The leftist group involved in a deadly Jan. 7 incident with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Minnesota is one of countless ICE-tracking networks using confrontational tactics nationwide.
Thirty-seven-year-old Renee Good volunteered for the Minnesota branch of “ICE Watch,” a web of residents notifying each other about nearby ICE operations in order to document them in person, before she allegedly hit an agent with her car and was fatally shot, former acquaintances and law enforcement officials told the press. Similar self-proclaimed watchdogs have emerged or gained new relevance under President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda, according to online directories by allied groups seeking to raise awareness.
A crowdsourced map of alleged ICE activity throughout the U.S., complete with photos and license plate numbers, is also available on “Stop ICE,” an anonymously-run website featured on Minnesota ICE Watch’s Linktree page. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) filed a subpoena seeking to identify an Instagram user affiliated with the site in September due to alleged “doxxing,” but withdrew the request after litigation led by the American Civil Liberties Union and Civil Liberties Defense Center, court records show. The Instagram user denied any wrongdoing.
Minnesota ICE Watch did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment via Instagram and could not otherwise be reached.
ICE observers commonly use hotlines, social media posts flagging raid locations and “rapid response” crews who follow and film agents, a DCNF analysis found. From “sanctuary” jurisdictions that forbid police cooperation with ICE to conservative states, they have normalized the risky style of anti-ICE activism that led to Good’s death.
California
The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) partnered with other organizations in January 2025 to launch the Los Angeles Rapid Response Network, a cadre of activists who can be summoned to follow an ICE operation through its publicly available hotline, City News Service reported.
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) California President David Huerta and others were “activated” as part of the rapid response network on June 6 during large-scale ICE raids, according to leftist magazine Jacobin. Huerta was arrested that morning after federal agents said he and other protesters blocked their vehicles.
The SEIU, CHIRLA and other activist groups then took to social media to rally sympathizers to a Los Angeles federal building, after which the Los Angeles area was engulfed in violent, costly riots for days, the DCNF previously reported. Huerta faces up to one year in prison on a misdemeanor charge if convicted, court records show.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) also charged 12 people in October, including members of activist group VC Defensa, with violence during a July ICE raid on a cannabis farm in Camarillo. The mob allegedly built a blockade with farm equipment to keep agents out and threw rocks at their vehicles.
“VC Defensa ‘Rapid Response Network’ members also conduct surveillance of DHS office buildings and alert the community to the presence of federal agents within their neighborhoods,” reads a DOJ statement explaining the charges.
The organization’s website claims it does not “interfere with or obstruct law enforcement operations,” “break any laws” or “doxx any law enforcement officers.”
Anti-ICE group Unión del Barrio also saw one of its members arrested in August while conducting “community patrol” during a Los Angeles immigration raid, according to its social media posts. Authorities accused her of impeding agents but released her without charges, KTLA 5 reported.
Unión del Barrio leader Ron Gochez, a public schoolteacher, has repeatedly declared that his goal is not for people to merely observe ICE agents, but to drive them away, the DCNF previously reported.
“There’s a reason why the raids went down in Los Angeles: ’cause the people were organizing and kicking them out of the barrios all over the city … They caught some bricks,” Gochez told a crowd of supporters in October, referencing when anti-ICE rioters threw objects in June.
CHIRLA, the SEIU and VC Defensa did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment, and Unión del Barrio declined to comment.
Oregon
“MigraWatch” activists are available throughout Oregon to follow and record ICE when called via hotline, according to the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition (PIRC), which runs the program with the city of Portland’s backing. The PIRC relocated to a building across the street from Portland’s ICE facility in October, The Portland Tribune reported.
In a November memo obtained by the DCNF, the city instructed all employees to call the PIRC if they spot ICE activity and assist in recording agents if they can do so safely. “Information collected by MigraWatch may be posted on social media to inform the community and prompt legal support and mutual aid to be mobilized,” the memo says.
The PIRC, founded in 2005, also conducts MigraWatch trainings, sets them up to receive text alerts for ICE incidents and helps “connect volunteers with local rapid response groups so communities can support one another directly,” according to an FAQ page. The PIRC did not respond to a request for comment.
The DMV
Washington, D.C.-based Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid (MSMA) has its own immigration hotline and posts alerts of alleged ICE sightings in the D.C., Maryland and Virginia area on social media. MSMA also provides online guides with detailed steps on recognizing DHS vehicles and personnel. Unlike others across the U.S., the group explicitly encourages restraint for those documenting ICE activity.
“Do not engage,” MSMA said in a January 2025 Instagram post. “You could end up making things worse for the person being targeted.”
The organization formed in 2022 in response to Texas transporting illegal immigrants from the southern border to D.C., according to its website. It launched the 24/7 hotline on Trump’s Inauguration Day.
A MSMA organizer told local media the hotline’s calls jumped by the hundreds in August after Trump flooded the capital with more federal law enforcement presence, including immigration agents. Democratic D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has since directed local police to cooperate with ICE, disappointing local liberal officials.
MSMA did not respond to a request for comment.
Red States
ICE-monitoring networks also emerged throughout 2025 in several Republican border states that favor cooperation with ICE, leftist outlet Truthout reported.
The Texas branch of Brown Berets — rooted in a nationwide Black Panther Party-inspired movement of the same name — follows and records ICE activity to warnillegal immigrants, according to its social media content and interviews with local publications. The group El Movimiento DFW goes as far as offering training for a “Community ICE Watch Program,” using encrypted messaging on Signal, providing a digital map of possible hotspots for immigration enforcement and distributing supply kits with whistles for volunteers to blow when they see agents, its website and Instagram posts show. Brown Berets and El Movimiento DFW did not respond to requests for comment via email and Instagram, respectively.
In Florida, a group called Defensa Gulf Coast emerged online in 2025 with a phone hotline and a goal to “monitor and interrupt ICE in our area,” citing the “success” of other activists nationwide as inspiration. The organization did not respond to a request for comment.
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