Tipsheet

Anti-ICE Groups Have Found a New Way to 'Resist' Federal Immigration Laws

Amy Curtis
Amy Curtis  |  February 18, 2026 7:30 AM

An anti-ICE activist group in Minneapolis is promoting "jury nullification training" amid high-profile immigration cases in an effort to obstruct federal law enforcement.

Defend612 seeks to "support resistance to the ICE occupation in Minneapolis" and is promoting two virtual sessions titled "The People's Pardon or Jury Nullification" that are both scheduled in the coming weeks.

Here's more:

A Minneapolis-based activist network is now openly advertising “jury nullification training,” raising new concerns about the integrity of jury trials in the Twin Cities.

Defend612, which seeks to support “resistance to the ICE occupation in Minneapolis,” is promoting two virtual sessions titled “The People’s Pardon or Jury Nullification,” scheduled in the coming weeks.

One event description frames the effort: “Because when systems fail to deliver justice, the people must.”

“Jury Nullification is a legal tactic has been [sic] used to protect one another from unjust laws and political persecution,” the description says. “We will learn about jury nullification — or the people’s pardon — how it’s been used, ways it can stem authoritarian overreach, and how we can use it today.”

In an email to supporters, Defend612 described the trainings as a means of “protecting our local heroes through Jury Nullification.”

Jury nullification occurs when jurors vote to acquit a defendant despite believing the law was broken, often because they oppose the law itself or how it is enforced.

Last month, Alpha News reported on a Minnesota Democratic Party official urging his followers to use jury nullification in a federal case involving an assault against an immigration enforcement officer.

Nick Kruse, a former vice president of the Minnesota Young DFL and current at-large director of Stonewall DFL, wrote in a since-deleted post on X that “no one should be going to prison for defending our city against ICE.”

So some people are above the law, it seems.

That's where this will lead, and even the Democrat AGs who crack down on Americans who defend themselves from criminals won't be able to stop it.

This is a slippery slope that ends nowhere good.

Yes, it is a serious problem.

Their enablers do not care about that, and never did.

Yes, they are.

This is an obstruction and miscarriage of justice, and these people think they can override state and federal laws because of their political ideologies. They must be stopped.