Between Civil War and Madness - How a Raid in Minneapolis Reveals Trump’s New Reality

It was a Tuesday morning in Minneapolis, gray with rain and heavy with history - and yet a day that stands like a harbinger over a fractured nation. An armored vehicle bearing the initials of Homeland Security Investigations rolled through a neighborhood that had become more of a home to many migrants than the places they once fled. Behind it: men in tactical gear, heavily armed, masked - and the rage of a society that no longer recognizes itself.

What followed was not simply an operation. It was a mirror. One that shows how deep the fissures in the United States of 2025 run. While federal and local authorities officially spoke of a “criminal investigation” - involving money laundering and drugs - few in the Latino neighborhood of Minneapolis believed in coincidence. Too often had they seen raids arrive like storms - without warning, without regard. Too often had tears, documents, families been torn apart. And this time? According to Mayor Jacob Frey, not a single arrest warrant, not one person detained. And yet: heavy equipment, helmets, balaclavas - and raw fear.

For it is not just the raid itself that terrifies. It is the silence that follows. “Not an immigration operation,” they say. “Just drugs, just money.” And yet on the sidewalks of the neighborhood, signs appear: “Abolish ICE” - “Stop the deportations.” Words like barricades, spoken with the weariness of those who know words alone won’t protect them. A woman, Jennifer Davila, puts it plainly: “They come with a van, a tank, and men in black vests - into a brown neighborhood. What do they think that triggers?” Her voice doesn’t sound angry. It sounds old. Like someone who has had to explain too often that justice isn’t always justice.

And while the mayor tries to calm, while the sheriff’s office speaks of “cooperation with federal agencies,” the narrative slips from the state’s control. Because it wasn’t just weapons that paraded through that day. It was a symbol. Of an order that increasingly turns against those with no passport, no lobby, and no more illusions.

What happened next spread via livestreams, Facebook, TikTok, through screenshots and fury: A driver who sped through the crowd. Tires slashed. A person knocked to the ground. A photographer from Minnesota Public Radio pepper-sprayed. A camera that fell to the pavement like a piece of truth. And in the midst of it all, a police force distancing itself: “Just for traffic control,” says the city. And yet: no one watching believes in neutrality anymore.

Michelle Gross, Vorsitzende von Communities United Against Police BrutalityMichelle Gross, president of Communities United Against Police Brutality, calls it “jackbooted thuggery.” Words straight from a novel about the fall of democracy. But this is real. A reality in which federal agencies intervene in local affairs with growing ease, in which deportation and criminal enforcement may differ rhetorically, but on the street, they produce the same images: fear. Powerlessness. Anger.

“We work with federal partners regularly,” says the spokesperson for the local FBI unit, matter-of-factly. But in practice, it means: it only takes a spark, and a neighborhood ignites. Not in flames - but from within.

Minneapolis, once declared a “sanctuary city,” on this day feels like a place where the sanctuary itself has become searchable. It is the same city where George Floyd died. The same city that swore to do better. And yet it is also the city where tanks roll again - this time not against uprisings, but supposedly against cash. And once again, the same bodies lie on the asphalt: brown, migrant, defenseless.

What remains is more than a police operation. It is a signal fire. In a country where authorities no longer distinguish between immigration and criminality - perhaps because they no longer want to. A country that splits its cities like it splits its families. A president who says nothing. An opposition that remains silent. And a population that wonders: Is this still America - or already a country that has lost itself?

At the end of the day, the rain remained. And a street, red from the asphalt - and perhaps from what lies between the lines: a republic that no longer comes together. Not with tanks. Not with posts. And certainly not with explanations.