The Rehearsal

The Iterative Approach to State Sponsored Terrorism

“The Sale of a Child Slave” by Russian artist, soldier, and political controversialist, Vasily Vereshchagin (1842–1904)

Introduction

I've been asking why Minnesota. When I began to examine how two seemingly separate crises collided with devastating effect, the system revealed itself. A massive Medicaid fraud investigation that had been unfolding since 2022 suddenly intersected with the largest immigration enforcement operation in American history. What emerged was not merely the unfortunate coincidence of two policy failures, but rather the blueprint for a systematic approach to social control that transcends traditional law enforcement. Minnesota became a laboratory where the mechanics of state-sponsored intimidation are being refined, tested, and prepared for broader deployment.

The convergence was extraordinary in its precision. Communities already destabilized by fraud investigations that stripped away critical services for children with disabilities found themselves subject to coordinated raids involving approximately 2,000 federal agents. Families who had lost access to autism therapy and developmental services due to provider closures now faced the additional terror of immigration enforcement in their homes, workplaces, and neighborhoods. The compounding effects created a state of paralysis that extended far beyond any individual enforcement action.

This essay examines how Minnesota’s experience represents not an isolated incident but an iterative process through which the infrastructure, tactics, and justifications for state terrorism are systematically developed, tested, and normalized. By analyzing the timeline, tactics, and broader policy context, we can understand Minnesota as a rehearsal for something far more extensive and concerning.

The Medicaid Crisis as Foundation

The groundwork for Minnesota’s crisis began years before the current administration took office. The Feeding Our Future scandal emerged in 2022 under federal prosecution, revealing a massive fraud scheme in child nutrition programs. Investigations expanded to include Applied Behavior Analysis therapy providers serving children with autism and other developmental disabilities, with fraud patterns dating back to 2020-2021. By December 2025, federal prosecutors announced fraud estimates potentially exceeding $9 billion.

The fraud was real, extensive, and devastating. Vulnerable children lost access to critical services. Legitimate providers faced payment delays, increased scrutiny, and closure. Public trust in social service systems eroded. The scale of the fraud created genuine outrage and demands for accountability. These were the conditions that made Minnesota fertile ground for what would follow.

What transformed a fraud investigation into something more sinister was the deliberate targeting and characterization of the communities most affected. The fraud primarily involved programs serving Somali and other immigrant populations. Rather than treating this as a law enforcement matter focused on prosecuting perpetrators, the narrative shifted to one that implicated entire communities. This rhetorical transformation was essential to what would come next.

By late 2025, the fraud investigation had created several conditions necessary for expanded enforcement operations. Service providers in immigrant communities had closed, leaving families without resources. Communities were already under investigation and scrutiny. Trust between immigrant populations and government institutions had collapsed. Fear of accessing services had taken root. The infrastructure of community support had been systematically dismantled.

The Escalation

The sequence of events in late 2025 reveals a carefully orchestrated escalation. In November, a City Journal article alleged that Minnesota fraud funds had reached al-Shabaab terrorists in Somalia. Despite the fact that a key source would later call the story fabricated and federal prosecutors found no evidence supporting terrorism connections, the narrative served its purpose. It transformed a fraud investigation into a national security crisis and provided justification for extraordinary measures.

December brought intensified ICE operations in Minneapolis, specifically targeting the Somali community. On December 18, the nine-billion-dollar fraud estimate was publicly announced, sparking public outrage. A viral YouTube video by a conservative creator garnered 139 million views with allegations about daycare fraud. On December 30, federal child care funding to Minnesota was frozen. By January 2026, approximately 2,000 federal agents had been deployed in what was described as the largest immigration operation ever conducted.

This was not reactive law enforcement responding to emerging threats. This was a systematic preparation of the battlefield. Each element was built on the previous one, creating conditions in which extraordinary enforcement measures could be justified and normalized. The fraud investigation provided the narrative justification. The terrorism allegations elevated the threat level. The funding freeze demonstrated federal power over state resources. The mass deployment of agents established federal dominance.

