Online Conservatives Cry ‘Insurrection’ Following Discovery of Anti-ICE Tracking Groups in Minnesota Organizing on Encrypted Chat Platforms

Chat rooms located on the encrypted communications platform Signal are drawing scrutiny from federal officials investigating whether participants are offering more than just ICE monitoring and legal support to detained illegal immigrants and instead are providing instructions on how to interfere with or harm federal law enforcement efforts.An independent journalist named Cam Higby raised the specter of anti-ICE chat rooms on the Signal encrypted chat platform over the weekend following widespread unrest in Minneapolis. Members of the groups have confirmed they have been operating on the platform since at least late last year. The main chat room “infiltrated” by Mr. Higby, which hosts a self-described ICE Watch group, boasts thousands of participants and donors contributing to a rapid response fund for illegal immigrants arrested during ICE raids in Minneapolis. The room has reportedly directed at least $550,000 to independent support networks.Fox News has described the encrypted chat groups part of a “sophisticated database” of agitators who mobilize in a “strategic pattern of organized interference” to ensure that confrontations with ICE agents go sideways. Opponents are likening the groups to insurrectionists akin to the January 6, 2021, crowd. Two protesters recently shot to death by Border Patrol agents during anti-ICE rallies, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, are said to have been members of rapid response organizations operating on Signal. Pretti was killed Saturday by federal officers after he intervened to assist a woman being detained by ICE. Attempts by federal officials to deflect blame for his point-blank shooting have ignited a firestorm of objections to ICE operations at Minneapolis.One ICE Watch group which has sent protesters across the city in pursuit of law enforcement officers, also operates a website called StandWithMinnesota.com. The chatroom’s informational page, which was scrubbed and rebuilt after Mr. Higby went public with it on his X channel, offers advice on how to prevent getting in trouble for participating in the Signal chats.“When joining unvetted Signal chats, it is highly recommended to use a pseudonym and be careful about the information you share. If you wouldn’t want it read back to you in a courtroom, or put into a screenshot, don’t put it in an unvetted chat,” reads the introduction, according to screenshots taken by Mr. Higby and others.The accompanying training manuals also describe verification procedures for administrators and encourage interested individuals to take surveys to make sure they are prepared for the potential pitfalls they could face for confronting ICE agents. Those bits of advice, say opponents, prove that the chat groups are not merely kind-hearted activists attempting to protect immigrants, but insurrectionists aimed at undermining law enforcement.On Monday FBI Director Kash Patel said his agency is investigating whether the Signal groups are more than rapid response teams, but a cover for obstructionists.“That sort of Signal chat being coordinated with individuals — not just locally in Minnesota, but maybe even around the country — if that leads to a break in the federal statute or a violation of some law, then we are going to arrest people. You cannot create a scenario that illegally entraps and puts law enforcement in harm’s way,” Mr. Patel told podcaster Benny Johnson. Mr. Patel said several arrests are coming Monday and Tuesday of individuals who doxxed, or publicly identified, and struck federal agents and “used coordinated attacks to threaten their families.”Following Pretti’s death, President Trump issued a statement Monday saying that he is sending his border czar, Tom Homan, to Minneapolis to meet with Governor Tim Walz and Mayor Jacob Frey so they can work together to quell the chaos.The White House’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said the president is seeking “very simple and common-sense points of cooperation so that ICE and local law enforcement can work together.” She acknowledged that the hostile environment is taking a toll on officer morale. “Just imagine if there were left wing agitators, or agitators of any kind, who were in your face, who were doxxing you, who were harassing you, who were physically threatening you, who were biting off your fingers. In the case of two Border Patrol agents we saw this past weekend in Minneapolis, that would make it very difficult for you to show up and do your job,” Ms. Leavitt told reporters. Supporters of the rapid response teams insist they are merely providing tools to assist families of individuals detained by ICE. “We’ve got a couple groups on the app Signal that we would love for you to join, whether or not you want to be a part of the resistance network,” state representative Alex D. Falconer told members of Minneapolis’s immigrant community in a meeting last December. “I fully understand you may not be comfortable with that, but you can help us in a lot of ways by sending an alert that if you see any suspicious vehicles, any traffic, if you know of anybody that is being targeted that’s being detained, we have resources immediately available.”Local officials add that following ICE officers is completely within protesters’ rights. “You can follow an ICE agent. That is not breaking the law. They cannot harass you; they cannot tear gas you. You can legally observe their activity. Stay out there, stay on your foot patrols, stay safe, and stay vigilant,” said the president of the Minneapolis City Council, Elliott Payne.Others, like crypto-technologist and podcaster Brian Krassenstein, have been taunting conservatives over their claims that the chatrooms violate RICO laws or are otherwise illegal. “Yes, It’s true. I’m in the Signal group chat. Cry some more MAGA,” he wrote on X. “To those who are also in the chat. Don’t let them intimidate you. There is nothing illegal about it. Please be peaceful and let’s work together to make sure our country doesn’t continue to fall to authoritarian control. Protest works!” he wrote.Mr. Patel said he is fine with citizens exercising their First and Second Amendment rights, but his job is to ensure that law enforcement has the “security and safety to do their jobs.”“It is my job to adjudicate the difference when there is a breaking of federal statute or state law in the furtherance of a crime or violence against law enforcement officers,” he said.

Online Conservatives Cry ‘Insurrection’ Following Discovery of Anti-ICE Tracking Groups in Minnesota Organizing on Encrypted Chat Platforms

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