“The lady doth protest the right amount.”
By Julie A. Ryan
I’ve seen some really clever signs over this past month as people in Minneapolis and greater Minnesota have protested the vicious and murderous behavior of ICE and Border Patrol agents during their invasion of my state.
I’ve also heard many people question the effectiveness of making a poster and participating in a protest. The results of publicly sharing a personal opinion on a sign isn’t immediately measurable. Marketing research does provide evidence, though, that repeated exposure to a message does stick in the human brain—even if it’s a lie. It typically takes exposure to a message seven times for it to become familiar enough to get stored in the brain alongside information that is classified as truth. Trump and his administration are experts at blasting Americans with repeated messaging to get them to believe anything they say. Research shows that a bigger, newly fabricated lie is more easily accepted than little ones because no contradictory messaging exists to compete with it until enough fact-checking occurs and counter-opinions develop. By that time, the big lie has already taken up residence in easily influenced minds and isn’t easily deconstructed.
Taking to the streets and protesting is the most effective way to currently contest big lies that are being spread by an autocratic administration. The lie told by Donald Trump that ICE agents needed to invade Minnesota to make it safe and protect its citizens from murderers and rapists who entered the country illegally is daily contested by people publicly holding signs who actually live in the state. These people know that the truth is we had no need for ICE. It would be nice if there was an agency to protect Minnesotans from ICE. Despite it being the responsibility of a government to protect the lives of its citizens, Trump’s Department of Justice is corrupt. We do not feel safe with ICE on our streets. So we Minnesotans are forced to rise up and save ourselves from our federal government. Protest has become mandatory in Minnesota, where we know that the truth is we benefit from living among our immigrant neighbors, and we wholeheartedly welcome them. The truth is that most Minnesotans are far more afraid of Trump’s government right now than any immigrants we encounter.
While the results of sharing one’s opinion publicly isn’t immediately measurable, frequent exposure to protest signs does have the potential to influence the way people think. It forces people to bring an issue to the forefront of their minds and formulate thoughts. Frequent thoughts often result in actions. And collective actions of its people can change a country.
Signs displayed can let people know whether they are welcome somewhere. In 1903 a bronze casting of the poem “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazurus was displayed inside the pedestal of America’s Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor that greets people arriving to the country. Lazarus, who aided Jewish refugees fleeing ant-semitic pogroms, wrote the poem in 1883 to help raise money for the pedestal that the Statue of Liberty stands on. The words on this sign were eventually embraced by people around the world as they became synonymous with what America represented as “the land of the free.”
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Throughout recent history, people from countries around the world interpreted the words on the Statue of Liberty’s sign as a literal sign that they would be welcome in the United States. Unfortunately, racism, nationalism, and otherism has existed during the entire 250 years of America’s democratic experiment. All of the awful “isms” have been freely expressed to “others” entering the “land of the free.”
In the 1840s and 1850s, American nationalists who were possessive of the predominantly Protestant land they lived on—that their ancestors stole from indigenous people—despised certain immigrants from other countries. Irish people with Catholic beliefs were viewed as being among the lowest and most despised class to land on America’s shores. Upon arrival they were met with signs telling them “No Irish Need Apply.” Many Americans didn’t want dirty Irish Catholic people handling their food, but they were often hired for the dirtiest jobs to clean up after Americans. Messaging was clearly received by Irish immigrants in America, but they found support and security in the high numbers of Irish immigrants living in America.
Following World War I, thanks to propaganda, German immigrants and their American-born descendants faced violence and alienation. Their language and creative works were denounced via signage commanding Americans to “Beat Back the Hun” and “Eliminate German.” Many were compelled to avoid public interaction and hide their heritage so they wouldn’t be persecuted by fellow Americans. As they did their best to assimilate in order to protect themselves, they also turned to their local German-American communities for the support they needed to survive in America.
Descendants of Irish and German immigrants in America eventually thrived so well that they acquired positions of power that would one day allow them to freely act on their own racist and nationalist views. Today, descendants of Irish and German immigrants have roles as President of the United States, Trump’s cabinet members, Trump’s administration, and Trump’s ICE and Border Patrol agents. And they are using their unbridled, unchecked power to discriminate, exclude, beat, abduct, imprison, deport, and murder people with African and Hispanic DNA—regardless of citizenship status. And white people who express support for brown or black-skinned people have also been beaten, jailed, and murdered.
For a little over a month now, since the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti—citizens who supported people of all colors, all nationalities, all ethnicities—Minnesotans have been protesting daily on the streets of Minneapolis and throughout Minnesota. Today, ICE still maintains a menacing presence on our streets. The results of protesting aren’t immediately measurable. But a week ago Tom Homan, who is Trump’s border tsar recently sent to replace senior border patrol official (and Nazi-coat wearing) Greg Bovino in overseeing the invasion of ICE in Minneapolis, announced that ICE and Border Patrol troops would be drawn down by 700. It’s safe to assume that Homan wouldn’t have been compelled to do this without the constant presence of protesters and their signs telling ICE that they are murderers who are not welcome in Minneapolis. It’s probable that Homan and Trump view those signs as bad PR for Trump’s cult, and they want media coverage of protesters’ signs to stop. Well versed in propaganda, the administration knows that if Trump cult members see the messages on those protest signs seven times, they might be forced to think about how they feel about their government killing American citizens for expressing an opinion of support for their immigrant neighbors. Trump’s administration wants to see Minnesota protesters shut up and go back inside. I personally believe that’s the only reason the ICE troops have been drawn down. But there are still 2,300 ICE and Border agents patrolling the streets of Minneapolis, along with many more throughout Minnesota. And they are continuing to abduct people who are only guilty of having brown or black skin—regardless of citizenship. When Homan and Trump finally decide it’s time for ICE to move out of Minnesota and on to another Democratic state, it will not be for humanitarian reasons. They will say their mission has been accomplished and that they have made Minnesota safe and secure. But moving ICE troops out will truly be done for PR purposes and an effort to improve Trump’s ratings.
As long as ICE continues to maintain a threatening presence anywhere in our country, the people of Minnesota must continue to protest in public with signs conveying the message that ICE agents and their racist and nationalist beliefs are, overwhelmingly, not welcome in America.
ICE out!
© 2026 by Julie A. Ryan. All rights reserved.
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WHEN LIFE WAS STILL . . . 