I’m writing this on the night of January 24, 2026, at the end of a day filled with news from Minneapolis, where, at 9 this morning, ICE shot an innocent man after dragging him to the ground and pistol whipping him. The people in charge of the occupation of American have been lying about this extrajudicial execution all day, in the same way that they have been lying about the Minneapolis killing of an innocent women behind the wheel of her car on January 7 and in the same way that they have been lying about the danger they claim Somali immigrants present to the city. They are lying about this murder like they have been lying for the past year about the people they have been brutalizing, dragging to concentration camps, disappearing. They lie brazenly, insultingly; they lie like they breathe.
One day there will be a reckoning for these people, for the things they have done and the lies they have told. For the kidnapping of children, for the violence, for the abuse of the legal system that has allowed them to claim that they are all immune from legal responsibility for the crimes they are committing. I can’t make myself believe in the arc of the moral universe bending toward justice, any more; at the very least, it’s too damn long. But with King in my ears and the beautiful bravery and stubbornness and outrage of the people of the Twin Cities in my eyes, I can hope that day is coming, and coming soon.
Maybe we can follow their example and brave the cold and put ourselves between our immigrant neighbors and these people who’ve decided that they—and those who don’t want to see them brutalized and disappeared—are the enemy within. What could be more American than wanting to become American, than coming here from somewhere else for the promise of becoming one of us? The people criminalizing this desire–ICE, the ironically named Department of Homeland Security, the administration championing their crimes–could in one way not be less American, but they’ve always been here, always been part of us. To borrow from Walt Kelly on a very different threat: in Minneapolis, we have met the enemy, and he is us. We need to catch these people out in their lies and give them their day in court. And we need to welcome the people Mainers (who are under attack in Lewiston as we speak) call “from away”–we need to welcome them to stay and help us be better.
Samuel Cohen 