Power rarely sustains itself through spectacle alone. It advances through rules, routines, and quiet expansions of authority. Officials redraw lines without announcing them, and enforcement hardens into pressure. Judges feel it first. Journalists feel it next. Protesters feel it in the street. Ordinary people feel it when watching, recording, or refusing suddenly carries consequence. This is how a country changes before it admits that anything has changed.
Federal power has limits that do not disappear just because the word “immigration” appears in the caption. The federal government can write its own laws and enforce them with its own agents. What it cannot do is draft state judges, sheriffs, or jailers into running a federal program and then call any refusal to assist a crime. That is the core of the Tenth Amendment autonomy fight that conservatives spent thirty years building and that is now being invoked by people they never expected.
The Supreme Court’s anti‑commandeering cases say this in plain English. In New York v. United States and Printz v. United States, Justice Scalia and the conservative majority held that Washington may not “commandeer” state legislatures or “command the States’ officers” to administer a federal regulatory scheme. In Murphy v. NCAA, the Court extended that logic, striking down a federal law that tried to keep state legislatures on a short leash. The through‑line is simple: Congress can make federal rules, but it cannot turn state officials into unwilling federal deputies.
Historically, that principle was not invented for immigration. It was hammered out in fights over radioactive waste, gun background checks, and sports betting. But its roots run back much farther, to the way Northern states quietly strangled the Fugitive Slave Acts. They could not nullify federal law, and they did not pretend to. Instead, they passed personal‑liberty laws that did something more subversive: barred state officers from acting as slavecatchers, denied the use of local jails, guaranteed jury trials, and punished voluntary cooperation. Federal law stayed on the books; what disappeared was the state infrastructure needed to make it work.
Modern “sanctuary” measures use the same architecture. A state can say: we will honor criminal warrants, but we will not hold people past their release date solely for a civil immigration pickup. A city can bar its police from asking about status or from using local jails as overflow detention for ICE. Whether the policy comes from a blue state limiting immigration detainers or a red county declaring itself a “Second Amendment sanctuary,” the premise is identical: in a dual‑sovereignty system, refusing to help is not obstruction, it is a protected choice.
That is what makes Judge Dugan’s prosecution so dangerous. The government’s theory tries to convert a decision about how to exercise state judicial authority into a federal felony. It labels her routing a defendant away from an arrest posture as “obstruction,” even though the jury acquitted her on the concealment charge. If twelve citizens were not convinced she hid anything, the claim that she acted with “corrupt intent” to thwart federal law becomes awfully thin. At that point, the supposed obstruction is not hiding evidence; it is declining to choreograph her courtroom to ICE’s liking.
Under the Court’s own federalism cases, that is exactly backwards. The anti‑commandeering doctrine does not belong only to sheriffs who refuse to enforce gun restrictions or governors who resist health‑care mandates. It is a structural limit on federal power that protects progressive and conservative officials alike. The same Scalia opinions that once shielded states from being dragooned into background checks now stand for the proposition that a state judge may insist on running her courtroom according to state law and judicial ethics, not federal tactical preferences. The irony is sharp, but the rule is the same: Washington may enforce its laws, but it cannot prosecute state officials simply for refusing to become part of its machinery.
Over the last year, federal immigration enforcement has quietly rewritten the rules of what counts as a crime. Not in statute, but in practice—by treating any form of non-cooperation as criminal obstruction.
- A Milwaukee County judge directs a defendant out a side hallway instead of into the arms of ICE agents waiting in her courthouse. She is exercising what judicial independence and state law say she controls: the safety and dignity of her courtroom. Federal agents arrest her for obstruction of federal officers.
- Minneapolis residents film immigration arrests from public sidewalks, blow whistles to warn neighbors, follow unmarked SUVs at a distance. They are detained, pepper-sprayed, told that “obstructing federal duties” is what got an earlier witness killed, held for hours, pressured to name organizers—then released without charges and tear-gassed on the way out.
- Don Lemon, a journalist with three decades of experience, films a protest inside a church in St. Paul. He livestreams, interviews the pastor, documents what unfolds. Days later, federal agents arrest him in Los Angeles and charge him under a statute meant to protect houses of worship. Attorney General Pam Bondi declares: “A house of worship is not a public forum for your protest! Nor does the First Amendment protect your pseudo journalism.”
