A University of Minnesota student group has emerged as a leader behind illegal—and sometimes violent—anti-ICE agitation gripping Minneapolis. It's a significant shift for the school's Students for a Democratic Society chapter, which roughly one year ago stormed a campus building in an anti-Israel raid, trapping employees inside and causing tens of thousands of dollars in property damage.
The group, known as UMN SDS, organized a Jan. 28 protest outside a hotel located on campus that was allegedly housing ICE agents. Dozens of agitators swarmed the Graduate by Hilton and rocked police barricades, pounded on drums and pans, set off noisemakers, and shouted "Fuck ICE" at local and state law enforcement. University police eventually declared it an unlawful assembly and arrested 67 protesters, including Jack Louis Nimz—a public school teacher, the president of SDS's national arm, and one of the radicals arrested for storming the campus building in October 2024.
It was the third time in as many weeks that UMN SDS rallied more than 100 radicals outside the hotel, encouraging supporters to confront the "homicidal kidnappers" it claimed were residing there. At a Jan. 13 protest it organized, three agitators were arrested after the crowd damaged property and created "hazardous conditions for the public and law enforcement," according to the University of Minnesota. The next week, while promoting a Jan. 21 protest on Instagram, the group wrote, "We're not done just because Minneapolis pigs tried to scare us away."
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