The modern immigration debate increasingly turns on a simple but dangerous confusion. Many activists now insist that they are free to follow federal agents wherever they go, to track them from hotels and offices, to relay their movements in real time, and to interfere physically when arrests are imminent. This confusion is not accidental. It is taught. Groups such as ICE Watch have trained activists to treat federal law enforcement as quarry rather than as officers executing lawful duties. Minnesota has become the clearest case study. The law does not permit this conduct. It never has. And recent judicial efforts to normalize it threaten both enforcement and human life.
Consider the structure of the tactic. An activist waits outside a hotel or office known to house immigration officers. When agents depart, the activist follows in a vehicle. Locations are relayed to others so that illegal aliens can be warned and flee. If agents stop the activist, they issue a warning. The activist resumes following anyway. At some point the activist blocks an operation, interferes with a stop, or escalates into a physical confrontation. This is not protest. It is obstruction. It is surveillance in service of evasion. And under both Minnesota and federal law, it is illegal.
The Renee Good incident demonstrates the point with tragic clarity. After receiving ICE Watch training, Good used her vehicle to stalk ICE agents during an operation. She ultimately attempted to block their movement. When officers tried to detain her, she attempted to flee and struck an agent. The agent fired in self-defense. The loss of life was tragic. But the cause was not lawful enforcement. The cause was deliberate obstruction using a vehicle as a weapon. This is not an anomaly. It is the predictable end point of teaching civilians that tailing federal agents is protected conduct.
Minnesota law draws a sharp line here. Minn Stat §609.50 makes it a crime to intentionally obstruct, hinder, or prevent the lawful execution of legal process or the apprehension of another. The statute focuses on acts, not opinions. Following undercover officers after being ordered to stop is an intentional act. Blocking vehicles is an intentional act. Warning targets so they can flee is an intentional act. When such conduct creates a risk of serious harm, the offense escalates to a felony. That escalation is not theoretical. Using a car to box in or pursue officers is inherently dangerous. Minnesota courts have never treated this kind of conduct as protected expression.
Minnesota also criminalizes aiding offenders after the fact. Minn Stat §609.495 covers anyone who assists another, by word or act, with intent to help them avoid arrest. When activists relay real time locations of ICE agents so that illegal aliens can escape apprehension, they are doing exactly that. The fact that the assistance is informational does not immunize it. A lookout who shouts a warning is still a lookout. The law looks to intent and effect, not to rhetorical framing.
Federal law is even clearer. Congress anticipated this precise problem. Under 18 USC §2232(c), it is a felony to give advance notice of a federal arrest or seizure in order to prevent it. This statute exists because law enforcement cannot function if civilians are permitted to shadow agents and tip off targets. It does not require physical force. It requires knowledge and purpose. When activists lie in wait, follow agents, and broadcast their movements so that enforcement fails, those elements are met.
Another federal statute, 18 USC §111, criminalizes forcibly impeding or interfering with federal officers. Force in this context includes the use of vehicles to block, wedge, or pursue officers. Courts have consistently held that physical acts creating danger or restraint satisfy this requirement. The Minneapolis incidents, where activists used cars to trap unmarked ICE vehicles, fall squarely within this statute. These are felony offenses, not misunderstandings.
Immigration specific statutes reinforce the same conclusion. Under 8 USC §1324, it is a felony to harbor or shield illegal aliens from detection. While the statute is often applied to hiding or transporting individuals, courts recognize that coordinated warnings designed to help specific targets evade arrest can qualify. The distinction is intent. General political speech is protected. Coordinated evasion is not. ICE Watch training collapses that distinction by instructing activists to engage in targeted, real time interference.
Recent prosecutions confirm that federal authorities view this conduct as criminal. In Los Angeles, activists who followed an undercover ICE agent to his home, livestreamed the pursuit, and publicized his address were indicted for conspiracy and related offenses. The government did not treat their conduct as journalism or protest. It treated it as a coordinated campaign to intimidate and obstruct. The evidence was their own footage and communications. The lesson is simple. Following agents with the purpose of interference is a crime.
Against this legal backdrop, Judge Katherine Menendez’s recent order is deeply flawed. By asserting that safely following federal agents at an appropriate distance does not create reasonable suspicion for a stop, the order abstracts conduct from context. Reasonable suspicion is not evaluated in a vacuum. It turns on the totality of the circumstances. When activists wait at known locations, follow agents engaged in enforcement, relay movements to others, ignore warnings, and persist despite clear identification, suspicion is not only reasonable. It is unavoidable.
Courts have long recognized that repeated following, combined with knowledge of law enforcement activity, supports reasonable suspicion of obstruction or conspiracy. An officer need not wait until a suspect completes the crime. The Fourth Amendment permits stops to prevent imminent interference with lawful duties. To hold otherwise is to require officers to tolerate surveillance that predictably escalates into danger.
The decree by the “judge” leaves the door wide open to continue doing what they have been doing to those who have ACTIVELY obstructed and assaulted them. There’s a HUGE difference in people protesting “peacefully” vs the MOBS that we’ve seen. I’m sure the “judge” would view any body cams with a jaundiced eye, but there should be nothing in her order that would change the actions seen so far!
These leftist groups don’t care what happens to their useful idiots. In fact, if they could create a few more Renee Good’s, they’d love it. Best case, for them, would be the past week’s outrage multiplied. Worst case, been there, done that, no benefit but… who cares? They were nobody anyway.
The assumption is anyone arrested for local crimes (as if the Minneapolis police would actually be allowed to to their job), they would be released and no-billed by the local fascists. Any prosecutions would have to come from the federal end. But, maybe some intel on who finances these vast operations could be squeezed out.
Hold those Judges Liable and Responsible for anything that happens to ant ICE Agents by those Bolshevik scumbags throw them into Prison with the Dirty Leftists Anarchist scumbags