- Governors, mayors, and attorneys general criticize ICE tactics publicly—calling agents an “occupying force” or telling them to leave their cities. The Justice Department opens conspiracy investigations based solely on those statements.
- Cities and states adopt policies saying: we will cooperate on violent criminals, but we will not hold people beyond their release date solely for civil immigration pickup. The federal government calls this “harboring criminals” and deploys thousands of agents as punishment.
The common thread: judges exercising judicial authority, citizens filming on public streets, journalists documenting protests, governors exercising political speech, states limiting cooperation—all reframed as federal crimes.
The First Amendment protects not only speech and assembly but the act of witnessing itself—the right to observe, record, and testify to what government does in public. That protection covers journalists, neighbors with phones, and anyone who chooses to watch rather than look away. When the government treats witnessing as obstruction, it is criminalizing the act that makes accountability possible. The line is clear: the federal government can enforce its laws, but it cannot compel silence or punish those who refuse to be blind. Refusing to help is not obstruction. Witnessing and recording are not crimes.
The Escalation Map: From California to Minnesota
The pattern of where federal enforcement landed—and how violent it became in each place—reveals more than the administration’s talking points about “the worst of the worst.”
Los Angeles / Southern California (Summer 2025): The testing ground. ICE operations intensified at large worksites, apartment complexes, and transit hubs. Los Angeles has a massive undocumented population and long-standing sanctuary policies. Community groups responded with “ICE watch” hotlines, orange whistles, Signal chats, and “Know Your Rights” trainings emphasizing what phones are for: recording officers, collecting badge numbers, storing footage where agents cannot erase it. When ICE raided the Ambiance Apparel facility, thousands turned out. Federal agents deployed tear gas and pepper spray against protesters. The violence was significant, but no U.S. citizens were killed. Communities developed the playbook—filming, tracking, warning neighbors—that would spread nationwide.
Chicago / Illinois (Fall 2025): The tactics spread. As Operation Midway Blitz launched, Chicago communities had already trained volunteers and established rapid response infrastructure modeled on Los Angeles. Federal agents conducted surprise operations in visible symbolic spaces—the Magnificent Mile, busy transit hubs. Hundreds gathered downtown on MLK Day in single-digit temperatures to march on the Broadview detention facility. Protesters targeted corporate spaces; seven arrests were made at a West Loop Target when demonstrators demanded the company oppose the surge into Minnesota and Illinois. Federal response escalated: more tear gas, pepper spray in neighborhoods, targeted arrests. But still, no citizen deaths.
North Carolina (December 2025-January 2026): Federal operations expanded into another jurisdiction in a purple state with a Democratic governor. ICE conducted raids in Charlotte and the Research Triangle—areas with city-level limits on cooperation. Church networks and student groups organized. Communities tracked movements and filmed. Federal rhetoric about “obstruction” and “interference” hardened, but lethal force against U.S. citizens had not yet been used.
Washington, D.C., Portland, Memphis, and other cities: Similar patterns emerged across blue jurisdictions. Increased federal presence, community organizing, escalating federal claims that witnessing constituted obstruction.
Minnesota (January 2026): The violence peaked. Minnesota has a smaller undocumented population than California, Texas, or Florida. What it has is a clear sanctuary stance, politically engaged statewide leadership, dense immigrant community networks, and a population that learned from George Floyd’s murder what a single phone video can do. People know how to film and how to back up footage where it cannot be erased.
The federal government sent roughly 2,000 agents—the largest immigration operation of its kind. For weeks, agents treated parts of Minneapolis–St. Paul as occupied territory: convoys in residential streets, long-gun teams outside schools and churches, repeated enforcement actions around immigrant apartment complexes and daycares.
Within eighteen days, two U.S. citizens were dead.
The conspicuous absences: Texas and Florida. Both states have far larger undocumented populations than Minnesota—Texas with an estimated 1.6 million, Florida with over 700,000. Both have cooperative Republican governors and sheriffs eager to work with ICE. Both have infrastructure that would ease large-scale operations. Yet there were no 2,000-agent surges, no occupation-style deployments, no citizens killed while filming.
The dividing line wasn’t “worst of the worst.” It was states that said no to federal commandeering.
Minnesota: Where Two U.S. Citizens Were Killed for Witnessing
Minnesota is where the escalation reached lethal force against American citizens exercising constitutional rights.
