I spent two days this week in Minneapolis, a city locked in a deep freeze — both literal and emotional. The cold was brutal, the kind that numbs your face within minutes, but it’s the stillness that lingers. Downtown feels subdued, almost suspended, interrupted only by clusters of protest that have become permanent fixtures. Concrete barriers and fencing carve up public space, reshaping the city’s rhythms in ways that feel both temporary and unsettlingly familiar.
Is this what occupation feels like?
I was there with my friend, Congressman Ro Khanna, who came to see the situation for himself just days after federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, during an immigration enforcement operation in south Minneapolis. Pretti’s killing, captured in part on bystander video and now under federal investigation, has become a flashpoint in the city, intensifying protests and deepening the sense that something has gone badly wrong here.
I visited twice with a group stationed outside the Whipple Building, the city’s primary ICE detention center. Supported by an organization called Haven, these volunteers perform an essential role. Detainees are often released without belongings or accompaniment directly onto the street, into subzero Minnesota winter. With no phone, no money, and no way to contact family, they are met by Haven volunteers in orange jackets. They’re given food, warm clothing, and a phone to call home.
There are roughly 3,000 ICE or Border Patrol agents in the city, about five federal agents for every Minneapolis police officer. They are everywhere. The ratio of civilians to armed officers is more consistent with an occupied city than a modern American democracy.
The Minnesotans Ro and I spoke with urged more elected officials to come here, to see what’s happening with their own eyes. To listen. To learn. To feel the vice grip ICE has placed on freedom in this city.
Put plainly: if you’re a lawmaker and you visit Minneapolis, there’s no way you return to Washington and argue this should continue.
Yet Democrats in Congress continue to fund this administration’s agenda. In late December, our sitting congressman broke with his California colleagues to support a nearly trillion-dollar defense spending package. More recently, he voted for additional appropriations bills, even as Minneapolis was effectively under siege. Somehow, the reality on the ground has yet to break through to our leaders in Washington.
We’ve seen this pattern before. Nobody took the Jeffrey Epstein allegations seriously until a number of brave victims came forward and made their voices heard. It often takes direct testimony — people telling their stories face to face — for reality to break through in a way that reports, briefings, and phone calls never can.
Instead of confronting the present reality of our country, our congressman spent Monday evening in San Francisco, raising money in a billionaire’s home, courting the same elite class that has enabled so much of this to continue.
We Americans are more divided than ever. But I still believe in a shared set of values, values rooted in the Constitution and embodied in the American Dream. This moment calls on us to remember that we are still bound together by compassion, aspiration, freedom, and the rule of law.
We have now witnessed violations of the First, Second, Fourth, and Tenth Amendments. We have seen tragic loss of life. Party labels don’t matter here. These are appeals to our civic duty and to our conscience.
To our political leaders: if a phone screen is an insufficient lens to grasp what’s happening in this country — if it cannot convey the erosion of constitutional liberty and basic morality — then go to Minneapolis.
You’ll see that the people here don’t deserve this. You’ll see the memorials for Renee Good and Alex Pretti, placed exactly where they lost their lives. And as you look down those eerily quiet blocks, you’ll realize this could be any street in any city in America.
It could be your city.
Don’t wait for it to come to yours. Step up and take action, or go to Minneapolis and see for yourself.
In this moment we need action. Trump’s Border Control Commander Gregory Bovino is out because the people came together and demanded action — not because of politicians or members of Congress. But people who are out there day and night in 3° weather. Risking their health and their life to say this needs to stop.
But ceremonial firings are not sufficient. We must continue to use our voices, and leaders must demand real action — for Minneapolis and for the future of our country.
This has to stop.
Eric Jones is a former venture capitalist who lives in Napa who is challenging Mike Thompson, who has represented the North Bay in Congress since 1999 and Davis and Yolo County off and on over that time.
This “former venture capitalist” Eric Jones, thinks Congress is an entry level political job. He has never served in public office and so has no voting record. The truth is we have no way of knowing what he would do if elected.
I’ve seen this story before where some guy shows up with no actual public political voting record, tells everyone what they want to hear and then betrays the people who supported him.
So Jones spends two days in Minneapolis. At least he stayed there in that freeze longer than Ted Cruz did in that big freeze down in Texas. Wow what a hero or should I say opportunist. Did he stay at the Hilton?
Reminds me of the rich kids who went to Chicago for the Democratic convention in 68. Days later they were out of Chicago and lying on the beach in Florida.
The photo of Jones at the shrine of ICE victim Pretti is pure political exploitation.