With a force of 3,000 armed federal agents swarming its streets, Minneapolis, by the order of President Donald Trump’s government, is under a military occupation. Amid this ethnic cleansing campaign disguised as immigration enforcement, two Americans exercising their constitutional rights — Renee Good and Alex Pretti — have been shot and killed by ICE agents. A 5-year-old boy, used as bait to lure his family, was detained by federal immigration forces and sent to Texas.
This is the type of militant crackdown that Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton and other state Republicans want in the Volunteer State. Collaborating with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, architect of the ethnic cleansing campaign in Minneapolis, the state GOP wants a slate of proposed anti-immigrant bills to be the “model” for other red states to follow.
The proud display of wanton cruelty and lawless state violence in Minneapolis is beyond disheartening. It is enraging. State Republicans working in tandem with Miller to institute something similar in Tennessee state law should alarm us all.
But there is solace to take from what is happening in Minnesota — a signal of hope in this distraught political moment. In the face of this violent attack against their neighbors, Minnesotans have demonstrated effective resistance, have shown the rest of the nation what it takes to stop this ethnic cleansing in its tracks.
While the nativist extremes of Tennessee’s political right takes pointers from the Trump administration for its own anti-immigrant crackdown, the rest of us can follow the converse model Minnesota has given us to fight against this rising tide of fascism.