The tactics employed in Minnesota revealed a sophisticated understanding of how to achieve maximum community disruption. Raids occurred not just at workplaces but in homes during early morning hours. Schools, hospitals, and other traditionally protected spaces became enforcement zones. U.S. citizens, including Native Americans with tribal identification, were detained alongside targeted individuals. The message was unmistakable: no one in these communities was safe, and no space was protected.

The Infrastructure of Control

What makes Minnesota significant as a rehearsal is not merely the tactics employed but the infrastructure being constructed. The scale of ICE’s budget expansion reveals the true ambition of these operations. ICE now commands a budget larger than the combined budgets of the FBI, DEA, ATF, U.S. Marshals Service, and Bureau of Prisons. This represents more than a policy priority; it represents the construction of a parallel law enforcement apparatus with different rules, lower qualification standards, and expanded powers.

The qualification gap between ICE agents and other federal law enforcement is not an oversight but a feature. While FBI agents undergo a 20-week intensive training program with 850 hours of instruction and rigorous vetting, ICE agents complete a 16-week program with significantly lower educational requirements. Recent reporting indicates that ICE has aggressively expanded recruiting and altered training practices to scale hiring quickly, with instances of recruits placed into training before full vetting was complete, including some later found to have disqualifying criminal histories or failed drug tests.

This creates an enforcement agency that is simultaneously massive in scale, minimally trained, rapidly deployed, and operating with fewer constraints than traditional federal law enforcement. It is an agency designed not for nuanced investigation but for mass operations. It is built for what it is being used to do in Minnesota.

The technological infrastructure being developed is equally concerning. ICE’s large purchases of high-tech surveillance equipment are expected to total at least 300 million dollars. Coupled with lowered administration guardrails on data collection and executive order workarounds on federal data privacy standards, this creates surveillance capacity that extends far beyond immigration enforcement. The databases, facial recognition systems, and tracking technologies being deployed become permanent infrastructure that outlasts any individual operation.

Project 2025 reveals how this infrastructure is intended to function at scale. The Heritage Foundation document explicitly calls for more than doubling detention capacity to 100,000 individuals on any given day. It advocates for nationwide use of expedited removal processes that eliminate judicial oversight. It proposes ending visa programs for trafficking victims and crime victims who assist law enforcement. It mandates that local law enforcement agencies hold migrants for federal authorities or lose federal funding, and requires total information sharing, giving the federal government access to state databases.

These are not proposals for improved immigration enforcement. These are mechanisms for federal override of state and local governance, elimination of due process protections, construction of massive detention infrastructure, and normalization of warrantless arrests and indefinite detention. Minnesota is where these mechanisms are being tested in practice.

Systematic Fear

The product is fear. The immediate effect of Minnesota’s dual crisis is a form of collective punishment that extends far beyond any individual perpetrator of fraud or immigration law violations. Entire communities have been rendered afraid to access healthcare, education, and social services. Children with disabilities are missing medical appointments because their parents fear encounters with authorities. Witnesses to fraud are afraid to cooperate with investigators because they fear immigration consequences. Workers have disappeared from industries, creating labor disruptions that cascade through local economies.

This is the product being refined in Minnesota: the systematic generation of fear that paralyzes communities, leaving them unable to organize, resist, or even meet their basic needs. It is not a side effect but the primary mechanism through which control is established. When families are afraid to send their children to school, afraid to go to hospitals, and afraid to interact with any government institution, they become entirely focused on survival rather than resistance.

Using Minnesota as the testing ground provides a ready-made justification narrative. The fraud was real. The public outrage was genuine. The demand for accountability was justified. This allows enforcement operations that would otherwise face intense scrutiny to proceed with public support or, at a minimum, public ambivalence. If it can work in Minnesota, where there is real wrongdoing to point to, it can work anywhere.

The legal precedents being established are perhaps the most dangerous product of the Minnesota rehearsal. Each warrantless home entry that goes unchallenged, each detention of U.S. citizens that faces no consequence, each raid on a sensitive location that proceeds without legal intervention, establishes that these actions are permissible. Federal courts, state legislatures, and local governments are being tested. Their responses, or lack thereof, inform what will be attempted next and where.