Within eighteen days:
- Renee Nicole Good, 37, mother of two, was shot and killed while recording federal agents on her phone. She was unarmed. DHS claimed she assaulted agents; video evidence showed the opposite. The Justice Department declined to open a civil rights investigation and instead directed resources toward investigating her widow.
- Alex Pretti, 37, ICU nurse, was shot and killed seventeen days later while helping another person and documenting agents with his phone. He had been lawfully carrying a firearm—exercising his Second Amendment right. Witnesses say he was disarmed before agents fired at least ten rounds. Border Patrol leadership immediately claimed he intended to “massacre” federal agents. That narrative collapsed under video from multiple angles.
Both were killed while exercising their First Amendment right to witness and record. Both were vilified immediately after death. Both became symbols of what happens when federal power treats documentation as a threat.
The Border Patrol Problem: Importing a 100-Mile Culture Into the Interior
A critical piece of the Minnesota story is who was on the streets. This wasn’t just ICE. It was ICE blended with large numbers of U.S. Border Patrol agents—an agency built around operating in the “100-mile border zone” where constitutional protections are weaker.
For decades, Border Patrol has run internal checkpoints, stopped vehicles on “roving patrols,” and questioned people about immigration status on far less suspicion than the Fourth Amendment normally requires. That zone covers two-thirds of the U.S. population. The agency culture developed there: mass stops are routine, smashing windows and breaching doors are normalized, accountability for excessive force is weak.
In January 2026, that culture was exported hundreds of miles into the interior—into Minneapolis, Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland. Border Patrol agents accustomed to checkpoint authority were suddenly surrounded by dozens of people with phones, whistles, and horns. They read ordinary witnessing as “assault” or “ambush.” The baseline for what felt “normal”—long guns, forced entries, split-second use of lethal force—was radically different from traditional policing.
When Alex Pretti was killed, one of the two shooters was a Border Patrol agent stationed roughly 300 miles from the nearest international border. A border-zone posture, trained to treat ambiguous movement as threat, had been dropped into a downtown residential environment where citizens are told to film, follow, and assert their rights.
The escalation wasn’t accidental. It was structural.
When Federal Power Meets State Autonomy: The Constitutional Showdown
The pattern is unmistakable: federal immigration enforcement is not targeting the places with the largest undocumented populations—Texas, Florida, or any of the states with the most people to deport. Instead, the hammer falls hardest on blue states and blue cities, places that have exercised their constitutional right to limit cooperation with federal civil immigration enforcement. These are the jurisdictions that have said, in the language of federalism, “We will not be conscripted. We will not use our police, our jails, or our courts as federal immigration deputies.”
The federal response is not just enforcement—it is escalation. At first, the targets were judges who refused to turn their courtrooms into ICE holding areas. Then came the civilians who blew whistles or followed unmarked vans. Then came the immigrants themselves, swept up in increasingly aggressive raids. Then came the citizens—Renee Good and Alex Pretti—killed while exercising their First Amendment right to witness. And now, the net is widening to journalists: Don Lemon, Georgia Fort, and others are being targeted not for violence or obstruction, but for filming, reporting, and documenting what happens when federal power meets state authority and people power.
This is not normal law enforcement. This is the systematic dismantling of constitutional limits. The federal government is using the law itself as a weapon—reframing every act of non-cooperation, every assertion of state sovereignty, every act of witness as “obstruction” or “impeding.” The doctrine that refusing to help is not a crime is being ignored. Instead, the government is rewriting the rules: if you are not actively helping, you are actively hindering.
The deeper story here is about power. The administration is not just trying to deport more people. It seeks to seize power from Congress, the courts, state governments, and the people themselves. It is using the language of “obstruction” and “impeding” not to enforce the law, but to punish dissent, to silence critics, and to break the will of those who stand in its way.
And yet, the resistance is working. The system is pushing back. States are filing lawsuits. Judges are documenting violations. Prosecutors are resigning rather than carry out politicized investigations. Communities are organizing, filming, and refusing to be silenced. The people are not just resisting—they are asserting their constitutional rights, their dignity, and their humanity.
The power here is not just in the law or in the courts. It is in the people. It is in the neighbors who blow whistles, the parents who drive children to dialysis, the journalists who film and report, the judges who stand up for judicial independence, and the citizens who refuse to be blind. This is not just a fight about immigration. It is a fight about what kind of country we want to be, and what kind of power we are willing to tolerate.
