ICE Watchers Worry Democrats Are Trying to Co-Opt Their Movements For Votes

A seventeen-second video shows a dark-haired man rapping his pale knuckles gently below the tinted windows of a silver minivan. He stands back, shoving his hands into the pockets of his puffer coat, his boyish face twisted into a severe expression. The car drives off, and the camera pans to follow it down the suburban Minneapolis road. No words are spoken. Splashed across the screen, a bright red and white caption reads, “ICE was circling a local elementary school. I knocked on their door to have a conversation, but they ran away instead.” The man is Matt Little, 41, a former mayor and state senator from nearby Lakeville seen as the front-runner to replace outgoing Democratic Rep. Angie Craig in Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional district. He’s staking much of his campaign on one of the most politically salient issues in the Twin Cities. In a series of videos pinned to his campaign Instagram under the name “GET ICE OUT,” Little documents himself at protests and in encounters with immigration enforcement agents. “When I’m elected to congress,” wrote Little in a January post, “we will hold ICE accountable.” Not everyone in his district is buying it. “For me, it smells like, ‘I’m