How the ICE enforcement raids turbocharged an army of citizen journalists

Warning: this article contains graphic video images

While protests intensify in cities across America as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) step up their activity in Minneapolis, there is another, adjacent, battle taking place. It’s one that has  escalated since Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old writer, mother and US citizen, was fatally shot during a federal immigration operation nine days ago. 

It’s a battle for attention: to write (or rewrite) the story of what is happening on the streets. And it is being waged both by government agencies and citizens to frame the narrative for ICE’s enforcement raids.

Citizen videos documenting the work of ICE agents in public spaces have been commonplace over the last year, but they have been turbocharged by what happened in Minneapolis. The most widely viewed video of the incident (below) was shot by a bystander, Caitlin Callenson. It offers a view of the back of Good’s car, at a distance of 20-30 metres, and with another ICE agent at the side of the vehicle sometimes obscuring the actions of Jonathan Ross, who fired the fatal bullets, at the front. It was Callenson’s video which went viral and prompted condemnation and fury – though not from many on the right, who saw enough in that video to immediately justify the shooting.

Then 48 hours later, a small rightwing Minneapolis news outlet, Alpha News, obtained a 47-second video taken by Ross. Conservative pundits cited that video as conclusive evidence that Ross had feared for his life and was justified in shooting and killing Good. The Department of Homeland Security reposted the video on their social channels. 

Matt Walsh, a rightwing commentator, author and podcaster, declared that the second video “100 percent confirms they were leftwing agitators intentionally trying to provoke an altercation with law enforcement, and then they drove right at him. Any ‘conservative’ who bought the media narrative on this case is permanently discredited and there’s no coming back from it.”

But many conservatives had not “bought the narrative” in the first place, and the different readings of the video shot by Callenson in the two days following the killing (before the Ross video appeared) were evidence that, in a chronically divided society, two different communities can can watch the same event and arrive at precisely opposite conclusions. A Quinnipiac University survey days after the shooting found that while 53% of respondents thought the shooting was not justified, 35% said it was – and a further 12% had no view. 

The narrative/counter-narrative battle has accelerated over the last 10 days. Footage of ICE agents on the street, or in parking lots, shops and building sites, are flooding social media, and racking up millions of views. A cottage industry has arisen out of the rush to document their activities. There are independent media outlets dedicated entirely to coverage of ICE, and dozens of city-based “verifier” organisations have sprung up seeking to educate citizens on how to safely and legally record immigration agents in public spaces.

The result is a tsunami of citizen videos. Some seek to mock, while others look to shame the ICE agents. Some poke fun at their footwear, uniform or weight, while others stoically record epic meltdowns by agents screaming into the face of the “verifiers”. 

The videos capture ICE in many guises: brutish, ridiculous, ugly. In one particularly absurd episode, ICE agents wrestle a man in a giraffe suit to the ground. (He posted his own video of the incident). But others are chilling and threatening. Just days after the shooting of Good, a driver filming ICE agents is asked: “Have you not learned anything in the last couple of days?” In another, a driver is told to stop recording because, the agent says, “I guarantee you are not going to like the outcome.” (There are a few more of these videos embedded at the end of this piece.)

This social media blitz appears to be having an impact on public opinion. A poll published earlier this week from the Economist and YouGov US found approximately 46% of people in support of abolishing ICE while 43% opposed the move (12% were undecided). This is a shift from last July, when the same polling organisations found only 27% in support of abolishing ICE.

A change is also apparent in parts of the Maga-adjacent manosphere. Tim Dillon, a conservative podcaster and comedian, and a trenchant supporter of Trump during the election campaign, described the escalating ICE raids as “performative, cruel and a bit psychotic” and said they were “not doing this administration any favours”. And while he stressed that Good should not have been trying to interfere with ICE, he also said: “I don’t believe the cop was justified in shooting her three times in the face.”

Meanwhile, Joe Rogan said on his podcast this week that it had been “very ugly to watch someone shoot a US citizen, especially a woman, in the face. It just looked horrific to me.” 

While ICE may be losing the meme war, there is no indication that the administration is anything but committed to continuing its enforcement drive. This week, the Department of Homeland Security posted a clip on X of Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff and homeland security adviser, delivering a stirring (to ICE) affirmation of their conduct. “To all ICE officers: you have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties, and anybody who lays a hand on you, or tries to stop you, or tries to obstruct you, is committing a felony.”

And there is no sense that the administration is looking to de-escalate an increasingly febrile environment. Indeed, Trump raised the ante on Thursday when he threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, which would allow him to deploy the military inside the US. This would be a major escalation and could run the risk of creating a doom-loop in which the situation spirals further out of control. The last time this was used was in 1992 when troops were sent in to LA to deal with riots that broke out after the acquittal of four police officers charged with beating up Rodney King. 

While citizens are likely to continue to document what they see as over-aggressive, even deadly, approaches to immigration enforcement, they will probably get little legal protection. Andrew G Celli Jr., a lawyer specialising in police conduct and a partner at a New York law firm, told the Intercept this week: “You can follow them around, you can film them, you can say, ‘Hey, fuckhead’. But I will tell you, after 25 years of representing people who do just that: you will likely get arrested. The constitution is only as good as the people willing to follow it.”

On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security, in what may be seen as their response to the flood of citizen documentation, released one of its more highly produced videos showcasing the work of ICE. Citing bible verses (Matthew 5:9), it appears to cast ICE agents as doing God’s work. The Los Angeles Times, meanwhile, says that the calligraphy used for its title, Blessed Are the Peacemakers, “is similar to the calligraphy-inspired Fraktur font used by Germany’s Third Reich”. 

John Mulholland is a former editor of the Observer and of Guardian US. He is now managing editor, California, at State Affairs and an adviser on the Nerve