Thousands respond after Gov. Tim Walz encourages activists to track, impede federal agents

At the governor’s invitation, thousands of radical anti-immigration activists in Minnesota reportedly flocked to training that teaches them how to monitor federal agents. 

The so-called “ICE Watch” trainings had a record day of over 2,000 anti-ICE trainees after Democrat Gov. Tim Walz publicly encouraged participation in the seminars in a video that went viral because it was full of technical glitches. 

The number of participants was a large increase over those who usually join the training, said organizers on the call monitored by National Review Online (NRO), which reported on the seminars. 

The trainings aim to instruct volunteers how to track, record and report federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations across the state. 

Critics say the classes amount to a de facto call for civilian surveillance of federal law-enforcement officers, putting agents at risk for violent attacks. 

Other criticisms of the trainings mentioned that while the trainers imply a wholly peaceful intent to preserve civil rights, some local chapters are instructing trainees how to impede and attack federal agents. 

Walz’s public statements come amid an intensifying war of words between Democrats in Minnesota and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) over the deployment of ICE agents. 

DHS called on Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey to honor federal ICE arrest detainers for more than 1,360 criminal illegal aliens reportedly in state custody. 

“Governor Walz and Mayor Frey REFUSE to cooperate with ICE law enforcement and have released nearly 470 criminal illegal aliens back onto the streets of Minneapolis. We are calling on Walz and Frey to stop this dangerous policy and commit to honoring the ICE arrest detainers,” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “It is common sense. Criminal illegal aliens should not be released back onto our streets to terrorize more innocent Americans.” 

President Donald Trump and DHS leadership have increased ICE personnel nationwide as part of a broader effort to enforce federal immigration law, a central promise of Trump’s election campaign. 

Critics warned that Walz’s actions and encouragement of the ICE Watch trainings, which took place on Wednesday, have made violence between residents and federal law-enforcement more likely. 

They didn’t have to wait long to see proof. 

Thursday, a suspect and two other men attacked an ICE officer with shovels and broomsticks during a routine arrest. The ICE officer subsequently shot the suspect in the leg, said DHS.  

Officials later said the suspect was released by Minnesota authorities before ICE could lodge a detainer against him, according to local news media.  

The incident follows the fatal shooting of Renee Good, who was shot after she struck an ICE agent as she was attempting to flee when impeding federal law enforcement operations. 

Organizers of the Minnesota chapter of ICE Watch distributed an “education primer” that included instructions for members about how to impede federal law-enforcement proceedings, said NRO. 

Those tactics included blocking ICE vehicles, surrounding detainees and attempting to free people from custody. 

The material also included guidance on tactics such as keeping detainees in their cars, asking nearby businesses to lock them in safe rooms, using multiple vehicles to block federal law-enforcement cars and positioning bystanders in front of officers during arrests, added NRO.   

The tactics contradict the liberal politicians’ attempts to blame the Trump administration for the “temperature.” 

“I am making a direct appeal to the President: Let’s turn the temperature down. Stop this campaign of retribution. This is not who we are,” Walz said on X.  

Yet the governor called even routine ICE operations “atrocities.”   

“Help us create a database of the atrocities against Minnesotans, not just to establish a record for posterity, but to bank evidence for future prosecution,” he said in the video. 

The governor previously suggested Minnesota was engaged in a state of war with the federal government. Walz’s war talk was released by the White House in a statement which included 56 other incidents of incendiary rhetoric used by Democrats to impede ICE. 

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey in a press conference complained that Minneapolis’ limited number of police officers cannot fight against the overwhelming force presented by ICE. 

Frey said Minneapolis has only 600 officers to fight against 3,000 ICE agents.  

However, critics are asking why the mayor of a major metropolitan city would want to pit it’s 600 officers against 3,000 federal agents engaged in routine enforcement operations, when they have a city to protect against crime.