About Defend the 612

On Dec 1, the federal government initiated ‘Operation Metro Surge’ in the Twin Cities — deploying ICE and other federal enforcement agencies to Minneapolis, St. Paul and the surrounding suburbs.

In the days since – as Somali, Latinx and immigrant communities have faced relentless harassment, intimidation, and abduction, detention, and deportation – hundreds of thousands of community members across dozens of neighborhoods and cities have mounted hyper-local decentralized community defense structures and actions to protect their communities. Through organizing their own autonomous, community-based, decentralized rapid response networks, neighbors have kept each other informed about ICE activity in real-time and have quickly come together to actively protect their family, friends, neighbors, blocks, schools, places of worship, neighborhoods, and cities.

Every day there are more and more people with the energy and willingness and commitment to be active and take risks to protect their community from militarization, occupation, kidnappings, abductions, and violence. Many neighborhoods in Minneapolis have already created support and Rapid Response groups with emerging structures and processes for getting involved; others are in process and searching for each other. What is true across the entire Twin Cities metro is that none of us are alone.

Defend the 612 is a grassroots volunteer attempt to help community members and neighbors get connected to one another.