Learning and Adapting

What makes this approach “iterative” is the clear evidence of learning and adaptation. Minnesota was not the beginning. Earlier operations in other locations tested different tactics and revealed what worked. Minnesota represents a synthesis of lessons learned, deployed at unprecedented scale. The coordination of multiple federal pressure points, the timing of funding cuts, the leveraging of existing community vulnerabilities, and the preparation of narratives through media all suggest sophisticated operational planning informed by prior experience.

The iteration works in both directions. Success in Minnesota teaches planners what tactics are effective and what resistance they might face. It reveals which legal challenges materialize and how to counter them. It demonstrates how much disruption communities will tolerate before organizing meaningful resistance. It shows what level of media attention operations generate and whether that attention is politically sustainable. Every aspect of the Minnesota operation generates data that informs future deployments.

Equally important is what Minnesota teaches communities and institutions about their own powerlessness. State governments discover the limits of their sovereignty when federal funding is threatened. Local law enforcement learns what happens when they resist federal demands for cooperation. Courts find that expedited processes leave little room for judicial intervention. Communities learn that their political power is insufficient to protect them. This learned helplessness becomes part of the infrastructure of control.

The testimonial value of Minnesota cannot be overstated. When similar operations are proposed for other locations, planners can point to Minnesota and say: we have done this before, it worked, the legal challenges failed, the communities adapted, the disruption was manageable. Minnesota becomes proof of concept. It establishes a baseline for what is possible and acceptable.

The Expansion

The question is not whether the Minnesota model will be replicated but where and how quickly. The infrastructure being constructed, the legal precedents being established, and the tactics being refined all point toward expansion. Project 2025 makes explicit that the goal is nationwide implementation of these enforcement mechanisms. Minnesota demonstrates that such implementation is operationally feasible.

The targets will expand beyond undocumented immigrants. The mechanisms being normalized in Minnesota work equally well against any population characterized as threatening or problematic. The surveillance infrastructure does not distinguish between immigration status and political activism. Expedited legal processes that bypass judicial oversight can be applied to various categories of cases. The massive detention capacity being constructed can house whoever needs to be removed from communities.

This is why the term “state terrorism” is appropriate despite its gravity. The systematic use of fear and intimidation to control civilian populations in the service of political objectives is defined as terrorism regardless of whether the perpetrator is a non-state actor or a government. The scale of operations in Minnesota, the deliberate targeting of entire communities, the elimination of protected spaces, and the arbitrary detention of citizens alongside non-citizens all constitute the infrastructure and tactics of terror deployed by state actors.

The iteration continues. Each operation informs the next. Each legal challenge that fails removes another constraint. Each paralyzed community demonstrates the approach's effectiveness. Each institution that capitulates rather than resisting establishes that resistance is futile. The rehearsal in Minnesota is not a discrete event but a phase in an ongoing process of expanding state power and normalizing extraordinary measures.

From User Testing to Population Testing

What makes Minnesota’s operation particularly recognizable to anyone who has worked in technology deployment is how precisely it mirrors the operational models of hyperscalers like Amazon, Google, and Facebook. This is not coincidental. The methodologies being applied to immigration enforcement and social control are lifted directly from the playbook of big tech product development, particularly the Amazon flywheel model and the practice of testing in production on live users.

The Amazon flywheel, created by Jeff Bezos, describes a self-reinforcing business loop in which each improvement feeds the next, gradually building momentum until the wheel turns on its own. In Amazon’s model, lower prices attract more customers, which attract more sellers, which increase selection, which improves the customer experience, which drives more traffic, which enables even lower prices. The wheel accelerates with each rotation.

Minnesota represents the deployment of this exact model for state control. The fraud investigation attracts public support, which justifies enforcement operations, which generate fear in communities, which reduce resistance, which enable expanded operations, which create more data, which improve targeting efficiency, which justify additional funding, which enable larger operations. Each component feeds the next. Each rotation builds momentum.

The parallels are precise:

Testing in Production: Top software companies such as Google, Netflix, and Amazon constantly release new features to a fraction of their traffic to measure the impact. Minnesota serves as exactly this kind of live test environment. Rather than simulating enforcement operations in theoretical scenarios, the administration deployed them on a real population to measure actual effects. The “production environment” is the community itself.

