Tools of Reform for Racist Laws

“It’s not racist, it's the law.” Vice President JD Vance said these words as he addressed the nation from Minneapolis. The Twin Cities, which have, as of late, found itself in the crosshairs of the Trump administration, have been dealing with a surge in immigration crackdowns by the Department of Homeland Security’s ICE. The federal enforcement branch has operated within the Cities in a way that can only be characterized as outside the realm of constitutional protection or ethical oversight. This has then resulted in U.S citizens' homes being broken into without warrants, citizens being detained hours on end by officers, and race being used as the only signifier of probable cause related to stops and ID checks. ICE, as an enforcement body, truly only has jurisdiction within the country over non-citizens— U.S. citizens can only be compelled to provide proof of their identity when entering the country, getting a passport, or applying for certain federal jobs. But as previously stated, ICE hasn’t demonstrated any care for the protections afforded to persons within this country. Due to the lack of any true accountability which would investigate and punish these actions, no one is making sure they do. 

A US Government SUV with "Defend The Homeland" "Integrity, Courage, Endurance" written on it as seen in Minneapolis on January 8, 2026. Chad Davis, via Wikimedia Commons

Though as the vice president insists “it’s not racist, it’s the law.”, those two concepts aren’t exactly mutually exclusive: or — for laws have, are, and can be racist. Slavery based on race was expressly legal for the first adaptation of this nation, followed by Jim Crow and segregation. The Chinese Exclusion Act and quota-based immigration used race as a factor of who was allowed to start a new life in America. Even now, Muslim travel bands and racial profiling are legally present and protected. Laws can be and often have been racist, what ICE is doing is also not exactly the law. Since the creation of ICE, post 9/11, the department was given broad authority of domestic immigration enforcement. Though recently, ICE has not been operating within the bounds of the law; Not only by using force to violate constitutional protections, but also by disregarding court orders that demonstrate the acts they've committed  are illegal. 

A decision passed down from The Roberts court in September of 2025 left the door open for race and the speaking of non-English languages to be an acceptable determinant to be used as probable cause for ICE to stop and detain people. This has looked like in America ICE agents stopping people in LA based on the fact they look like they could be “Undocumented.” Furthermore in Minnesota’s Twin Cities, where now any person can have the color of their skin used as reason to be searched or detained. The extent of this has reached tribal members being detained and held as a result of ICE enforcers looking solely to race for justification of detainment. Or Minnesotans being held due to being Somalian in a city where 200,000 thousand Somali-Americans live 97% of them being citizens. Reality reveals that  the law allows racism to guide immigration enforcement in the most diverse area in Minnesota. Even as enforcement uses racist standards deemed legal by the Supreme Court, laws and protections to the people in this country have been violated. Chief federal judge in Minnesota Patrick J. Schiltz stated that ICE has violated around 100 court orders in the month of January alone. It's easy to see that what ICE is doing isn’t exactly the law.

So now what? What is the role of a morally sound American in the face of law enforcement that by all means are racist and themselves disregarding the law? Americans have pushed back against racism and immoral enforcement in our laws before. More often than not, the law is progressively pushed forward as a result of the hard work of citizens in pursuit of equality—Although America has rarely had to fight against federal law enforcement and an executive that acts outside the law). As often as the push back to these situations appears, it does so in a variety of forms; Often the groups utilize two active schools of thought, revolving over the use of violence. Violence and Non-Violance would play different roles throughout the abolition and civil rights movement leading to various results.

The fight to end slavery in America was started long before the Declaration of Independence was drafted. In the US, Quakers were one of the first organized groups that resented the institution of slavery. This was a position drawn from their religious positioning which recognized the injustice and morally reprehensible idea that a person could own another person. To combat this injustice they did so not out of violence, but instead peace, serving as another tenet of their pacifistic religion. One of the biggest impacts this group had was through the creation of the popular book Uncle Tom's Cabins, which widely spread horrors of slavery to people who were insulated from the institution. In contrast, abolitionist John Brown took a group of like minded people to the new state of Kansas to prevent it from becoming a slave state after the establishment of popular sovereignty. John Brown was calling on his people to not merely vote, but incite change violently as well—Demonstrating how unwelcome slavery was to grow within the country. Likewise activists named the Jayhawks killing slave owners, freeing slaves, and burning towns as engaging the pro-slavery border roughens. Bleeding Kansas and revolts on individual plantations saw violence to fight against legal slavery. Finally, as we know only through the Civil War would a situation be provided for slavery to end in the U.S. Being made official through the passage of the 13th Amendment.

