MINNEAPOLIS: Hundreds of counterprotesters drowned out a far-right activist’s attempt to hold a small rally in support of the Trump administration’s latest immigration crackdown in Minneapolis on Saturday, as the governor’s office announced that National Guard troops were mobilized and ready to assist law enforcement though not yet deployed to city streets.
There have been protests every day since the Department of Homeland Security ramped up immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul by bringing in more than 2,000 federal officers.
Conservative influencer Jake Lang organized an anti-Islam, anti-Somali and pro-ICE demonstration, saying on social media beforehand that he intended to “burn a Qur’an” on the steps of City Hall. But it was not clear if he carried out that plan.
Only a small number of people showed up for Lang’s demonstration, while hundreds of counterprotesters converged at the site, yelling over his attempts to speak and chasing the pro-ICE group away. They forced at least one person to take off a shirt they deemed objectionable.
Lang appeared to be injured as he left the scene, with bruises and scrapes on his head.
Lang was previously charged with assaulting an officer with a baseball bat, civil disorder and other crimes before receiving clemency as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping act of clemency for Jan. 6 defendants last year. Lang recently announced that he is running for US Senate in Florida.
In Minneapolis, snowballs and water balloons were also thrown before an armored police van and heavily equipped city police arrived.
“We’re out here to show Nazis and ICE and DHS and MAGA you are not welcome in Minneapolis,” protester Luke Rimington said. “Stay out of our city, stay out of our state. Go home.”
National Guard ‘staged and ready’
The state guard said in a statement that it had been “mobilized” by Democratic Gov. Tim Walz to support the Minnesota State Patrol “to assist in providing traffic support to protect life, preserve property, and support the rights of all Minnesotans to assemble peacefully.”
Maj. Andrea Tsuchiya, a spokesperson for the guard, said it was “staged and ready” but yet to be deployed.
The announcement came more than a week after Walz, a frequent critic and target of Trump, told the guard to be ready to support law enforcement in the state.
During the daily protests, demonstrators have railed against masked immigration officers pulling people from homes and cars and other aggressive tactics. The operation in the deeply liberal Twin Cities has claimed at least one life: Renee Good, a US citizen and mother of three, was shot by an ICE officer during a Jan. 7 confrontation.
On Friday a federal judge ruled that immigration officers cannot detain or tear gas peaceful protesters who are not obstructing authorities, including while observing officers during the Minnesota crackdown.
Living in fear
During a news conference Saturday, a man who fled civil war in Liberia as a child said he has been afraid to leave his Minneapolis home since being released from an immigration detention center following his arrest last weekend.
Video of federal officers breaking down Garrison Gibson’s front door with a battering ram Jan. 11 become another rallying point for protesters who oppose the crackdown.
Gibson, 38, was ordered to be deported, apparently because of a 2008 drug conviction that was later dismissed. He has remained in the country legally under what’s known as an order of supervision. After his recent arrest, a judge ruled that federal officials did not give him enough notice that his supervision status had been revoked.
Then Gibson was taken back into custody for several hours Friday when he made a routine check-in with immigration officials. Gibson’s cousin Abena Abraham said Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials told her White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller ordered the second arrest.
The White House denied the account of the re-arrest and that Miller had anything to do with it.
Gibson was flown to a Texas immigration detention facility but returned home following the judge’s ruling. His family used a dumbbell to keep their damaged front door closed amid subfreezing temperatures before spending $700 to fix it.
“I don’t leave the house,” Gibson said at a news conference.
DHS said an “activist judge” was again trying to stop the deportation of “criminal illegal aliens.”
“We will continue to fight for the arrest, detention, and removal of aliens who have no right to be in this country,” Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said.
Gibson said he has done everything he was supposed to do: “If I was a violent person, I would not have been out these past 17 years, checking in.”
Counter protesters chase off conservative influencer during Minneapolis immigration crackdown
https://arab.news/p4fn9
Counter protesters chase off conservative influencer during Minneapolis immigration crackdown
- National Guard troops mobilized and ready to assist law enforcement though not yet deployed to city streets
Ukraine-Russia peace talks resume in Geneva with pressure on Kyiv
- Ukraine-Russia peace talks resume in Geneva with pressure on Kyiv
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticizes US pressure for Ukraine concessions
GENEVA: Negotiators from Ukraine and Russia began a second day of talks in Geneva on Wednesday, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the United States was putting undue pressure on him to bring an end to the four-year-old war in his country.
The US-mediated peace talks in Switzerland have been taking place as US President Donald Trump has twice in recent days suggested it was up to Ukraine and Zelensky to take steps to ensure the talks were successful.
In an interview with US website Axios published on Tuesday, Zelensky was quoted as saying that it was “not fair” Trump kept publicly calling on Ukraine, not Russia, to make concessions in negotiating terms for a peace plan.
Zelensky also said any plan requiring Ukraine to give up territory that Russia had not captured in the eastern Donbas region would be rejected by Ukrainians if put to a referendum.
“I hope it is just his tactics and not the decision,” Axios quoted Zelensky as saying in the interview.
Trump told reporters on Monday that “Ukraine better come to the table fast. That’s all I’m telling you.”
Talks come days before fourth anniversary of invasion
The Geneva talks resumed on Wednesday morning.
“The consultations are taking place in groups by areas within the political and military groups. We are working on clarifying the parameters and mechanics of the decisions that were discussed yesterday,” Ukraine’s lead negotiator and head of the National Security and Defense Council Rustem Umerov said on social media.
The talks come just days before the fourth anniversary of Russia’s 2022 invasion of its much smaller neighbor. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, millions have fled their homes, and many Ukrainian cities, towns and villages have been devastated by the conflict.
Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians.
Russian source called talks ‘very tense’
Umerov said Tuesday’s talks had focused on “practical issues and the mechanics of possible decisions,” without providing details. Russian officials made no comments on the talks.
However, Russian news agencies quoted a source as saying that the Tuesday talks were “very tense” and lasted six hours in different bilateral and trilateral formats.
Ukrainian government bonds fell as much as 1.9 cents on the dollar in morning trade in Europe on reports of stalled progress at the talks.
Before the talks began, Umerov had played down hopes for a significant step forward in Geneva, saying the Ukrainian delegation was working “without excessive expectations.”
The Geneva meeting follows two rounds of US-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi that concluded without a major breakthrough as the two sides remained far apart on key issues such as the control of territory in eastern Ukraine.
Russia occupies about 20 percent of Ukraine’s national territory, including Crimea and parts of the eastern Donbas region seized before the 2022 full-scale invasion. Its recent airstrikes on energy infrastructure have left hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians without heating and power during a harsh winter.
Zelensky thanked Trump for his peacemaking efforts and told Axios that his conversations with the top US negotiators, envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, did not involve the same kind of pressure.
Witkoff early on Wednesday said Trump’s efforts to get Russia and Ukraine talking were yielding fruit.
“President Trump’s success in bringing both sides of this war together has brought about meaningful progress, and we are proud to work under his leadership to stop the killing in this terrible conflict,” he said on X. “Both parties agreed to update their respective leaders and continue working toward a deal.”
