this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2026
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Minnesota resident Will Stancil is a lawyer, policy researcher, and onetime candidate for the state’s house of representatives who has long been a voluble progressive presence on X and Bluesky. Over the past week, Stancil has become a mainstay of citizen patrols, tracking ICE agents around the city in his Honda Fit and sharing his experiences with his 100,000-plus followers. On Friday, I spoke with Stancil about what he has witnessed over the past few days.

...

Do the videos we’ve seen — of violent arrests, of agents deploying flash-bangs and tear gas on bystanders — capture the full extent of what’s happening?

No. In the private rapid-response channels, people will share many, many videos, and they don’t want to bring them public because they don’t want to be identified. People are worried. So there’s lots and lots more private stuff that is never circulating. The other thing is I think it’s really difficult to capture. The last few days have been calmer. But for the first week or so, it was really hard to convey the unrelenting pace of this stuff. I had a journalist come ride along — he just published an article about it. I had been talking about how crazy it was, and I could tell he was a little bit skeptical. He thought, Okay, maybe we’ll see an ICE car. In a two-hour ride, we chased four ICE convoys onto the highway, saw someone violently abducted alive in front of us, then saw a separate ICE convoy tear-gas a major commercial intersection for no reason at all. In two hours.

We have these rapid-response channels. I mean, I got to the point where — and this is very difficult to do — but I got to the point where I mute them or turn them off or leave them when I come home in the evening because getting the constant updates — as much as I want to be informed of my community, if I’m not out there and can’t do anything about it, I am a raw nerve all day and night. I come home and I just have to lie on the couch and just shut everything off and shut my brain off because you’ll go insane hearing about what all they’re doing.

Archived at https://archive.ph/fiwGH

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[–] Formfiller@lemmy.world 33 points 2 days ago (1 children)

There’s no accountability and transparency in where these people are disappearing to

[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (6 children)
[–] barnacul@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

Why would a cremation company have a both at a border security expo? Holy shit

[–] Formfiller@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago (4 children)
[–] AnarchistArtificer@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

TL;DR:

  • Fight if you can

  • Flee if you must

  • But always resist

Connect with networks in your community. We need to rely on each others' support to get through this, no matter how the situation develops


The person who replied to you said "Fight", and they're not wrong, but I want to emphasise that there are people whose personal circumstances mean that they feel they need to flee, and that is okay. You should not feel guilty if this is something you genuinely need to do.

If you need to flee, do so by relying on your community. Don't do things along. Look for ways that you can resist while still keeping yourself safe, and use your community connections to support other people who need to flee. There are some people who are not as able to fight, but there are still ways they can contribute.

To give an example of the kind of thing I mean (albeit in a far less explosive context, because I'm not in the US), I am physically disabled and have a bunch of other factors that mean I am not safely able to attend most protests, even as a legal observer. However, there have been a few times where I have been on standby, parked near the police station overnight, waiting for people to be released. This is because UK police tend to make a lot of arrests at protests and either not charge you, or charge you at a later point. They tend to let people out in the middle of the night, and they often do not have resources to travel home, or easy ways to contact people for help. When people in my network find out which station arrested protesters have been taken to, we can coordinate to ensure that there's definitely going to be someone there when they are let out.

Like I say, that's an example from a very different political climate. Things on the ground where you are is changing so fast that I can't possibly know what kind of support roles are both relatively safe, and useful right now. This is why it is crucial to connect with your communities. Figuring out what works is a work-in-progress, but I am confident that there are ways you can help contribute to the resistance efforts while also relying on your community to help you or your loved ones flee if you need to.

Things are awful, and it sucks. Nothing is safe right now, even fleeing. But we have a duty to do whatever we can to reduce the harm done to the people in our communities. At times like this, all we have is each other, so let's look after each other.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Here are concrete steps we can take to combat the regime with our last non-violent pathways (the titles below expand if you click them).

Learn First Aid! ⛑️

The future us likely to be violent, and It extremely important to have the skills to be able to keep yourself and others alive if they get hurt. You can never have too many medics.

Tacticool Girlfriend provides a great introduction to building a personal first aid kit, called an IFAK, which can deal with things like bullet wounds and other serious bleeding wounds. I also want to emphasize her recommendation of only buying medical gear from reputable sources (not Amazon!), such as North American Rescue to avoid fakes that could cost you your life.

But you'll need to learn how to use that equipment, too. The best resource for that is to take a local Stop The Bleed class, which are pretty widely available in most places. They may cost a small fee, but can also sometimes be free. Alternatively, if you cannot access a local class, this video by PrepMedic will give you a solid understanding of how to use Tourniquets and Gauze for wound packing.

Injuries are less harmful if they are tended to early. Learning first aid can help conserve resources when healthcare becomes unaffordable. Having several medics in case of harm by police is an extremely powerful morale booster during a protest that may become a police riot. When you become comfortable with the basics of first aid, riot medicine is the next suggested step.