John Brown in 1846

The 1950s and onwards would see the development of the civil rights movement in pursuit of ending segregation, and ending the discrimination based on race found throughout civil life in America. In this situation we would see law enforcement disregarding the law;Brown v. The Board of Education would bring about the end of segregation, but many local law enforcement agencies in America would still enforce the illegal practice. Despite this, the violations would be stopped by the federal government and their enforcement practices (whereas now is the federal government violating the law).  Similarly at this time, two camps formed non-violence championed by Martin Luther King Jr. and movements such as freedom riders and freedom summer. Then on the flip side were people who saw the use of violence as a tool of inciting change, this often represented by Malcom X and the Black Panther Party led by Bobby Seal. None of these groups or movements were popular in their time; the more violent actors would be referred to by white america often as domestic terrorists and the peaceful group would be called agitators. Regardless of the groups who fought for reform beliefs on the use of violence, violence always followed. The movement succeeded in its goals to achieve the civil rights act of 1964 and the public support from the non-violent movement carried into following decades to further civil rights and promote equality.

As we look now to the killing of Renea Good and Alex Pretti, as well as the shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis and Marimar Martinez. All happened at the hands of an unchecked enforcement body without proper reason or respect for the law and the rights of those people. ICE was enforcing laws with legal racist practices, regardless of the fact that the people and their movement remained peaceful. These factors raise the question: does change through violent means need to be considered? It’s true that non-violance brings about positive change in its ability to call out the oppression that exists, through the ability to see the harms that oppression causes plainly with no response such as the sit-ins and marches led by MLK would see people beaten and even killed, and in the horror more people would be called out for supporting a system that let that happen. This is what grew the popularity of the civil rights movement as it went on. One could argue that the same is happening now as the thousands of ICE officers are ordered to leave the Twin Cities ending Metro Surge.

Official portrait of Pretti in 2024 (as a registered nurse for the United States Department of Veterans Affairs)

Alternatively violence is needed to fight oppression that seeks to subject and kill. The non-violent movement was never going to end slavery— It couldn’t— even in the building of congress the ideological fighting resulted in the beating of the senator Charles Sumpner. Quakers may have opposed slavery, but the work of abolitionists and the union in the war would allow slavery to end. It's very unlikely that any forms of non-violence could bring about the same change. Yes, Metro Surge has ended, but just now this year ICE has gotten its 75 billion dollar funding from the Big Beautiful Bill Act. Currently ICE presence in some form will stay in Minnesota and spread to other major US cities in the coming months. This crisis is far from over. So is violence now needed to fight back?

Today the people of the Twin Cities in non-violent protest made the action necessary to push out the large federal presence in the city, but this resulted still in the death of two and shooting of another. Additionally, the rights of citizens, legal residents, and undocumented immigrants were trampled. Though the crisis has calmed, the current pursuit from the unchecked administration is continuing. As congress sits on its hands and the courts try and fail to prevent its abuses, the final thing standing in its way is we the people. How do we fight? If today we stay peaceful but show discontent will that work? If the president's police force continues on its path regardless, when does our responsibility change? When can we see that violence is now a needed tool to fight this modern oppression?

Thousands of people protested against ICE in Minneapolis, Minnesota Fibonacci Blue, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Thousands of people have taken to the street over and over again in peaceful response to the terrorizing of their neighborhoods. But some have pushed for more physical and concrete action, establishing ICE watch and erecting road barriers to interrupt ICE vehicles movements. These tactics are borrowed from groups such as the American Indian Movement (AIM) and the Black Panther Party, both of which brought together large movements which were unafraid to come face to face with law enforcement through the years. Even today, modern factions calling themselves the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense have been seen in the various streets armed to protect both protesters and people in black communities. Though violence used against ICE officers pales in comparison of the violence they have used against people, pushes such as these represent a turn in response that lends its hand to violence. 

As law enforcement continues on its racist and illegal trajectory, there is no doubt that fight must happen to create change. Pushes cannot just resent the harmful enforcement practices of ICE and Border Patrol. Instead, they must change the laws that allow this to take place. We need solutions to our immigration and asylum processes, and further restrictions on probable cause which allows race as a factor for it. As innocent people get violated and injured how we deal with it will change. Now more than ever we are called to ask ourselves about what values we hold and what we feel is necessary to fight the oppression in our laws. In order to fight, do we as people feel comfortable to take to the streets, marching in No King protests or ICE OUT movements? Or do we feel it necessary to take to the street assembling road blocks and organizing in order to make it more harder for ICE’s action to be carried out? Or finally do we feel it necessary to take advantage of our second amendment right in order to forcibly stop the current authoritarian pushes and racist policy? Now is the time to ask ourselves these questions and take charge because if we don't now we may never again be able to.