No Mention of Minneapolis - An Indigenous Perspective of ICE
Hello friends,
Thank you for taking a moment to read this blog. I am writing this as both an enrolled member of a sovereign Indigenous nation and a U.S. citizen. Under the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, all Native American people born within the territorial limits of the United States are recognized as U.S. citizens by birthright.
I wanted to specifically take a moment to address the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) tactics over the last year of the Trump administration and the general sense of fear that seems to be on a never ending rise throughout our communities. I appreciate those who have asked me to share my perspective after many conversations with many, many folks. I am writing this as a resource to share and reflect on, as a way to preserve my thoughts at this time. All claims are alleged, a personal opinion, or otherwise are cited and referenced. Feel free to fact check me! I am happy to post any corrections as needed. ☻
First, let's get this straight.
Stop calling those being persecuted Hispanic and Latino. They are Indigenous people.
Let's take a look at who ICE is targeting. Take a minute to think about it.
Look up photos of Mexican people, Guatemalan people, Ecuadorian people, Nicaraguan people. Now look at pictures of people from Spain, France, and England. Compare the faces. The bone structure and skin tone.
Now, let's get this clear: The people being targeted are not European. They are Indigenous people. People whose ancestors were on this land long before borders were drawn, ages before papers were invented to erase them.
Remember that language is a tool of erasure.
We created the words Latino and Hispanic. These are tools to erase and rename those who were already on this land. Language engineered to blur reality, distort history, and sever people from their heritage. Latino is a Roman term. Hispanic is a term from Spain. These words invoke a foreign identity. They displace and misrepresent the culture of those they pretend to represent. Remember when native folks in the U.S. were called Indians? Shit. Sometimes we still are.
Once this reality settles in, something else may occur to you.
Why do we call this land the United States? Why do we call this continent America? These are duplicitous words used to rob the land of its own identity.
At this point of revelation, you may feel deeply shaken. To regain our stability, I urge you to consider this land as not a conquest, or stolen property, but instead as a relative and a mother who is here to nurture and sustain us, anywhere and anytime in our little lifespans. She was here long before us, and she will be here long after us too.
Inherited Trauma, Ongoing Genocide
Don't worry, though, you did not inherit something stolen. It is just silly to believe we can own or steal pieces of Mother Earth. The only things we inherit from our human ancestors are the ways we treat each other. We inherit hate, trauma, and violence. We inherit love, pride, and respective.
For some perspective, I often think of my ancestors who walked the Trail of Tears after the federal government ordered our removal. Before that forced march, and for more than a century after, my people were murdered, forced out of our homes, and held in prisoner of war camps that the colonizers called and still call "reservations." This violence didn't end with my great-great-grandparents. It continued through my great-grandparents, my grandparents, my parents, and into my own lifetime.
The marginalization continues today at a mass scale. Indigenous people face the highest rates of poverty and police violence in this country. Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and People remains a crisis this nation refuses to acknowledge. Our children are still being removed from their families. Our water is still being poisoned. Our sacred sites are still being destroyed for profit.
Everything I have ever known, touched, and experienced exists on land taken by violence and held by force—sanitized with flags and anthems and rewritten histories that pretend theft becomes right if enough time passes.
As if genocide has a statute of limitations.
The Current Escalation: ICE under the Trump administration
Right now, as I write this in January 2026, we are witnessing an unprecedented escalation of Indigenous removal. As the title of this blog alludes, I am not even going to discuss the unrest currently taking place in Minneapolis. Instead, let's take a broader look at the numbers.
The number of people held in ICE detention rose nearly 75 percent in 2025, climbing from roughly 40,000 at the start of the year to 66,000 by the start of December—the highest ever recorded [2]. More people died in ICE detention in 2025 than in the last four years combined [3].
In late May 2025, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller demanded a million deportations in Trump's first year and a tripling of arrest efforts to a target of 3,000 arrests per day [4]. What followed was a coordinated assault on Indigenous communities across the country.
ICE began carrying out raids on sanctuary cities on January 23, 2025, with hundreds detained and deported [5]. The administration gave ICE permission to raid schools, hospitals, and places of worship [6]. Federal officers shifted away from focusing on arrests at local jails to tracking people down on the streets and in communities.
In Los Angeles, ICE raided Ambiance Apparel, a clothing factory, arresting more than forty immigrant workers, more than a dozen of whom were part of the Zapotec Indigenous community from Oaxaca [7]. They were detained without access to counsel or ability to contact their families. The Trump administration deployed 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to quell the protests that erupted [8].
In Chicago, ICE conducted a "military-style" raid featuring agents rappelling from black hawk helicopters at 1am, tossing flashbangs at families, and rounding up and zip-tying adults, children, and U.S. citizens [9].
In Tennessee, ICE detained nearly 6,000 people in 2025 alone. In Nashville, a May operation with support from Tennessee Highway Patrol resulted in 196 arrests [10].
Let me be clear about who they're actually targeting. Internal ICE documents show less than 10% of immigrants in custody since October 2024 had criminal offenses [11]. As of November 2025, 73.6% of those detained by ICE had no criminal conviction [1]. Despite the administration's claims about going after "the worst of the worst," they're arresting flower vendors, people waiting for buses, workers at factories, parents dropping children at school.
They're targeting Indigenous people for existing on Indigenous land.
Thankfully, Resistance is Growing
And people are fighting back.