Establish or join local Mutual Aid networks

If you haven't already, get to know your neighbors. Mutual aid is a willingness to support and grow your community. This can include informal networks through friends, tenant/renter organizations, solidarity groups, and industrial unions.

These are groups using direct action to solve each other's problems. Building strong communities makes it difficult for fascism to take root. The actions of the government are going to hit every community hard, and the ones who build trust in each other and work together are most likely to survive. We've been building a list of resources in !inperson@slrpnk.net to help you on your way. Also check out this handy guide to find existing groups in your area.

This isn't only for your own community protection. Your ability to organize today will change the political landscape tomorrow. When revolution occurs, the social organizations that show the greatest resilience through the regime are the ones typically calling the shots when the dust settles. When it comes to elections, get out the vote drives are useless if most of the voters are fascists. At some point, you have to do grassroots political education if you don't want fascist candidates winning elections. Mutual aid networks are excellent forums not only for teaching each other good political ideas, but demonstrating them in practice.

Join a Union and Prepare for a General Strike! 💪

The most effective non-violent action we can take is preparing and organizing for a General Strike.

The country would be brought to its knees if suddenly deprived of profit and labor. That tactic was extremely effective in Chile in 2019, and had they not fallen for the trick of liberal reform, they would've had a successful revolution on their hands with virtually no bloodshed.

If you aren't in a union (or even if you are, it's worth dual-carding), consider joining the IWW to unionize your workplace (bonus: you'll get higher wages, better benefits, and more time off if you succeed!) to strengthen a general strike if we manage to enact one, as most unions have a strike fund that can supplement your income during a general strike to make it more financially bearable (you should also save as much money as you can reasonably do, so it can also be used to keep yourself afloat during a strike).

And for our international friends, you should join one as well, as fascism is gaining momentum globally. If your country isn't listed below, just contact the IWW directly in the link above, and they'll help you set up a new local branch.

  • 🇦🇷 Argentina: FORA
  • 🇦🇺 Australia: ASF-IWA
  • 🇧🇷 Brazil: FOB
  • 🇧🇬 Bulgaria: ARS, CITUB
  • 🇩🇪 Germany: FAU
  • 🇬🇷 Greece: ESE
  • 🇮🇹 Italy: USI
  • 🇳🇱 🇧🇪 Netherlands & Belgium: Vriji Bond
  • 🇪🇸 Spain: CNT
  • 🇸🇪 Sweden: SAC
  • 🇬🇧 United Kingdom: UVW

Adopt Security Culture and Digital Camouflage 🛡️

Sometimes benign seeming efforts can turn into unexpected personal data collecting traps. Like an obscure website for exchanging contact info with other students turning into a global ad-tech surveillance network (Facebook), or innocent seeming online personality tests being use to harvest character profiles. Even Etsy, Reddit, Tinder, and Duolingo are feeding information to US Government Agencies like ICE.

Security culture is commonly used to describe the general awareness of such potential traps and how it can affect groups or entire communities. This goes beyond mere individual privacy efforts, as without joint efforts these often fail to work.

Especially in activist circles, security culture is paramount. For opsec reasons not everyone in the group might be aware of what clandestine efforts others are involved in, but with a general security culture many potential data leaks can be avoided.

Movements are made by the volume of their participants, and the easier and less dangerous it is to participate, the more people will get involved. As more people get involved, individual involvement becomes even less dangerous, creating a virtuous cycle.

We'll start it off with some General Advice:

  • Mentally wall off personal uniquely identifying info from your online presence, actively build a habit of opsec so that withholding information is your default mental state
  • Be careful about who you meet online
  • Use different, unrelated usernames, passwords & emails for every account. And try not to connect to those accounts with your real IP address (use Tor or a VPN)
  • Be mindful that anything done online leaves a trail
  • agents provocateurs may seek to find patsies willing to perform an ill-advised illegal activity in order to legitimize police repression. If someone is trying to pressure you, especially if you don't have a long and proven history with them, be extremely wary.

For a full guide on what encrypted communications platforms to use, and how to stay off the radar, read the Digital Camouflage section within the Monthly Meta post here (you'll need to scroll down. I'd add it here, but it won't fit in this comment).

Also, I strongly suggest reading Full Spectrum Resistance.

[–] Formfiller@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I am in a union it’s literally a white supremisist gang

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Guessing the Teamsters? they're known for having the highest percentage of MAGA members, the majority voted for Trump, and Sean O'Brien is a corrupt bootlicker through and through.

If you are a teamster, I'd suggest taking a look at Teamsters Mobilize, and trying to vote O'Brien out if you can. Richard Hooker looks promising.

The unions I linked to in my big comment are all explicitly leftist anticapitalist unions that wouldn't tolerate the behavior found within the teamsters.

[–] InputZero@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago
[–] stylusmobilus@aussie.zone 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Take the lesser pain now; walk from your jobs, stop trading. Yes you’ll lose it, but you’ll get it back and surprisingly quickly if you all stand.

