Anti-Israel Group That Stormed University of Minnesota Building Now Leads Illegal Anti-ICE Agitation
The school's Students for a Democratic Society chapter is one of several far-left groups that have shifted their focus to ICE in recent weeks
The school's Students for a Democratic Society chapter is one of several far-left groups that have shifted their focus to ICE in recent weeks
A University of Minnesota student group has emerged as a leader behind illegal—and sometimes violent—anti-ICE agitation gripping Minneapolis. It's a significant shift for the school's Students for a Democratic Society chapter, which roughly one year ago stormed a campus building in an anti-Israel raid, trapping employees inside and causing tens of thousands of dollars in property damage.
The group, known as UMN SDS, organized a Jan. 28 protest outside a hotel located on campus that was allegedly housing ICE agents. Dozens of agitators swarmed the Graduate by Hilton and rocked police barricades, pounded on drums and pans, set off noisemakers, and shouted "Fuck ICE" at local and state law enforcement. University police eventually declared it an unlawful assembly and arrested 67 protesters, including Jack Louis Nimz—a public school teacher, the president of SDS's national arm, and one of the radicals arrested for storming the campus building in October 2024.
It was the third time in as many weeks that UMN SDS rallied more than 100 radicals outside the hotel, encouraging supporters to confront the "homicidal kidnappers" it claimed were residing there. At a Jan. 13 protest it organized, three agitators were arrested after the crowd damaged property and created "hazardous conditions for the public and law enforcement," according to the University of Minnesota. The next week, while promoting a Jan. 21 protest on Instagram, the group wrote, "We're not done just because Minneapolis pigs tried to scare us away."
"Let's go back to the Graduate louder than ever to demand the UMN cut ties with the Graduate or they tell us the ICE agents staying there are gone," the Instagram post continued. "The UMN community needs peace of mine [sic] that murderers aren't sleeping next door. Bring the noise."
UMN SDS also holds weekly "rapid response trainings" on the University of Minnesota's campus. It organizes school walkouts as well.
But it's been months since UMN SDS promoted any causes besides its opposition to ICE. It hasn't published its own anti-Israel post since the second anniversary of Hamas's Oct. 7 terror attack, which it described as a "courageous act."
That's a major leap for a group whose members said they wouldn't leave a campus building they illegally occupied until either the University of Minnesota divested from Israel or they were forcibly removed. In October 2024, 11 masked UMN SDS radicals, including Nimz, stormed into Morrill Hall, used furniture to barricade exit doors, smashed windows, and spray-painted security cameras, racking up more than $67,000 in property damage. Staff were trapped inside, while dozens of Jewish students sought refuge in the on-campus Jewish center amid fears of escalating violence.
Police eventually arrested the radicals, and the University of Minnesota never divested from Israel.
UMN SDS is just the latest left-wing group to shift focus to anti-ICE efforts in recent weeks. The political arm of Jewish Voice for Peace, the fringe anti-Zionist group with a history of supporting Palestinian terrorism and peddling propaganda demonizing Israel, joined forces with a prominent abolish ICE group, Detention Watch Network, to pressure senators to strip funding from ICE and Border Patrol. The Sunrise Movement, which was founded to fight climate change, has similarly directed its chapters to fight the Trump administration and openly calls for abolishing ICE.
Besides promoting its own work, UMN SDS has also boosted other anti-ICE groups. It's repeatedly circulated a list of hotels created by the Twin Cities chapter of the Sunrise Movement which supposedly house ICE agents and has encouraged its supporters to join other protests. It advertised one that turned violent, when dozens of anti-ICE agitators hurled objects, smashed windows, lit fireworks, vandalized the building, and damaged the hotel's façade.
UMN SDS also helped promote a virtual training hosted by the Sunrise Movement Twin Cities, titled "No Justice, No Sleep," that instructed attendees on how "to kick ICE out of your city" and "shut down hotels that are housing ICE."
Wednesday's arrests further underscore the burgeoning anti-ICE ecosphere. The only protester besides Nimz who was booked, Teiryn Cooper Glick, is a canvasser for Clean Water Action, according to her LinkedIn profile. The environmental advocacy group is backed by the Left's premier foundations, including the Sixteen Thirty Fund and the Tides Foundation.
And Nimz, a transgender individual who goes by "Celia," is an organizer withthe Freedom Road Socialist Organization, a Marxist-Leninist group working to "build a new, revolutionary, communist party" in the United States. Nimz is also a K-12 physical education teacher for the Minneapolis Public School District, according to the Minnesota Educator Licensing and Standards Board.
Both Glick and Nimz face two misdemeanors—presence at an unlawful assembly and disorderly conduct—according to the Hennepin County Jail. The rest of the arrested radicals, according to UMN SDS, were University of Minnesota students, but were not booked or named in the jail roster.
When asked if those students would be disciplined, university spokesman Joe Linstroth told the Washington Free Beacon that the "University will follow the processes and policies in our student conduct code," but didn't explain further. He did note that school administrators suspended the group in January 2025 for policy violations—the group later voluntarily dissolved its registered student organization status. Linstroth added that he was "not aware of the details about how" UMN SDS managed to hold its rapid response training on campus, saying that "there are various ways that individuals and groups, both internal and external, can rent and reserve space on campus."
If the October 2024 building occupation is any indication, the protesters arrested last week are set to get off easy. Only one person who stormed Morrill Hall was charged—for spitting on an officer—but that was ultimately dropped. Seven students were suspended, but school administrators reversed that just a few months later.
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