Now would be a great time for everyone to chill out

Now would be a great time for everyone to chill out.

Things are heating up in Minnesota. Not the weather, which has been in the single digits this week, but rather the metaphorical temperature, which has found ICE agents, protesters, and counterprotesters out in the freezing cold in increasing numbers this month. 

There are important issues being debated, but ideas are beginning to take a back seat to the pure rage of tribalism. This many angry people in close proximity was bound to produce a tragedy eventually, and in the killing of Renee Good during a clash with ICE agents, it did just that.

That might be a sign that things are boiling over, but no one in charge seems to want to turn down the heat. Many of them want this fight. They are convinced of their own righteousness and of the depravity of the other side. Why should they back down? They’re right! Let the other side pull back first, and then, maybe, our side will start to relax.

This is certainly the attitude of the ICE agents on the ground in Minneapolis. They are sent to do a job and they’re tired of all the ways cops have been hamstrung and handcuffed since the Floyd riots. Some of them just want to do normal, pre-2020 police work. Others seem to be spoiling for a fight. There is a carelessness about targeting that, whatever the cause, looks like the indiscriminate harassment of racial minorities, not the careful work of deporting illegal immigrants that is their actual mission. Deescalation is nowhere to be seen.

The protesters, also, seem to be spoiling for a fight. Following the cops, alerting the suspects, even helping arrested people escape — these go far beyond the right to peaceably assemble that our First Amendment protects. The hard core among them are provocateurs and want an incident — want a cop to lose his temper or disregard his training.

We’ve seen this in Ferguson in 2014, in Minneapolis in 2020, in New York in 2024, in Los Angeles in 2025, and in countless other protests-turned-riots. The protests have some contingent of concerned citizens who want to voice discontent in a peaceful way. But they also have a cadre of radical activists who would love to provoke police violence and then play the victim, showing the world that they are right and the system is violent and unjust.

There was an equilibrium to this when the cops were well-trained and knew the rules of engagement. But now there seems to be no one in the federal government looking to impose that restraint. When Renee Good was killed, the proper response from DHS would have been condolences and routine assurances about an investigation into the shooting. The investigation would have taken a while, but it would have been calm and even-handed — not immediate absolution, not serving up the cop as a sacrifice to the mob, but a real search for truth.

Instead, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem called Good’s actions “an act of domestic terrorism.” Vice President JD Vance said it was “terrorism” and smeared the entire crew of protestors as using “terror techniques.” Meanwhile, Ilhan Omar, who represents the region in Congress, immediately called Good’s death “murder,” and later defended having said so, in case you thought she misspoke in the heat of the moment. Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey insisted that ICE “get the fuck out of Minneapolis.”

None of these statements are evidence that the speakers want to lower the temperature. 

So we inevitably get escalation. Right-wing counterprotesters have arrived and clashed with left-wing protestors, a sight that any student of history will tell you is a bad sign for a liberal democracy. Last Sunday, far-left activists invaded a church — ostensibly because one of the members (who was not there) works with ICE, but also because the radical left omnicause hates religion as much as it hates America.

Where are the real leaders in all of this? There has been some movement toward the center, at least rhetorically. Governor Tim Walz initially characterized the ICE presence as “an occupation” and said the state of Minnesota was effectively “at war” with the federal government. President Trump responded with a threat to invoke the Insurrection Act and launched investigations into Walz and Frey.

But since that point, the executives have at least begun to relax. Walz urged that protestors behave peacefully and Frey urged that they “not take the bait.” After Trump initially said the ICE agent who shot Good would not be investigated, Noem confirmed this week that there would, in fact, be an investigation. The President also said on Friday that he might not need the Insurrection Act, after all. 

These are all signs of normalcy, but they are mostly words, not actions. Nothing about ICE, the protestors, or the counterprotestors has changed. The state, local, and federal governments have not changed their tactics one iota. So for all the good calming words may do, another flash point is always around the corner.

Trump has made much of his quest for the Nobel Prize, and his efforts to end wars around the world are a genuine contribution to global peace. It is harder to make peace at home, where policy and personal pride are at stake. But part of leadership is telling your own most zealous supporters to rein it in. Trump, Walz, and Frey should all work to do that.

A few steps might help. One: everyone should take off the masks. Concealing one’s identity leads to a feeling of consequence-free power. Agents of the state should never conceal their identity because state action must always be subject to public scrutiny. Law enforcement officers should show their faces and badge numbers. Likewise protestors should show their faces, as is already required by Minnesota’s anti-mask law. Looking each other in the face will help communicate human empathy, and revive the feeling that what we do in the world has consequences.

That’s a good first step in chilling out. But we need more. 

The way ICE is being deployed in Minnesota is a direct consequence of the state’s refusal to cooperate in enforcing federal immigration law. Every time state or local police arrest an illegal immigrant, they should be notifying ICE. Instead, some states have decided to shelter them, no matter which laws they have broken (in addition to the initial crime of entering the country illegally.) But the federal government still is permitted to enforce its own law — the Constitution specifically gives Congress control over immigration and the Supremacy Clause means that that power trumps state law.

Federalism is much diminished from the Founding Fathers’ day, but this point still remains: States do not have to do the federal government’s bidding. However, they may choose to do so. And helping to deport illegal aliens who have been arrested for unrelated crimes is a policy that enjoys widespread support. Trump should agree to pull back ICE officers from doing raids on their own, but Walz should also agree to cooperate with ICE when illegal immigrants are detained by state and local police. 

This is the situation that prevails in many other states, and the process does not result in the level of tumult that Minnesotans are now experiencing. Instead of choosing actions based on what will “resist Trump” or “own the libs,” both state and federal officials should work together within the law to deport criminals who have no right to be here — and not accosting people on the street.

Kyle Sammin is the managing editor of Broad + Liberty.