Duelling rallies planned in Minneapolis as ICE keeps area on edge

By Brad Brooks

MINNEAPOLIS, Jan 17 (Reuters) – Even as tensions remain high after the killing of Renee Good by a federal agent, Minneapolis braced on Saturday for a rally organized by an online activist who took part in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

A counter-protest organized by the People’s Action Coalition Against Trump is expected to take place nearby and clashes were feared, leading state authorities to put the Minneapolis National Guard on alert to respond if needed, officials said. Minneapolis police in SWAT gear boarded buses and armored carriers and headed downtown, where the protests were expected to kick off around 1 p.m. local time.

Jake Lang, one of more than 1,500 people pardoned by President Donald Trump after their criminal convictions related to the January 6 event, said his “anti-fraud” march would begin at Minneapolis City Hall, where he vowed to burn copies of the Koran and lead people on a march for about two miles to the Cedar Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis, where many Somali immigrants live.

Residents vowed to blockade the neighborhood and not let the marchers into the area.

Trump has repeatedly invoked a scandal around the theft of federal funds intended for social-welfare programs in Minnesota as a rationale for sending thousands of immigration enforcement agents into Minnesota.

Lang, who has made anti-Muslim and antisemitic comments, has said he wants to secure the United States for white Christians. He has been present at small pro-ICE rallies in Minneapolis this week.

Some 3,000 agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents have descended on Minneapolis and St. Paul in recent weeks. An ICE agent fatally shot Good, a U.S. citizen and mother of three, behind the wheel of her car on January 7, igniting large and heated protests against Trump’s deportation efforts in the metro area.

The situation has set Minnesota’s Democratic leadership at odds with Trump, whose Justice Department has opened an investigation into Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.

(Reporting by Brad Brooks; Editing by Sergio Non, Rod Nickel)