A/B Testing on Live Users: Tech companies run more than 100,000 tests per year, comparing different versions of features to see which performs better. Minnesota allows testing of different enforcement tactics, coordination mechanisms, and narrative strategies against live populations to determine which generates maximum compliance with minimum resistance.

Feature Flags and Rollouts: Feature flags allow engineering teams to expose new software to only fractions of live production traffic, quickly verifying that it works as expected in real time while providing a safe way to roll back any uncaught bugs. The phased escalation in Minnesota—from investigations to frozen funding to mass raids—functions exactly like a feature rollout, testing each capability before expanding deployment.

Iterative Development: Iterative product development backed by working backwards from the customer methodology is a full circle, which rotates in circular motion and scales up the value of business outcomes with each cycle. Each Minnesota operation generates data that informs the next, with continuous refinement based on what works and what doesn’t.

Data-Driven Decision Making: Testing with live users helps uncover bugs and issues that might have been missed in development, ensuring new products and features are stable and can handle high volume. Minnesota reveals which legal challenges materialize, which communities resist, and how much disruption the public tolerates—critical data for scaling operations.

The Big Tech influence is not merely methodological but structural. Palantir’s federal contracts grew from $4.4 million in 2009 to $541.2 million in 2024, and in 2025 nearly doubled to $970.5 million. The company, co-founded by Peter Thiel, has become the operational backbone of the enforcement infrastructure, providing exactly the kind of data integration and real-time analytics that tech companies use to optimize user engagement.

Palantir secured a $30 million contract with ICE in April to build an “Immigration Lifestyle Operating System,” referred to as ImmigrationOS, to track self-deportations, help select targets for arrests, and create an “Immigration Lifecycle Process” to increase the efficiency of deportations. This is product language applied to human beings. The terminology of “lifecycle management” and “operating systems” reveals how tech methodology has been imported wholesale into immigration enforcement.

The connections run deeper. Thiel is an investor in several of Musk’s companies, including SpaceX, Neuralink, and Boring Co., while Musk’s DOGE effort has drawn on the Thiel brain trust, recruiting staffers from his world of philanthropy and business. The operational model being deployed emerged from the same network that built PayPal, Facebook, and Amazon Web Services. These are not government bureaucrats learning tech methodology; these are tech executives implementing government operations using the systems they perfected in commercial environments.

The infrastructure being built makes this explicit. Palantir has been tapped to compile information on people in the United States for a “master database,” creating an easy way to cross-reference sensitive data from tax records, immigration records, and more. This centralized data architecture enables the exact kind of A/B testing, targeting segmentation, and conversion optimization that drive commercial tech platforms. Every person becomes a data point. Every community becomes a test cohort. Every enforcement action generates metrics for optimization.

“The whole secret sauce of Palantir is kind of cross-referencing,” one tech industry observer noted. “It’s one thing to have the IRS have a database, Social Security Administration have a database. As long as they’re not cross-referenced, it’s much less dangerous. But as soon as you cross-reference everything, the government knows about you.”

This is precisely what tech companies do with user data to optimize engagement and conversion. The difference is that in commercial applications, the “conversion” being optimized is a purchase or click. In Minnesota, the “conversion” being optimized is deportation, detention, or community paralysis.

The ethical framework of tech deployment has been imported as well. In Silicon Valley, companies follow the principle of “being humble... maybe we don’t actually know what’s best, let’s look at data and use that to help guide us”. But when this framework is applied to human rights and civil liberties, “data-driven decision making” becomes experimentation on populations without consent. The same methodologies that determine which button color generates more clicks now determine which enforcement tactics generate maximum compliance.

Thirteen former employees of Palantir condemned the company’s work with the Trump administration, writing that “Big Tech, including Palantir, is increasingly complicit, normalizing authoritarianism under the guise of a ‘revolution’ led by oligarchs”. These workers understood what they had helped build. They recognized the infrastructure of optimization and iteration being repurposed from selling products to controlling populations.

