This is the story of how Minnesota became a political laboratory—first for the 2020 George Floyd protests, then for a sustained campaign against federal immigration enforcement. The players are the same. The money flows through familiar channels. And the strategy, according to those who designed it, was always meant to be replicated.
Part I: "Give Biden a Hot Summer"
On the evening of April 29, 2024, more than 100 activists gathered at The People's Forum, a socialist organization headquartered in Manhattan's Midtown. They came to plan their next moves as anti-Israel protests roiled college campuses nationwide. A Washington Free Beacon reporter accessed the meeting via Zoom and documented what happened next.¹
Manolo De Los Santos, the Forum's executive director, didn't mince words. He urged the assembled activists to "give Joe Biden a hot summer" and make "the politics of usual untenable to take place in this country."² He praised protesters who had "decided that resistance is more important than negotiations" and encouraged others to "stand between the police and our students."³
Most significantly, De Los Santos called for recreating "the violent protests of the summer of 2020"—a direct reference to the George Floyd uprising that began in Minneapolis.⁴
Hours later, protesters smashed windows at Columbia University's Hamilton Hall and barricaded themselves inside. Police who cleared the building found industrial-grade chains, gas masks, helmets, goggles, hammers, knives, and ropes.⁵
The People's Forum denied encouraging violence, but De Los Santos's words were captured on the record. And they revealed something the mainstream media had largely ignored: for a certain network of professional activists, the 2020 protests weren't a tragic response to police violence. They were a proof of concept—a template to be studied, refined, and redeployed.
Part II: The Singham Network
Understanding how The People's Forum operates requires following the money. And the money leads to Shanghai.
Neville Roy Singham is an American tech entrepreneur who sold his software company, ThoughtWorks, for approximately $785 million in 2017.⁶ He now lives in Shanghai, where, according to a 2023 New York Times investigation, he "works closely with the Chinese government media machine and finances propaganda worldwide."⁷
The Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), a Rutgers University-affiliated research organization, published a comprehensive report in May 2024 documenting what it calls the "Singham Network"—a web of nonprofits, fiscal sponsors, and alternative media outlets that share funding, personnel, and messaging.⁸
According to NCRI, The People's Forum received over $20 million from Singham and his wife, Jodie Evans (co-founder of the anti-war group CODEPINK), between 2017 and 2022.⁹ The money moved through a complex network of donor-advised funds and shell companies, including the Justice and Education Fund, the United Community Fund, and the Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Fund.¹⁰
The People's Forum has acknowledged receiving Singham funding. In a December 21, 2021 post on X (then Twitter), the organization defended its financial relationship with Singham against critics.¹¹
Congressional investigators have taken notice. On September 4, 2025, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith sent a formal letter to De Los Santos demanding records and alleging that The People's Forum had "acted as a foreign agent of the Chinese Communist Party" while enjoying tax-exempt status.¹²
"Public reporting suggests that The People's Forum has received over $20 million from Mr. Singham and his wife," Smith wrote. "Multiple reports have found that The People's Forum is part of Mr. Singham's network of non-profit organizations that serve as his conduits to spread pro-CCP narratives."¹³
The Senate Judiciary Committee separately requested that the Department of Justice investigate whether The People's Forum should register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.¹⁴
De Los Santos himself has deep ties to Cuba. According to his biography at the Black Alliance for Peace, he "was based out of Cuba for many years" and "worked toward building international networks of people's movements and organizations."¹⁵ The New York Post reported that De Los Santos first traveled to Cuba in 2006 and was there as recently as March 2024.¹⁶ He has been photographed meeting with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel.¹⁷
Part III: Minnesota's Pre-Positioned Infrastructure
If The People's Forum represents the ideological and financial hub of what the Heritage Foundation calls "the revolutionary ecosystem," Minnesota is where the theory has been put into practice.¹⁸
The infrastructure began taking shape well before the Trump administration launched Operation Metro Surge in December 2025. In fact, much of it was funded and organized in anticipation of exactly this moment.
The Immigrant Defense Network
In 2024, the Bush Foundation—a prominent Minnesota philanthropy—awarded a $995,000 grant to COPAL Education Fund, a Latino advocacy organization, to establish the Immigrant Defense Network (IDN).¹⁹ The grant's stated purpose: "to improve coordination among organizations serving immigrants and their families" with emphasis on "media strategies that help tell the stories of immigrants."²⁰
The IDN officially launched in 2025—before Operation Metro Surge began—as "a network of over 90 immigrant, labor, legal, faith, and community organizations dedicated to protecting and advancing the constitutional rights of immigrant communities across Minnesota."²¹
Edwin Torres DeSantiago, the IDN's manager, told the Minnesota Star Tribune that more than 10,000 people have registered for the network's trainings.²² According to public records reviewed by The Star News Network, Torres DeSantiago previously served as political director for Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.²³
COPAL's 2024 tax filings show the organization received $4.1 million in contributions that year, up from $2.4 million in 2023.²⁴
MIRAC and the Rapid Response System
The Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC) has operated since 2006, but its activities have intensified dramatically. Since December 2024, MIRAC has offered monthly ICE raid response trainings, with 100 to 200 participants per session, according to organizer Miguel Hernandez.²⁵
"There is a huge explosion of interest now. But I think we were already ready," Hernandez told the Star Tribune. "We saw the writing on the wall."²⁶
MIRAC's website makes its ideological orientation explicit: "MIRAC sees the U.S. immigration system and criminal justice system as fundamentally unjust, racist, and white supremacist."²⁷
The organization operates through encrypted Signal chat networks—some restarted daily for security—that involve hundreds of people across Minnesota.²⁸ Information shared includes immigrant names, license plate numbers, vehicle descriptions, and agent locations.
