The resistance to ICE in Minnesota is highly organized.
It's a level not seen before.
And Minnesota anti-ICE activists used one tactic borrowed from Iraqi insurgents.
A Green Beret saw what nobody else wanted to admit
Eric Schwalm spent years hunting insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan as a Special Forces Warrant Officer.
When citizen journalist Cam Higby dropped recordings from Minneapolis Signal messaging groups tracking ICE agents, Schwalm knew exactly what he was looking at.
And it made his blood run cold.
Signal groups maxed out at 1,000 members per city zone.
Dedicated roles – mobile chasers, plate checkers, dispatch coordinators.
Shared databases logging every suspected federal vehicle.
24/7 dispatch calls vectoring protesters to ICE locations.
SALUTE-style intelligence reports on federal movements.
Daily chat rotations with timed message deletions to block forensic recovery.
"Replace 'ICE agents' with 'occupying coalition forces' and the structure maps almost 1:1 to early-stage urban cells we hunted in the mid-2000s," Schwalm wrote on X.
This isn't activism.
It's insurgency infrastructure.
They're using the exact playbook that killed Americans in Iraq
Iraqi insurgents perfected something called SALUTE reporting.
Size, Activity, Location, Unit, Time, Equipment.
It's military intelligence gathering taught in Special Forces training – the same system used to track enemy movements and build target packages on convoys.
Iraqi cells used SALUTE to pattern American patrols and vector ambush teams into kill zones.
Now look at what's happening in Minneapolis.
The Signal groups are running the identical system against federal immigration officers.
Higby's recordings caught them using SALUTE terminology.
"Confirmed ICE" vehicles get logged with unit size, activity type, exact GPS coordinates, federal agency, time stamps, and complete equipment descriptions including license plates.
Mobile "patrol" units actively hunt for federal vehicles throughout the city.
When someone spots a suspected ICE vehicle, designated "plate checkers" run it against the master database and update the record.
A dispatch call runs continuously – all day, every day – vectoring protesters to ICE positions.
And get this – each role requires mandatory "training."
Schwalm recognized it instantly because he spent a decade dismantling these exact networks overseas.
Tim Walz's campaign strategist is running the network
Now here's where it gets really ugly.
The Justice Department just issued grand jury subpoenas to Governor Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, and other top Minnesota Democrats.
Federal prosecutors are investigating whether these officials conspired to obstruct federal immigration enforcement.
Higby's infiltration exposed the real story.
Amanda Koehler – a former campaign strategist for Tim Walz – was identified as a Minnesota Signal group leader coordinating the shadow intelligence network.
Read that again.
The governor's own campaign operative is allegedly running an organized tracking operation against federal law enforcement.
Higby also claims local police are actively "cooperating" with the network, feeding information to activists tracking ICE movements.
Walz told residents to "record the operations carried out by immigration authorities" and help "create a database with evidence for future prosecutions."
The governor of Minnesota is directing citizens to build intelligence files on federal agents.
"When your own citizens build and operate this level of parallel intelligence and rapid-response network against federal officers, you're no longer dealing with civil disobedience," Schwalm warned.
"You're facing a distributed resistance that's learned the lessons of successful insurgencies."
This is exactly how insurgencies start – and we're pretending it's not happening
Iraqi insurgencies didn't begin with roadside bombs killing American soldiers.
They started with spotters on rooftops, vehicle tracking databases, and sympathetic locals providing real-time intelligence.
By the time U.S. forces figured out what they were facing in Anbar Province, the networks already had operational security, specialized roles, and enough popular support to operate in the open.
The infrastructure was built.
That's what Schwalm is screaming about right now.
He spent years dismantling this exact apparatus overseas.
Now it's being assembled in American cities with help from Democrat officials and local cops.
"From where I sit, this isn't January 2026 politics anymore," Schwalm wrote.
"It's phase one of something we've spent decades trying to keep off our own soil."
Right now Minneapolis is in phase one – intelligence gathering and network building.
Counterinsurgency doctrine says violence comes next when nobody dismantles these structures.
The Minneapolis network already has everything it needs – command and control, operational security, specialized roles, and no single center of gravity for federal law enforcement to target.
That's textbook distributed insurgency.
Either America wakes up to what's actually happening in Minneapolis or the country keeps pretending organized resistance infrastructure is just "activism" until it spreads to every sanctuary city and the violence gets worse.
Schwalm knows how this story ends because he's seen it play out in a dozen countries.
This is a highly organized communist insurgency against federal immigration enforcement.
Sources:
- Cam Higby, Twitter post revealing Minneapolis Signal group infiltration, January 24, 2026.
- Eric Schwalm, Twitter analysis of Minneapolis resistance tactics, January 2026.
- CBS News, "DOJ investigating Gov. Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey over alleged conspiracy to impede immigration agents," January 17, 2026.
- Tyler Durden, "Left-Wing Activists Run Shadow Police Force On Signal To Target ICE In Minneapolis," ZeroHedge, January 26, 2026.