The Constitutional Violations: A Running Tally
What happened in Minnesota—and is happening across blue jurisdictions—represents a cascading breakdown of constitutional limits:
- First Amendment (Free Speech): Governors and mayors investigated for “conspiracy” based solely on public criticism of federal tactics.
- First Amendment (Assembly): Sixteen protesters charged with “assaulting federal officers” for participating in demonstrations; civil rights attorney arrested by 50-agent task force at a church.
- First Amendment (Press): Don Lemon and Georgia Fort arrested for filming protests; Attorney General publicly declares their journalism “pseudo” and unprotected.
- First Amendment (Right to Witness): U.S. citizens killed, detained, pepper-sprayed, and tear-gassed for filming federal operations from public spaces.
- Second Amendment: Alex Pretti legally carried a firearm while witnessing federal action; he was disarmed and then shot at least ten times; federal officials immediately blamed him for bringing a gun near agents.
- Fourth Amendment (Due Process): ChongLy Thao, U.S. citizen, detained at gunpoint in his home after agents forced entry without a warrant, removed in his underwear in subzero temperatures, held for hours, then returned to his damaged home without apology or explanation.
- Tenth Amendment (State Sovereignty): Minnesota, Illinois, California explicitly punished for adopting sanctuary policies—federal enforcement deployed as coercion to force state compliance.
- Anti-Commandeering Doctrine: Judge arrested for refusing to turn her courtroom into an ICE holding area; states investigated for declining to use local jails for civil immigration detention.
- Separation of Powers: Federal judge in Minnesota documents 96 court order violations by ICE in a single month; agents block state investigators from accessing crime scenes; prosecutors resign rather than carry out politicized investigations.
This is not normal law enforcement. This is a systematic dismantling of constitutional architecture.
Neighbors: The Moral Core That Made Resistance Possible
The people being defended in Minneapolis are not abstractions. They are:
- The airport food-service worker whose union just won record wage increases
- The parent dropping a child at daycare every weekday morning
- The maintenance worker with keys to half the units in a building
- The grandmother babysitting for three families so parents can work nights
- The long-time resident who has been checking in with immigration authorities for years
They have jobs, families, mortgages, and businesses. They coach youth sports, staff hospitals, fill pews and prayer rooms. The legal category “removable non-citizen” does not capture their dignity or their place in the community.
That is why, when raids intensified, the fastest-growing infrastructure was practical and rooted in neighbor care:
- Signal groups lighting up when unmarked SUVs appear
- Grocery runs for families afraid to leave their homes
- Volunteer drivers for dialysis, chemotherapy, prenatal care
- Workshops on how to film steadily, narrate clearly, back up footage instantly
The old slogan said the revolution would not be televised. Fast-forward to today: it will be filmed on iPhones, uploaded in real time, and impossible to erase—no matter how many agents grab for the device.
This is the same dynamic Jelani Cobb identified in the Fugitive Slave Act. Northerners didn’t universally oppose slavery, but when federal law forced them to watch a specific neighbor—someone they knew, depended on, worked alongside—be dragged away in chains, the abstract policy question collapsed into a human one. Fifty thousand filled Boston’s streets not for abolition in principle, but because Anthony Burns was their neighbor.
In Minneapolis, residents use the same language. “I’ve been involved in observing in my community because it is so important to document what ICE is doing to my neighbors.” Not ideology. Locality. The recognition that community is built through relationships, and federal power cannot simply erase them.
The System Pushed Back—And It Worked
After Renee Good’s killing, the federal response was denial, gaslighting, and investigation of her widow.
After Alex Pretti’s killing—seventeen days later, amid mushrooming protests in subzero cold and relentless documentation by neighbors with phones—the system finally engaged:
- DOJ opened a civil rights investigation
- Border Patrol Chief Anthony Bovino was removed from Minnesota
- Tom Homan announced an ICE “drawdown” and shift toward “worst of the worst”
- President Trump agreed to allow Minnesota to conduct independent state investigations
- Federal agents began withdrawing from Minneapolis
This didn’t happen because federal officials discovered compassion. It happened because every layer of the constitutional system engaged simultaneously:
- States invoked the Tenth Amendment, filed lawsuits, opened investigations, exposed false federal claims through public records
- Federal judges documented 96 court order violations, ordered DHS to preserve evidence, enforced constitutional limits
- Prosecutors resigned rather than weaponize their offices for political investigations
- Communities organized under First Amendment protection—protests, rapid response networks, care systems, relentless documentation
- Neighbors stood in subzero streets day after day, refusing to accept that federal priorities override human dignity
When all of these operated together—when states refused cooperation, judges enforced orders, citizens exercised rights, communities organized neighbor protection—federal power that depends on commandeering local resources became untenable.