Enough to force those in the House and Congress to remove and impeach those they need to. It’s the only option you have now, unless the politicians decide to do it themselves.

The easiest one is to treat voting with the respect it deserves. You didn’t, so the next easiest and least painful is to halt production and the system, peacefully.

I don’t think that country cares enough, is hurting personally enough or can handle the hardship of doing it though.

[–] witten@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago (3 children)

All of Minnesota is doing that on Friday, January 23rd.

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[–] BanMe@lemmy.world 48 points 2 days ago (1 children)

ICE just deployed in my Southern capital city - bluest areas only, of course - and the local business owners quietly formed a pact to refuse them service and we all started privately sharing info about them. Just to note that ICE will come to other cities and it's important to know ahead of time what you'll do, and if you plan on being near them, what lawyer you or your family might call - or have a canary pact with (if you don't hear from me, I am missing).

If you're white, help protect those who aren't. Let them know immediately as you hear about ICE movement in your city. Make sure they aren't blindly walking around neighborhoods where they might be kidnapped off the streets.

Form private networks and use them. Neighbors, affinity groups, whatever tools you have available, or can build now, are the tools you'll use. Think ahead.

Sounds like good ol' Austin behavior!

[–] eddanja@lemmy.world 152 points 3 days ago (4 children)

And the child that caused all of this thinks he deserves a prize for bringing peace.

[–] vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 44 points 2 days ago (2 children)

He deserves a fucken rope and a dirt nap. Fucken loathe young shitstain magas, at least the boomers have the material excuse of lead poisoning and several decades of constant propaganda.

[–] Soulg@ani.social 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

If you give boomers the excuse of propaganda then young magas get the same excuse, is even worse now when algorithms dictate what information you receive

It's the propaganda and the lead poisoning that gives them an excuse, strip either or and they'd damned near functional. With a few exceptions damned near every boomer I've met has had a critical lack of stop and think, be it my grandmother jumping to sawzaw at the drop of a hat or watching a lefty boomer verge on reactionary it's a common trend.

While younger magas may have a similar excuse in the future due to pollution or even just long term usage of short form content there is still not enough data in my opinion. Propaganda is a powerful force sure but I'm a lot less forgiving towards someone who falls for it by itself versus folks with actual proven brain damage via lead exposure.

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[–] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 22 points 3 days ago (1 children)
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[–] edible_funk@sh.itjust.works 126 points 3 days ago (8 children)

This is what a US American civil war looks like.

[–] tabarnaski@sh.itjust.works 79 points 3 days ago (15 children)

It will officially be once Waltz orders the state national guard to defend the city from ICE. Which is why he doesn't.

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 15 points 2 days ago (4 children)

He's walking a knife edge right now. MAGA is looking for an excuse to go fucking crazy violent and suspend elections, and Walz doesn't want to give it to them.

We'll see what happens AFTER the Midterms. Whatever the outcome, MAGA will use it as an excuse to crank up their violence, and I doubt governors and mayors will continue to be as accommodating.

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[–] chocrates@piefed.world 37 points 3 days ago (19 children)

He is not going to do that. I like Walz but that isn't going to happen.

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[–] DylanMc6@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 2 days ago

We need more community defense classes

[–] ChillPenguin@lemmy.world 63 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

And yet, every time I talk to right wing people around here. They're like "well this just happened because of the fraud. They can't detain legal immigrants" as my list of people around me grows as citizens get detained and taken to Texas.

Wake the fuck up.

[–] IamSparticles@lemmy.zip 20 points 3 days ago (7 children)

I still pop my head into Facebook from time to time, mostly because I have some groups I need to keep track of. Unfortunately, my feed keeps getting slammed with news posts, too. And because of the way the algorithm works, the top comments on every one of them is some MAGA jackass who doesn't have a clue. A couple days ago, when that family got tear gassed in their car and their infant child ended up in the NICU, every single article had some asshole posting "Why are they bringing their baby to a riot?" right underneath it. But of course, you don't see all the responses explaining that no, they live there and were just on their way home when they ran into the mess and tried to turn around. But all those responses are the reason Ace McFucknut is the top comment. Engagement FTW, am I right?

I officially hate this world.

[–] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 days ago

If it's anything like Tiktok, 75% of them are bots who never respond to comments, have similar profile pics and all have 50 followers who are also bots.

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[–] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 24 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Those idiots will perpetually double down on their identification. They are like the people who were dying of covid and still claimed in the hospital that they didn't have it. You could march them off to prison and they'd probably claim the police were secretly left wing something or others.

[–] duncan_bayne@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago

Are you guilty?’ said Winston.

’Of course I’m guilty!’ cried Parsons with a servile glance at the telescreen. ’You don’t think the Party would arrest an innocent man, do you?’ His frog-like face grew calmer, and even took on a slightly sanctimonious expression. ’Thoughtcrime is a dreadful thing, old man,’ he said sententiously.

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