The Minnesota operation demonstrates that authoritarian governance in the 21st century will not look like 20th-century totalitarianism. It will look like product deployment. It will use A/B testing to optimize tactics. It will employ data analytics to target populations. It will iterate based on user response metrics. It will scale gradually using feature flags and phased rollouts. It will generate dashboards showing key performance indicators of enforcement efficiency. It will conduct retrospectives to capture lessons learned for the next deployment cycle.

The hyperscaler methodology is designed to find the optimal path to user engagement, removing friction and maximizing conversion. When applied to social control, it becomes a system for finding the optimal path to population compliance, removing resistance, and maximizing enforcement efficiency. The goal is the same—eliminate bugs, increase throughput, scale operations—but the subject has changed from customers to citizens, from users to communities, from engagement to submission.

This is why big tech's support for this administration is not merely financial or ideological but also operational. The methodology being deployed in Minnesota is their methodology. The infrastructure being built is their infrastructure. The optimization frameworks being applied are their frameworks. The government has not simply hired tech companies as contractors; it has adopted their entire operational philosophy and applied it to human populations.

The Shadow Market

In an 1837 painting, A Black teenager stands beside a trio of White children. A recent historical discovery found that the young New Orleanian was an enslaved household servant named Bélizaire.

There is a dimension to Minnesota’s operation that extends beyond social control and into something darker and more mercenary. The systematic separation of families and creation of unaccompanied minors is not merely a consequence of enforcement operations but a predictable outcome that creates specific conditions of vulnerability. These conditions have historical precedent and documented patterns of exploitation that warrant examination.

The elimination of protective mechanisms reveals a deliberate architecture of vulnerability. Project 2025’s explicit call to end T visas for trafficking victims and U visas for crime victims who cooperate with law enforcement does not improve immigration enforcement. It eliminates the primary legal pathways through which trafficking victims can escape their situations and cooperate with authorities. This serves trafficking networks by ensuring victims cannot seek help without facing deportation.

The operational reality in Minnesota and other enforcement zones creates optimal conditions for human trafficking at scale. Mass deportations and detentions are systematically separating parents from children. Detention facilities hold children with inadequate oversight. The speed and scale of operations overwhelms tracking systems, making children harder to locate. Communities paralyzed by fear cannot report abuse or seek help from authorities. These are not incidental failures but structural features of the current approach.

During the first Trump administration, family separation policies created documented catastrophic failures in child tracking. The Office of Refugee Resettlement lost track of thousands of children. Some were released to sponsors who were never properly vetted. Children disappeared into circumstances that remain unknown. These are established facts, not speculation.

The current operations are reproducing these conditions at exponentially larger scale with even less oversight. The hyperscaler methodology applied to enforcement creates velocity that makes tracking impossible. When operations prioritize throughput and efficiency over accountability, children become data points that can be lost in the system. When communities are too afraid to report missing children or seek help, victims become invisible.

Human trafficking networks do not require conspiracy when policy systematically creates the conditions they exploit. They require:

• Vulnerable populations separated from protective adults

• Overwhelmed systems with inadequate tracking

• Communities afraid to cooperate with authorities

• Elimination of legal protections for victims

• Chaos that provides cover for exploitation

Every element is present in Minnesota and being refined for broader deployment.

The wealth and power dynamics surrounding trafficking have been partially exposed through the Epstein case and related investigations. What emerged was evidence of extensive networks connecting powerful figures across finance, politics, technology, and entertainment to the exploitation of vulnerable minors. Many of those connections remain unnamed and uninvestigated. The systems that enabled that exploitation have not been dismantled; they have adapted.

The question that must be asked, however uncomfortable, is whether the current operations are designed with awareness of these dynamics. The cruelty may serve multiple purposes simultaneously. It generates the fear necessary for social control. It creates the chaos necessary for exploitation. It produces the vulnerability that becomes valuable to those who traffic in human beings.

We cannot definitively establish that current enforcement policies are designed specifically to facilitate trafficking for particular networks. The evidentiary standard for such claims is high, and direct proof may never be publicly available. But we can establish that:

• The policies being implemented create optimal conditions for trafficking

• Protections for victims are being systematically eliminated

• Oversight mechanisms are being deliberately weakened

• The scale of family separation is unprecedented

• Those designing these policies have access to data showing what previous separation policies produced

• The choice to expand rather than correct these systems is therefore informed

Whether trafficking is the intended outcome or a predictable consequence that is deemed acceptable becomes a distinction without meaningful difference when the result is thousands of vulnerable children separated from protection in conditions that enable exploitation.

