[Townhall] Joe wrote about the shooting of Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis. It was another incident where Democrats screamed bloody murder, the liberal media repeated the same line, and social media was aflame. We don’t know if this was murder or not. We need an investigation, and the state of Minnesota must start cooperating with federal immigration authorities unless they want to create more situations where people get killed. Pretti was armed with a handgun during the kerfuffle that led to him being shot. The city is once again a war zone, but reporter Cam Higby dropped a bombshell last night: the anti-ICE Signal chat that’s been used to coordinate operations against federal immigration agents and officials has been infiltrated and exposed. Higby got inside and learned as much as he could. Pretti was a member of the group, along with an alleged former campaign strategist for Tim Walz. Also, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan is in the chat, too.
| Lots of tweets at the link. Well worth scrolling down the article, then going to the tweets themselves and scrolling through the threads. PJMedia addressed the same story from a slightly different angle. Again, go to the tweets and scroll down: |
And he brought a loaded gun.
Cam Higby from Newsmax spent days undercover inside the Signal messaging groups these activists use to coordinate their efforts. What he found was stunning in its sophistication. These aren't just angry citizens showing up to protest. This is a well-oiled machine running 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The groups use emojis next to members' names to denote specific roles. You've got mobile patrols driving around searching for federal vehicles. Foot patrols are working the streets. Dispatchers are running constant calls directing people where ICE has been spotted and how best to interfere with their operations. License plate checkers maintain databases of known federal vehicles. Even medics are standing by. They're running shift changes, clocking in and out, just like any organized operation.
All to stop the enforcement of federal immigration laws.
Each area of Minneapolis has its own group chat, with the city carved up into patrol zones that tell activists exactly where to operate. The chats max out at 1,000 members by midday and get deleted and recreated daily to avoid detection.
These people track federal agents all night long. Higby captured screenshots at 2 a.m. showing dispatchers calling for observers at locations with potential targets.
They even use a military-style system called SALUTE.
Alex Pretti was a member of the Kingfield Signal ICE watch group. Jeanne Massey, who coordinates rapid response for these networks, confirmed Pretti's involvement. She describes her role as patrolling neighborhoods when ICE is spotted, alerting residents, and witnessing what she calls the "horror" of enforcement operations. After Pretti was shot, Massey rushed to the scene along with many other Minneapolis residents. She claims she watched ICE officers charge into the crowd and deploy tear gas against people who had gathered there.
| Red State approaches from a third direction. Again, tweets to explore: |
Both of these threads bear reading, but here are a few key points:
These training materials and the setup of this online system indicate that someone with some money is behind all this. These materials mention "patrol training" and mention the use of the Signal chat system. Mr. Higby presents some rather sophisticated maps, with the city broken up into patrol zones, based loosely, they say, on city council districts. Is this intended to put pressure on local politicians? Or to involve them?
The materials also mention a database of license plate numbers of known ICE vehicles. There are several videos, including one in which an ordinary citizen is followed by protestors by mistake; it doesn't take a lot of imagination to know how badly wrong that could go. One slide presents the SALUTE acronym used by United States military forces for reporting observations of the enemy: Size/Strength, Actions/Activity, Location, Uniform, Time/Date, and Equipment. Are there former military behind some of this? Not necessarily; this SALUTE process isn't exactly top secret stuff, and it's a logical way to organize a report. But it reveals a level of preparation and organization that isn't commonly found in supposedly spontaneous protests.
This appears to be an organized, funded, and fairly sophisticated opposition.
RedState's own Jennifer Van Laar has independent confirmation of Mr. Higby's reporting:
She writes:
This goes along with what I was told by SIGINT sources earlier this week, which was that they are seeing increased chatter from these well-organized groups on the left discussing using EFP's, IED's, complex ambush setups and doing rifle and pistol drills designed for shot placement where body armor does not protect.
The information about how to bypass body armor, the rifle and pistol training, ambush training, and even the mention of improvised explosives would seem to indicate that these "protestors" are willing to take things quite a bit further than they have in the past. We haven't seen any of these tactics put into effect, of course; at least, not yet.
🧵🚨 MINNEAPOLIS SIGNAL INFILTRATED
— Cam Higby 🇺🇸 (@camhigby) January 24, 2026
I have infiltrated organizational signal groups all around Minneapolis with the sole intention of tracking down federal agents and impeding/assaulting/and obstructing them.
BUCKLE UP ALL WILL BE REVEALED
Each area of the city has a signal… pic.twitter.com/ATSHlCucWv