Redditors Are Mounting a Resistance Against ICE

On Saturday morning, a Reddit user who has posted about living in Minneapolis for years shared a video on the city’s subreddit, r/Minneapolis, with the title “Another ICE murder in front of Glam Doll Donuts.”

The 40-second clip showed a group of federal agents tackling 37-year-old Alex Pretti to the ground and beating him. About 20 seconds in, one of them begins shooting Pretti. At least ten gunshots go off, from multiple agents, and a person can be heard yelling “Did they fucking kill that guy? Are you fucking kidding me dude? Not again.” (The agents who fired on Pretti have not been charged, nor has ICE agent Jonathan Ross, who shot and killed Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Good on January 7. They have been moved to “other locations,” according to CBP official Greg Bovino.)

The video was upvoted more than 60,000 times, reaching the top of Reddit’s homepage.

Over the past month, as the Department of Homeland Security has deployed thousands of armed, masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to Minnesota’s Twin Cities, the r/Minneapolis subreddit has become a vital news and information hub for both residents and outsiders.

Previously, the user who shared the shooting footage posted about a missing dog poster and about trees being cut down near a local lake. “I just wanted a local subreddit to know what was happening in my city, and now all of a sudden, we’ve turned into this de facto hub of information for basically how to fight fascism,” says one r/Minneapolis moderator, who has been in the volunteer position for close to a decade and spoke on the condition of anonymity due to safety concerns.

For many of the longtime r/Minneapolis users, ICE agents have occupied their backyards. But even outside of the local Minnesota subreddits, rage against ICE has reached a boiling point. A majority of posts in r/all, where top posts across all subreddits are ranked, was devoted Saturday and Sunday to mocking and criticizing ICE for killing Pretti.

In the Reddit community for cross stitching, the top post this weekend was a “Fuck Ice” embroidery, and there were multiple variations of the same slogan in the stained glass subreddit, too. “FUCK ICE” was painted on an acrylic set in a nail polish subreddit, where other users offered dupes to get the look of a woman’s bright pink nails in a picture where her hand was pressed against a prominent right-wing influencer’s face during a downtown Minneapolis clash.

When the moderator of camera subreddit r/Leica prohibited “partisan comments” on photos of ICE officers in Minneapolis, a user wrote “HATE the censorship of this sub.” (Photojournalist John Abernathy—who went viral after tossing his camera to another photographer while being tackled by ICE agents.) Even users in r/massivecock, where most of the posts are images of erect penises, railed against ICE in their captions.

“I think it’s just like this awareness of the level of injustice taking place,” said the r/Minneapolis moderator, adding that people outside the state are increasingly worried about being targeted by ICE. “They’re testing things here. They’re coming for you next.”

Americans have become significantly more in favor of abolishing ICE since Donald Trump’s second administration began unprecedented raids of blue cities.

Before the 2024 election, polling showed only around 1 in 4 people surveyed supported abolishing ICE—now, the same polls show 43% support it. Anger has peaked over ICE’s brutal occupation of Minneapolis, especially after officer Ross killed 37-year-old Good. After agents killed Pretti, even people who rarely share positive sentiments about Minneapolis, like fans of competing football teams in Minnesota, Chicago, Detroit, and Green Bay, are increasingly protesting ICE in their shared subreddit. “The ruling on the field is that this is a meme football sub,” said one of the top posts this weekend in r/NFCNorthMemeWar. “HOWEVER… FUCK ICE and fuck any bootlicker who supports them.”