The technical infrastructure being deployed makes this more concerning. Palantir’s data integration systems create comprehensive profiles of individuals and families. These profiles include immigration status, family relationships, locations, and movement patterns. In commercial applications, such data enables targeting and optimization. In enforcement applications, it enables efficient family separation. But such data would also enable identifying the most vulnerable targets—children separated from families, communities too afraid to seek help, individuals without legal protection.

The same databases that optimize deportation efficiency could optimize trafficking operations. The same surveillance infrastructure that tracks immigration status could track vulnerable populations for exploitation. The same data integration that enables coordinated enforcement could enable coordinated trafficking. Whether this is happening requires investigation that has not occurred and may be deliberately prevented.

What we can say with certainty is that the system being built in Minnesota and prepared for national deployment creates industrial-scale vulnerability. It separates families systematically. It eliminates victim protections deliberately. It overwhelms tracking mechanisms predictably. It paralyzes communities effectively. And it does all of this using optimization frameworks designed to maximize efficiency and scale.

The cruelty is not incidental. The chaos is not accidental. The vulnerability is not unforeseen. These are products of the system as designed. Whether they serve only the political objective of social control or also serve the criminal enterprise of human trafficking remains an open question that demands investigation. But the conditions for both are being systematically created, refined through iteration, and prepared for expansion.

The children being separated in Minnesota are not abstractions or statistics. They are human beings made vulnerable by policy choices. Some will be reunited with families. Others will enter systems designed to protect them but lacking resources to do so. And some will disappear into exploitation that the current infrastructure makes both possible and difficult to trace.

This is the darkest product of the rehearsal in Minnesota: not just the normalization of authoritarian tactics or the optimization of social control, but the systematic creation of vulnerability at scale. The wheel turns, generating fear, compliance, and exploitation in self-reinforcing cycles. The infrastructure built to control populations creates the conditions to exploit them. The data systems designed to optimize enforcement could optimize trafficking. The methodology imported from tech deployment treats human beings as resources to be processed, optimized, and converted.

Recognition of this dimension does not require proof of conspiracy. It requires acknowledgment of what the documented evidence shows: that the policies being implemented, the protections being eliminated, the chaos being generated, and the vulnerability being created all serve the interests of those who exploit human beings. Whether by design or by tolerance, the result is the same. The rehearsal in Minnesota is testing not just mechanisms of control but mechanisms of exploitation, preparing infrastructure that enables both.

Recognizing the Rehearsal

The convergence of Minnesota’s Medicaid crisis and immigration enforcement was not coincidental but conditional. The fraud investigation created the conditions necessary for expanded enforcement operations by destabilizing communities, destroying service infrastructure, eroding trust, and providing narrative justification. What followed was the systematic deployment of tactics designed to generate maximum fear and disruption while establishing legal and operational precedents for future use.

To call this a rehearsal is to recognize that Minnesota is not the final act but preparation for a broader performance. The infrastructure being built, the tactics being refined, the legal framework being established, and the institutional acquiescence being secured all point toward expanded deployment. The fact that this is happening iteratively, with each operation learning from previous ones and informing future ones, makes it more dangerous than a single authoritarian impulse.

But what makes Minnesota particularly chilling is the recognition that the operational model being deployed is not novel authoritarian innovation but the direct application of commercial technology development practices. The same methodologies that optimize shopping carts are optimizing deportations. The same A/B testing frameworks that increase click-through rates are increasing arrest efficiency. The same data integration systems that personalize advertisements are targeting communities. The same iterative development cycles that improve user experience are refining social control.

The product being manufactured in Minnesota is not immigration enforcement but a system of social control that uses fear as its primary mechanism. It is a system that can be directed toward any population, justified by any crisis, deployed with minimal legal constraint, and scaled to any size. It is a system that erodes the boundary between law enforcement and military occupation, between investigation and intimidation, between justice and terror. And it operates according to proven principles of hyperscale technology deployment.

