It’s for sure one of the biggest blind spots of this community, which should come as no surprise but is still a shame as it would be nice to have the high level of discourse we can expect from other topics applied to this period that could easily be, for many of us, the most significant geopolitical event of our lifetimes.
I’m curious if that’s a topic the mods have any thoughts on.
ICE is an extremely unprofessional agency and has no business existing at all in its current form. Abductions of citizens by ICE is real, is well documented across many incidents on many news sites, and it crosses a line.
I think increasingly tech workers are starting to understand the size of the issue. You can see the sentiment shifting in previous threads here and even when stories like this are flagged, they still float to the top of /active. That said, it's also obvious that there's a certain group of folks that immediately flag these stories the moment they pop up.
Someone looking at HN front page could falsely get the impression that no one cares, but that's only because all ICE-related subjects are actively and relentlessly flagged. We never see them. You can have an idea of how much some of the HN crowd cares by visiting https://news.ycombinator.com/active more often.
This framing is exactly what led to the election of Trump in the first place. You're asking for empathy from people who already have too much shit of their own. You'll be much more successful if you manage to explain why current actions of ICE are bad for everyone, not only Latinos.
In any case, either he'll try to cancel midterm elections altogether, or he'll have ICE and National Guard roaming and harassing voters when that time comes around. Strategically in very blue or purple areas.
If that works for the midterms, no doubt we'll see more of the same for the presidential election.
I know that many here will question ICE's mandate to act even against immigrants who don't have their paperwork in order, but this is another question.
A standard situation of 1% positive rate and even if your diagnosis method having 90% accuracy (for both sensitivity and specificity), more than 90% of the positive detection would be false positive.
My genuine trouble with this kind of post is that I don’t know if it is true.
How do I know the guy isn’t trying to get donations for local groups? Is that an odd question to ask after the dominant lens through which we analyze action is “cui bono?”
How do I know that this didn’t come from some Russian intel group? Is that an odd question to ask after Russian interference is all over the media during our elections?
It’s the problem of our society today: we don’t share a common view of reality.
There are no disagreements on the core facts: thousands of ICE agents are deployed to the Twin Cities and are aggressively arresting activists and immigrants, using chemical crowd deterrents, and presenting themselves in masks and military dress.
People need help in MPLS, right now. Be skeptical of what you hear online ... definitely. But there is a limit. At some point you must accept that there is a major crisis, that people are in acute need, and that not helping is complicity.
I don't know for sure that this is true, but I feel like this is a big hurdle that you'll have to overcome if you want to convince skeptical people like me who actually do care. Saying "I will not provide names, sources, etc." might feel necessary, but it makes it harder to convince people. I'm left feeling that there is definitely more to the story than you are telling.
Starting with your first example, "two teachers parked in front of the school were violently extracted from their cars and abducted by ICE officers". I'm not certain, but I'd probably be willing to bet this isn't the full story. Were they "parked in front" because they were at their jobs teaching, or were they attempting to prevent the ICE officers from doing something? Were they participating in a protest or just passing by?
I don't know--and it doesn't mean that what happened is right or proper--but I don't trust you to tell me if you think it might hurt the case you are trying to make. The result is that I feel like I need to at least partially discount the rest of what you have to say. How do we get beyond this?
Here are two good sources for the incident at the school (Roosevelt High School). [1] [2]
The first is from our local NPR affiliate: MPR. It has interviews with school staff members and describes their account of the day. The second is from our local NBC affiliate: KARE 11. It's a more recent article which describes the account of the day based on statements from Customs and Border Patrol. You can see some of the parallels between the two.
>“The guy, I’m telling him like, ‘Please step off the school grounds,’ and this dude comes up and bumps into me and then tells me that I pushed him, and he’s trying to push me, and he knocked me down,” a school official, who spoke to MPR News on condition of anonymity said.
versus
>[CBP Deputy Incident Commander Kyle Harvick] said a crowd began to gather as they were arresting the driver for impeding the operation. As agents investigated the area, the statement says a crowd gathered and some individuals responded with "combative shoves and pushes." Harvick says agents then attempted to arrest one of the individuals when a school staff member allegedly began pushing agents. The staff member was placed under arrest.
When you're weighing who to believe in this situation, it's worth calling out that CBP has lied before [3] and doesn't always operate within the law here [4]. That last link is particularly notable since it's a very straightforward constitutional violation where they broke into the house with a battering ram (on video, if you want to watch) to make the arrest--all without a judicial warrant. The provided an _administrative_ warrant instead, which doesn't allow forced search of private residences. The agents presumably know that and thought they could get away with it anyway.
[1] https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/01/08/after-border-patrol...
[2] https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/ice-in-minnesota/c...
[3] https://apnews.com/article/chicago-immigration-crackdown-wom...
[4] https://apnews.com/article/minnesota-arrest-judge-orders-rel...
Same thought I had. I mean, it sounds pretty bad but it's also making no attempt at all to report an unbiased view. I'd like to hear from officials. What are their goals, and why are they doing it this way? I don't think the majority of Trump voters wanted this kind of harm and chaos.
I don't have any idea and I'm not trying to defend or justify.
> What is the unbiased view of a federal agency geared up for war kidnapping and terrorizing people in the streets of American city?
That's exactly what I'd like to know. The report didn't provide one. That's my point. Which is fine, they didn't intent to, they were just telling their truth. But those ICE agents have a perspective, they have motivations, they're people, and while reading the report I was curious about what they might have to say about their actions.
"heard" and "express concern" commonly do a lot of heavy lifting in anecdata:
• Include or exclude social media comments from friends?
• Only include people who have spoken to you directly?
• Speak often or infrequently to others?
• Include or exclude content that you have seen that you trust?
• Are part of a large/small circle of family/friends?
• Concern or only experience causing concern?
• General opinion or on specific available information?
• etc., etc.
I also live just outside of Minneapolis. I have white-appearance family members whose heritage traces literally back to the Mayflower that have been harrassed while working from home, and literally dozens of others expressing concern due to those in their circle being harassed, and many others expressing concern due to viewing media that they trust.
In thinking just now, it's hard to think of anyone not expressing concern, on "both sides", partly because I am hearing expressions on the topic from a tremendous number of persons.
As someone with a white collar software job, the description of people fearing for their children at school or not leaving their house is playing out at my workplace.
On the tech side, publishing such content on a US website is not the smartest idea.
Everything is political, and nowadays everything has relation to tech. ICE is being supported by Palantir and many defense tech companies and that technology impacts and perfects the terror and abuse by ICE in Minneapolis.
It's important for us to talk about this, especially when it is uncomfortable.