed as a federal vehicle rolled over her foot.

Still, people stood.

Faces Behind Glass

As the fed caravans rolled through our bodies, you could see the feds driving inside the vans.

Some expressionless.

Some fearful.

Some wearing that heavy, quiet sadness of people who know what they are doing as wrong.

Upstanders dragged each other off the pavement, limping, coughing, crying, standing together in a shared inferno of resolve. Medics flushed burning eyes with water. People wrapped in each other’s arms sobbed into shoulders offered without hesitation.

Then, the convoy was gone.

And into the quiet stepped Mayor Melvin Carter, walking the street like someone who knows he’s stepping into the aftermath of a storm. He offered ambulances. Answered questions. Witnessed.

It didn’t undo a damn thing.
But it mattered, in its small way, that he came.

Around the corner, a woman sat wailing, maced point-blank moments earlier. A medic from MN50501 knelt over her, pouring water over her swollen, burning eyes. A WCCO camera loomed above, catching the raw truth America pretends not to see.

The Courage Equation

And here’s the part the feds don’t want us to talk about.

The imbalance.

On one side:

Armored agents, bulked with tactical gear, wearing enough Kevlar to deflect meteors.

On the other:

Women. Elders. People with crutches. People with tear-streaked faces and no protective gear at all except courage.

Yet the agents, behind their masks, behind their gear, behind their deadened posture, looked ridiculous.

And afraid.

I saw it.

You saw it.

Anyone standing close enough saw it:

Shame, flickering like a flame they were desperate to hide. Fear, thin but unmistakable.

They know on some quiet, unspoken level that we are braver than them because we risk something real.
And they risk nothing but their own hollow conscience.

Even the ones who’ll laugh about it later in the locker room spitting dip into cups, calling us “crazies” even they know:

We stood unarmed.

We stood in their way.

And they still feared us.

That’s the part they can’t scrub from their minds.

What Remains

Hugs, trembling hands, exchanged phone numbers.

Tears drying on cheeks.

Mutual aid kits emptied and repacked for next time.

A stubborn, glowing ember of solidarity that refuses to go out.

Because the darkest truth of yesterday is this:

ICE came armored. We came human.

And our collective humanity, raw, unarmored, furious, fearless,
scares the hell out of them.

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