Recognizing Minnesota as a rehearsal requires us to see beyond the immediate crisis to the infrastructure being constructed for future use. It requires us to understand that the tactics being normalized today will determine what is considered acceptable tomorrow. It requires us to recognize that the systematic paralysis of vulnerable communities through fear and disruption is not a side effect of enforcement policy but its primary objective. And it requires us to understand that the operational model being deployed was perfected in commercial environments and is now being applied to governance.

The rehearsal in Minnesota is nearly complete. The data has been collected. The metrics have been analyzed. The conversion rates have been optimized. The infrastructure has been validated in production. The flywheel is beginning to spin. Now the learning phase begins to understand whether the performance that follows will face meaningful resistance or whether the infrastructure of state terrorism will expand unchallenged, iteration by iteration, community by community, A/B test by A/B test, until it becomes the permanent architecture of American governance.

Minnesota has shown us what is coming. It has demonstrated not just that these operations are possible but that they can be executed using the proven methodologies of big tech product deployment. The optimization has begun. The scaling is underway. The feature is rolling out. Whether we choose to see it and what we do with that knowledge will determine whether the rehearsal leads to a larger tragedy or becomes a warning that prevents one.

The wheel is turning. Do we have the collective will to stop it before it achieves the self-sustaining momentum that the Amazon flywheel model is designed to create—the point where it no longer requires external force but turns by itself, faster and faster, generating its own momentum through the systematic destruction of resistance, the continuous refinement of tactics, and the inexorable expansion of state power optimized through data-driven iteration on live human populations.

Immediate Individual Actions

Document Everything

• Record (legally) any ICE activity you witness - license plates, badge numbers, locations, times

• Screenshot and archive threatening social media posts, policy announcements, official statements

• Keep copies of all personal documents in multiple secure locations (physical and encrypted digital)

• Document your family relationships with birth certificates, marriage licenses, photos, school records

Know Your Rights

• You do not have to open your door to ICE without a judicial warrant (signed by a judge, not an ICE warrant)

• You have the right to remain silent - do not answer questions about immigration status or birthplace

• Do not sign anything without a lawyer

• Do not lie or provide false documents - but you can refuse to answer

• Create a family plan: who picks up children if you’re detained, emergency contacts, location of documents

Financial Protection

• Keep emergency cash in secure locations (not just banks)

• Set up trusted person with power of attorney for financial/medical decisions

• Ensure multiple people can access accounts if you’re detained

• Document all assets in case of seizure

Community-Level Organization

Rapid Response Networks

• Join or create local rapid response teams that deploy when ICE activity is reported

• Establish phone trees and secure communication channels (Signal, not SMS)

• Organize know-your-rights training in multiple languages

• Create buddy systems for vulnerable community members

Sanctuary Spaces

• Work with religious institutions, schools, and community centers to understand sanctuary policies

• Organize safe houses for those needing immediate protection

• Create networks for hiding people if necessary (yes, this has legal risks, but civil disobedience has historical precedent)

Community Defense

• Organize legal observer training to monitor enforcement activities

• Create bail funds and legal defense funds

• Establish networks of immigration attorneys willing to do pro bono work

• Form accompaniment programs where community members escort vulnerable individuals to appointments

Legal and Political Action

Support Legal Challenges

• Donate to organizations filing lawsuits: ACLU, National Immigration Law Center, MALDEF, local immigration nonprofits

• Support class action lawsuits against unconstitutional enforcement

• Fund legal representation for those detained

Political Pressure

• Call your representatives DAILY - it works when volume is sustained

• Attend town halls and make officials answer questions publicly

• Support local officials who refuse cooperation with ICE

• Vote in every election, including local ones (sheriffs, prosecutors, judges matter enormously)

State and Local Resistance

• Push your state legislature to pass sanctuary state laws

• Demand your city/county refuse ICE cooperation and not share databases

• Support ballot initiatives limiting law enforcement cooperation with ICE

• Advocate for state funding that replaces frozen federal funds

Economic Resistance

Strategic Boycotts

• Identify and publicize companies supporting these policies (Palantir, certain tech contractors)