In sanctuary cities across the country—from Los Angeles to Chicago, Boston to Newark, Charlotte to New Orleans—communities are refusing to cooperate with ICE [12]. Mayors are making life harder for federal law enforcement while being careful not to cross legal lines. Chicago's Mayor Brandon Johnson created "ICE Free Zones," banning the use of city-owned space for immigration enforcement. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and demonstrators formed a human barricade to block the reopening of an immigration detention facility [13].
But it's not just politicians. Grassroots organizations have created hotlines for reporting ICE activity, "Know Your Rights" sessions, and ICE-watch trainings [14]. In North Carolina, Siembra NC members showed up outside grocery stores when ICE arrested shoppers, ensuring those arrested knew their right to remain silent [15].
Resistance to raids is growing beyond activists and civil rights lawyers—local business leaders and clergy have joined calls to halt aggressive enforcement tactics [16].
Mass protests have erupted in Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, San Antonio, and cities across the nation [17]. People are livestreaming raids on social media. Communities are surrounding ICE vehicles. They're refusing to be silent.
People are beginning to understand what many Indigenous folks have long understood...
The Federal Government Does Not Care About Us.
We are taught to think of the Indigenous genocide on this sacred land as something historical, past, tragic but resolved—a chapter long closed.
I want to be clear: That is a fucking lie.
The truth is that the genocide never stopped.
When ICE agents round up brown-skinned people and demand their papers, they are continuing the same project of Indigenous removal that forced my ancestors onto the Trail of Tears. When ICE agents travel in unmarked vehicles, wear plainclothes and facial coverings, and refuse to identify themselves or present warrants, they are using the same tactics of terror and intimidation that have always been used against Indigenous peoples [18].
When Indigenous people from south of an imaginary line are caged in hastily-constructed tent camps where conditions are brutal, when they're restrained by handcuffs, waist chains and leg irons during deportation flights [19], when they're rendered stateless because neither their country of origin nor any other nation will accept them—this is not immigration enforcement.
This is ongoing genocide.
The removal of Indigenous people from these lands is the same exact genocide happening today.
That's it. That's the entire blog post. There is no happy ending.
We cannot undo what was stolen. We cannot bring back the ancestors who were murdered or restore the languages that were beaten into silence. But we can refuse to be complicit in the continuation of this genocide.
Good Medicine Collective exists to support Land Back initiatives because returning land to Indigenous stewardship is not a symbolic gesture—it is a moral imperative and a necessary step toward healing the ongoing trauma of colonization.
Land Back means restoring Indigenous sovereignty, Indigenous decision-making, and Indigenous relationships with the land that sustained our peoples for thousands of years before colonization. It means supporting the Indigenous peoples being hunted by ICE right now—our relatives from the south who never stopped being Indigenous, no matter what colonial languages tried to erase that truth.
And Good Medicine Collective stands for justice—not just for what happened to our ancestors, but for what is happening right now, today, in cities across this stolen land.
The genocide never stopped. But neither will our resistance.
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References
[1] Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), Syracuse University. "New Data on ICE Detention: Most Detainees Have No Criminal Record." November 2025.
[2] American Immigration Council. "ICE Detention Statistics 2025: Record Numbers in Custody." December 2025.
[3] Southern Poverty Law Center. "Deaths in ICE Detention Reach Historic High in 2025." December 2025.
[4] The Guardian. "Stephen Miller Demands Million Deportations, 3,000 Daily Arrests in Internal Memo." May 2025.
[5] Reuters. "ICE Begins Sanctuary City Raids as Trump Administration Escalates Immigration Enforcement." January 23, 2025.
[6] NBC News. "Trump Administration Authorizes ICE Raids on Schools, Hospitals, and Houses of Worship." January 2025.
[7] Los Angeles Times. "ICE Raid on LA Clothing Factory Targets Zapotec Indigenous Workers from Oaxaca." 2025.
[8] The Washington Post. "4,000 National Guard Troops, 700 Marines Deployed to Los Angeles Amid Immigration Protests." 2025.
[9] Chicago Tribune. "Military-Style ICE Raid Features Helicopters, Flashbangs in Early Morning Operation." 2025.
[10] The Tennessean. "Nearly 6,000 Detained by ICE in Tennessee in 2025; Nashville Raid Nets 196 Arrests." May 2025.
[11] American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). "Internal ICE Documents Reveal Less Than 10% of Detainees Since October 2024 Have Criminal Offenses." 2025.
[12] National Immigration Law Center. "Sanctuary Cities Resist Federal Immigration Enforcement Across the Country." 2025.
[13] NJ.com. "Newark Mayor Ras Baraka Joins Human Barricade to Block Immigration Detention Facility Reopening." 2025.
[14] Immigrant Defense Project. "Grassroots Organizations Launch Know Your Rights Campaigns, ICE Watch Trainings Nationwide." 2025.
[15] Siembra NC. "Community Response to ICE Arrests at Charlotte Grocery Stores." 2025.
[16] Reuters. "Business Leaders, Clergy Join Calls to Halt Aggressive Immigration Enforcement." 2025.
[17] Associated Press. "Mass Protests Against ICE Raids Erupt in Major Cities Across U.S." 2025.
[18] Human Rights Watch. "ICE Agents Use Unmarked Vehicles, Refuse to Identify Themselves in Immigration Raids." 2025.
[19] Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General. "Conditions and Restraint Practices in ICE Deportation Operations." 2025.