The architecture of resistance: America's year of mobilizing against ICE

The architecture of resistance: America’s year of mobilizing against ICE highlights how communities organized to monitor and limit federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity. In a second term of President Donald Trump, the Department of Homeland Security occupied major U.S. cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minneapolis, prompting rapid, coordinated pushback. The article describes people taking roles from 3D-printing whistles to tracking ICE vehicle license plates and helping shelter displaced families, including continued activity during raids, killings, and mass detentions. The networks were built over years, starting with data collection after the 1965 Watts uprisings, and later work by the Black Panther Party and San Diego’s Unión del Barrio training locals to monitor the Border Patrol. By December’s ICE Operation Metro Surge, many Minneapolis businesses offered multilingual know-your-rights materials. Those same networks remain in place as ICE activity is ramped up again, enabling sustained scrutiny and protest.