• Organize consumer boycotts with clear demands

• Pressure institutional investors to divest from enforcement contractors

• Target companies in officials’ districts

Worker Actions

• Support and organize work stoppages in response to raids

• Join or form unions that will protect immigrant workers

• Document wage theft and labor violations (creates legal leverage)

• General strikes when enforcement reaches crisis levels

Information Warfare

Counter the Narrative

• Share verified information through social networks

• Combat disinformation immediately with facts

• Amplify voices of those directly affected

• Document and publicize abuses widely

• Support independent journalism covering these issues

Preserve Evidence

• Archive government websites and documents before they’re changed

• Screenshot policy announcements and official statements

• Create redundant backups of important documentation

• Share archives with journalists and researchers

Building Alternative Infrastructure

Mutual Aid Networks

• Organize food distribution, childcare, housing for affected families

• Create employment networks that don’t require documentation

• Establish healthcare access outside official systems

• Build education systems for children pulled from schools

Underground Railroad 2.0

• Establish safe passage routes for those fleeing enforcement

• Create networks providing shelter, transportation, and resources

• Organize across state lines for broader protection

• Learn from historical resistance movements

Professional Leveraging

If You’re a Lawyer

• Offer pro bono immigration representation

• File habeas corpus petitions for detained individuals

• Challenge warrantless arrests and searches

• Pursue civil rights lawsuits against officials

If You’re in Healthcare

• Refuse to share patient information with ICE

• Provide care regardless of immigration status

• Document health impacts of enforcement for legal cases

• Advocate for sanctuary hospital policies

If You’re an Educator

• Know your legal obligations (and limits) regarding ICE

• Refuse to provide student information without proper warrants

• Create safety protocols for students at risk

• Organize educator resistance networks

If You’re in Tech

• Refuse to work on enforcement-related projects

• Organize worker resistance within companies

• Leak information about problematic systems (carefully and legally protected)

• Build tools that protect vulnerable communities

If You’re in Media

• Investigate and expose enforcement abuses

• Center affected communities in reporting

• Challenge official narratives with evidence

• Protect sources who reveal wrongdoing

What History Shows Works

The Most Effective Historical Tactics:

1. Mass Non-Cooperation: When enough people refuse to comply, systems become unenforceable

2. Economic Disruption: Strikes, boycotts, and economic pressure force policy changes

3. Legal Flooding: Overwhelming courts with challenges slows enforcement

4. Public Exposure: Making abuses visible creates political pressure

5. Protected Spaces: Sanctuaries limit enforcement reach

6. Underground Networks: Hidden support systems keep vulnerable people safe

Critical Warnings

What NOT to Do:

• Don’t engage in violence - it provides justification for escalation

• Don’t share sensitive information on unsecured platforms

• Don’t assume any digital communication is private

• Don’t forget that infiltration of resistance networks is standard practice

• Don’t burn out - this is long-term, pace yourself

Legal Risks to Understand:

• Harboring undocumented people carries federal charges (but civil disobedience has precedent)

• Interfering with federal officers is a crime (but documentation and observation are protected)

• Lying to federal agents is a crime (but silence is your right)

• Some forms of resistance will have consequences - decide what you’re willing to risk

The Long Game

Building Toward Structural Change:

The Minnesota operation and broader enforcement regime can only be dismantled through:

1. Sustained political organizing that changes who holds power

2. Legal precedents that constrain enforcement authority

3. Cultural shift that rejects cruelty as policy

4. Economic consequences that make enforcement costly

5. International pressure that treats this as a human rights crisis

6. Historical documentation that prevents future repetition

The rehearsal in Minnesota succeeds if people are paralyzed by fear. It fails if communities organize, resist, protect each other, and make enforcement so costly, visible, and politically damaging that it cannot continue.

The ultimate proactive step: Recognize that this is not a temporary crisis but a fundamental fight over what kind of society we will be. Act accordingly. Organize for the long term. Build networks now that will sustain resistance for years if necessary. And remember that every authoritarian regime in history has been resisted by ordinary people who decided the risk of action was less than the certainty of inaction.