With lessons learned in ICE surge, Twin Cities advocates shift to 'election defense'

Months after training thousands of Minnesota residents to observe ICE operations, a local group has shifted to training voters in what they call democracy defense. Trainers aim is to prepare voters to respond if federal officials interfere with people’s ability to cast their ballots next month.

On a recent Sunday, about two dozen people filtered into a mostly windowless room at a library in the southern suburbs of the Twin Cities to get trained on election protection. Jessi Meliza, one of the volunteer trainers for the day, got active this winter during the ICE surge into Minnesota with the Unidos project Monarca, which trained tens of thousands of Minnesotans about their rights to observe and document the actions of federal agents.

“Constitutional observer [training] is very straightforward. There's a triggering action. You know what to do. You do it, and then you go home,” Meliza said. “With election defense, it's much more nebulous, much more conceptual. So we're really focusing on what mechanisms allow things like fascism to take hold, and then what does that look like to combat it in a meaningful way?”

The trainers walk participants through basic steps they can take: voting early, driving neighbors to the polls, or identifying misinformation. They ground the training in Constitutional language, but Meliza said they also emphasize how important it is to build trust and relationships with your neighbors.

“Nobody really knows the right way to do it, but [we want to] dispel some of the hopelessness, show people they do have power, and then give some actionable things they can do toward feeling better in general,” Meliza said.

Participants also consider how they’d react in what may seem like far-fetched scenarios, like the collapse of communication networks. How would they stay informed and in contact with allies?

“What the other side is counting on is that we're not going to react in an organized manner, that we're just going to descend into chaos, and everyone's going to bump into walls and be screaming, ‘Everything is on fire!’” Meliza said. “That's really what we're trying to combat.”

Residents already wary of federal intervention after Metro Surge

Minnesota residents have been on edge following the federal government’s surge into Minnesota this winter, which included two fatal shootings of civilians by federal agents. The Trump administration has also pressured election officials across the country by seeking access to voter rolls, including in Minnesota, although federal judges have so far batted down those efforts.

According to reporting from NPR, the Department of Justice plans to monitor elections in Ramsey and Hennepin Counties. State officials say the federal government also sent monitors during primary elections in August, but the monitors did not interfere with the process.

The group’s election protection trainings have already been going on for months and will continue until the election. Unidos Minnesota Executive Director Emilia Gonzalez Avalos said Monarca was launched in 2025 to help provide infrastructure for people to organize themselves.

“Monarca is like a vertebrate. It expands when it needs to expand, and it contracts when it needs to contract,” Avalos said. “These are basic organizing lessons that sometimes we forget: You support people making a choice, sometimes you get out of the way.”

The groups shifted their focus to elections partly to ensure people are prepared if the ICE observer trainings during the surge gave Minnesotans the tools to help protect their immigrant neighbors, Avalos said. The next stage is for people to realize that they also have a personal stake in this democracy and that elections need to be protected to maintain anyone’s rights. She said it’s also a way to be sure that the grassroots muscles Minnesotans exercised during the surge don’t atrophy.

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon wants to reassure voters that the state has strong laws governing elections, including limits on how federal law enforcement can interact with voters. Law enforcement can’t preemptively be placed at the polls, but can be summoned to a precinct if there’s a disruption. But, generally, no one who isn’t an election volunteer, voter or worker in the building is allowed within 100 feet of the entrance.

“I'm confident not only that we have really good and precise laws in place, but that our partners at local units of government will enforce those laws,” Simon said.

Simon urges anyone who sees anything inappropriate at their voting place to talk to the head precinct judge and contact his office. If US Department of Justice observers do visit precincts, as they did during the primaries, state officials would investigate to ensure they are following the rules.

As the election approaches, Simon said voters should be wary of disinformation and seek out credible sources. But if something unexpected does happen, he said Minnesota and other states will be ready at the institutional level. They’ve been planning with election officials and attorneys general from across the country.

“Sadly, this year one of the hazards potentially is that the federal government will do something that will interfere directly or indirectly with the election,” Simon said. “It may not happen. I hope it doesn't happen. But we have to drill and war game those things, and we have been doing that now for months.”

Moriah O’Malley, now a leader with the group, said she considered herself just a bit of an activist before the surge. She’d call her congresspeople or attend a protest. But these sorts of trainings have opened her up to the possibility that people organizing their own neighborhoods and communities can be a transformative force in a democracy.

“I recognize that the skills and experience that I have is valuable to contribute,” O’Malley said. “When we all combine those, we can create a much better solution than the world that we have been given so far, and we can really craft the future that we deserve.”

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