A number of Minnesota Democrats, including elected officials and a close ally of Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), are reportedly at the forefront of the resistance against Immigration and Customs Enforcement, leading organized uprisings and training activists to impede federal law enforcement.
As leaders like Walz encourage residents to resist ICE, their efforts to obstruct immigration enforcement in the sanctuary state tie mainstream Democrats to militants operating on the far-left fringes of the party.
St. Paul school board member
Chauntyll Allen, a member of the St. Paul Board of Education, was arrested last week on federal charges for co-orchestrating the takeover of a Christian church in protest of ICE.
Allen, who is currently serving as board clerk at St. Paul Public Schools, stormed Cities Church, a St. Paul parish, on Jan. 18 as part of a Black Lives Matter coalition.
Alongside an angry mob, Allen shut down a Sunday sermon on suspicion that one of the church’s pastors is an ICE officer. Together, they demanded during church services that the sanctuary stop “harboring” the alleged officer and hand him over to the pack of protesters.
Charging documents accuse Allen of “conspiring to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate” churchgoers from freely exercising their religious rights in violation of the FACE Act, a federal law prohibiting physical obstruction and threats of force at houses of worship.
According to probable cause statements, one of the victims said they were blocked from retrieving their children from the childcare area. Another parishioner broke her arm while fleeing the church in terror.
Video footage from the protest shows agitators accosting crying children, following congregants to their cars, and surrounding them as they attempted to leave.
Allen, according to an FBI affidavit, had conducted a pre-operation briefing and led chants at the church, repeatedly shouting “ICE out” and then prompting followers to respond “of Minnesota.”
In an interview with TMZ, Allen doubled down on the church occupation, arguing that it “needed to be done to get the message across.”
Allen, the founder of BLM Twin Cities, is also chairwoman of the school board’s Afrocentric Working Group and on its Equity Committee. She says she works to address “disparities” in the school district.
Minnesota Democratic Party
The Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor (DFL) Party, the state’s political party affiliated with the national Democratic Party, hosts weekly training sessions to teach “observers” how to report ICE activity to rapid response networks, such as “ICE Watch” patrols. On-call “ICE Watch” operatives are accordingly dispatched to ICE sightings and typically harass officers trying to arrest illegal aliens.
“Protect our [illegal immigrant] neighbors,” the party instructs its followers.
To make a report, observers follow the SALUTE framework, an acronym standing for the size and strength of federal forces, activity specifying “suspicious” ICE action, location of agents, uniform description, time of sighting, and equipment carried.
The training is grounded in a handbook created by the Immigrant Defense Network (IDN), a Minnesota-based coalition of more than 90 nonprofit organizations and grassroots groups.
St. Paul City Councilwoman Hwa Jeong Kim, vice president of the city’s governing board, is a self-identified member of the IDN. “Several weeks ago, I became a certified Constitutional Observer Trainer,” she said in a fall 2025 Facebook post announcing that she is “elated” to team up with DFL state Rep. Athena Hollins, who represents part of St. Paul, to host similar training seminars for their constituents.
Scheduled for Wednesday night, Minnesota DFL’s next training module is at max capacity, according to the registration portal. Another event will take place on Sunday. More than 6,500 recruits had signed up for these sessions as of Wednesday afternoon.
Minnesota DFL leadership issued a call-to-action following the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, an anti-ICE activist, by Border Patrol.
“We need to keep flooding the zone,” Minnesota DFL chairman Richard Carbam said in a video statement eulogizing Pretti. “He was an observer.”
Minnesota state representatives
DFL state Rep. Brad Tabke is reportedly the leader of a Signal chatroom that serves as the main mode of communication for an anti-ICE rapid response network in Scott County, which includes the suburban Minneapolis district he represents.
According to multiple reports, Tabke is in charge of one of the sign-up sheets for the county’s
“ICE Watch” arm on SignUpGenius, a mass mobilization site.
LIBERAL ACTIVISTS USE AGGRESSIVE ‘ICE WATCH’ TACTICS TO TARGET FEDERAL OFFICERS IN MINNEAPOLIS
A form signed by Tabke provides instructions outlining dispatch procedures, patrol shifts, and Signal usage. The document directly links to Tabke’s campaign website.
An online training session recorded by Libs of TikTok shows Tabke and others teaching dozens of prospective observers how to follow ICE vehicles from a safe distance and avoid apprehension.
In one Signal message, Tabke advised agitators to band together when reporting on ICE to avoid being outnumbered.
Another local lawmaker, DFL state Rep. Alex Falconer, who represents Eden Prairie, publicly acknowledged that he is helping to run “a resistance network” on Signal.
“We have a couple of groups on the app Signal that we’d love for you to join,” Falconer recently told residents at an anti-ICE community meeting.
There, he made an open call to add anti-ICE activists to the surveillance chats to expand their coverage.
Characterizing the ICE apprehensions as “terrible times,” Falconer said, “I’m a community organizer at heart, and that’s part of what I’m trying to bring to the legislature.”
TAXPAYER-FUNDED NETWORK OF MINNESOTA DEFENSE FUNDS BAILING OUT ANTI-ICE AGITATORS
Anita Smithson, a Minnesota Senate candidate and “lifelong DFLer,” was also identified as a dispatcher in one of the Signal groups. Operating under the pseudonym “Anita Bloom,” she allegedly used an old Facebook profile picture as her Signal avatar.
According to her since-deleted Squarespace page, Smithson is the DFL’s communications officer for Senate District 50.
Smithson was also on the board of Indivisible MN03, a legislative action committee which she credited as instrumental in creating the conditions to flip Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District in 2018. The Indivisible Project, a beneficiary of grant funding from Democratic megadonor George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, is one of the left-wing organizations that has mobilized movements against President Donald Trump’s administration.
Walz associate
Amanda Noelle Koehler, a former Walz campaign strategist and policy adviser, allegedly serves as an administrator, with the codename “HAH” in the “MN ICE Watch” Signal chat.
Koehler’s now-deactivated LinkedIn profile said she operates a policy consulting firm.
According to a screenshot of her Facebook feed, which is also scrubbed, she called for the abolition of ICE.
“Our immigrant neighbors and those of us who stand up to them here will not be safe until ICE leaves,” the Facebook post said.