The system held. Barely. But it held.
Living in a “Loutocracy”: When the iPhone Becomes the Last Check
George F. Will, writing in the Washington Post, captured the crisis in a single word: we are living in a “loutocracy”—a system where truth is the first casualty and official lies flow unchecked. His advice: “Assume everything ICE says is untrue until proved otherwise.”
The Founders’ vision assumed that ambition would counteract ambition—that each branch of government would jealously guard its own power and thereby check the others. But what happens when one branch has no ambition to resist? When Congress abdicates oversight? When federal prosecutors resign because their own leadership demands they become instruments of retaliation?
In that environment, the separation of powers as Madison envisioned it begins to fail. The formal checks erode. What remains?
The smartphone. The citizen witness. The journalist filming in real time. The neighbor uploading footage before agents can seize the device.
Will points to the smartphone as the new weapon of the people, capturing the raw moments when federal agents cross the line. From Bull Connor’s Birmingham to Minneapolis today, citizen footage has become the last check on power, exposing the violence and deception that official narratives try to hide.
When institutional checks break down, video becomes the last check on power. Not because it prevents abuse in the moment, but because it makes denial impossible afterward. Federal officials can claim Renee Good assaulted agents—until the video shows she didn’t. They can claim Alex Pretti intended to massacre them—until multiple angles prove he was disarmed and shot. They can claim Don Lemon participated in obstruction—until his own footage shows him interviewing, narrating, doing journalism.
That’s why the federal government is so determined to criminalize witnessing. It’s not about obstruction. It’s about eliminating the last mechanism of accountability when all the others have failed.
The Underlying Principle: Dual Sovereignty Still Means Something
In a healthy federal system built on dual sovereignty, cooperation with national power is something that can be asked for, not something that can be beaten or prosecuted out of judges, governors, journalists, or ordinary residents.
A judge can insist her courtroom is not a federal processing center. A state can decide its jails will not hold people beyond release for civil immigration pickup. A citizen can film from a sidewalk. A journalist can document a protest. A neighbor can blow a whistle to warn others. A governor can tell federal agents to leave.
These are not crimes. They are constitutional rights.
When a national government begins treating all of that as obstruction, it is not enforcing law more vigorously. It is erasing the right to refrain—the right that keeps federalism functional and prevents “cooperation” from becoming submission.
Minnesota showed that the architecture still works when every part engages: when courts enforce orders, when states assert reserved powers, when people understand their speech and silence as protected, when neighbors act like neighbors even in the face of federal uniforms.
The fundamental claim is simple: in a dual-sovereignty system, refusing to help is not obstruction. It is a protected choice. And when that line is crossed, resistance is not only moral—it is constitutional.
History doesn’t turn on one order or one arrest. It turns when people adapt. They stop recording. They stop asking. They step aside. Power feeds on habit, not consent. The question isn’t whether the law permits what’s happening. The question is who decides when looking away becomes normal—because once silence feels routine, power doesn’t need permission at all.
Sources and Further Reading
On the historical parallel between modern immigration enforcement and the Fugitive Slave Act, including the role of community resistance and the language of “neighbor” protection:
Jelani Cobb, “What ICE Should Have Learned from the Fugitive Slave Act,” The New Yorker, January 2026.
On the constitutional doctrine that refusing to cooperate with federal enforcement is not obstruction, and on the anti-commandeering principle that prevents Washington from conscripting state judges and officials:
Mike Baker, “When Federal Immigration Enforcement Collides with State Judicial Authority,” Mike Baker Law Blog, May 2025.
On living in a “loutocracy” where the smartphone has become the last check on power when institutional accountability fails:
George F. Will, “Truth is the first casualty in a ‘loutocracy’,” The Washington Post, January 27, 2026.
On the role of smartphone documentation, “ICE watcher” networks, and digital literacy in organizing community resistance:
The Washington Post, “ICE watchers, protesters are in the spotlight after Renée Good killing,” January 2026; The Atlantic, “Believe Your Eyes,” January 2026; and reporting on filming rights and community documentation infrastructure.