Monarca and the "Upstander" Training Program
Monarca, an arm of the nonprofit Unidos Minnesota, runs what it calls the "Upstander Legal Observer" program.²⁹ The program trains civilians to follow, track, report, and record federal immigration officers during operations.
On January 10, 2026—three days after Renée Good was killed—more than 1,000 activists packed into Roseville Lutheran Church for a Monarca training session.³⁰ Speakers described ICE as a "white supremacist police force that has no oversight," according to reporters present.³¹
Monarca's website instructs observers to use the "S.A.L.U.T.E." framework when documenting ICE activity: Size, Activity, Location, Uniform, Time, Equipment.³² The organization operates a rapid response hotline and has distributed "weight station toolkits" identifying locations where ICE conducts operations.³³
Unidos Minnesota reported $545,123 in assets in 2023. Its funders include the New Venture Fund (a D.C.-based pass-through funder), the Amalgamated Charitable Foundation, and the McKnight Foundation.³⁴
Part IV: The George Floyd Pipeline
The Minnesota Star Tribune made the connection explicit in a December 27, 2025 report:
"The block watches and neighborhood chat groups that proliferated after the fallout from George Floyd's murder have now morphed into a large-scale mobilization aimed at defying the federal government's immigration agenda by tracking ICE agents across Minnesota, documenting deportation flights and protesting at workplace raids."³⁵
This is not coincidental. The same organizations, networks, and even individuals who mobilized during the 2020 uprising have redirected their infrastructure toward immigration resistance.
The National Lawyers Guild Minnesota chapter, for instance, describes its recent history on its website: "Most recently, the NLG MN has been working to provide legal support in response to the Minnesota Uprising that occurred after the brutal and tragic police murder of George Floyd."³⁶
Today, NLG Minnesota operates a legal support hotline (612-444-2654) for protesters confronting ICE and provides trained Legal Observers—identifiable by their lime-green hats—to monitor federal enforcement actions.³⁷
In a statement following Good's death, NLG Minnesota wrote: "Once again the eyes of the world are on our city. ICE murdered Renee Nicole Good."³⁸
The Heritage Foundation's 2024 report on "the revolutionary ecosystem" documented this continuity: "The infrastructure of organizations sustaining the anti-Israel protests today is virtually identical to the one that has supported the Black Lives Matter organizations since their birth in the middle 2010s."³⁹
The report identified four interlocking components: activist organizations (The People's Forum, ANSWER Coalition, etc.), fiscal sponsors (Alliance for Global Justice, Tides Foundation, WESPAC), donors (Singham network, Open Society Foundations, Rockefeller Brothers Fund), and radical media outlets (BreakThrough News, Tricontinental, Grayzone).⁴⁰
Many of these same entities have now turned their attention—and their resources—to Minnesota's immigration battles.
Part V: Operation Metro Surge and the Renée Good Flashpoint
On January 6, 2026, the Department of Homeland Security announced what it called "the largest immigration enforcement operation ever carried out," deploying 2,000 federal agents to the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area.⁴¹
The following morning, ICE agent Jonathan Ross fatally shot Renée Good during an encounter on a residential street in south Minneapolis. According to DHS, Good had been "stalking and impeding ICE all day" and used her vehicle as a weapon. Good's family and witnesses dispute this account, and video of the incident has fueled competing interpretations.⁴²
What is not in dispute is what happened next.
Within hours, MIRAC held a vigil at the shooting scene. COPAL and the IDN activated their rapid response networks. The ACLU of Minnesota—which had already filed one lawsuit against Operation Metro Surge in December—announced it would file additional legal action.⁴³
The Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota issued a statement accusing ICE of "terrorizing communities across Minnesota" and demanding that Operation Metro Surge be shut down entirely.⁴⁴
Over the following two weeks:
Over 1,000 events took place nationwide during the "ICE Out For Good Weekend of Action"⁴⁵
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz placed the National Guard on standby⁴⁶
Attorney General Keith Ellison, joined by Minneapolis and St. Paul, filed federal lawsuits to halt ICE deployments⁴⁷
The ACLU filed class-action lawsuits alleging racial profiling and constitutional violations⁴⁸
Federal judge Katherine Menendez issued a preliminary injunction restricting federal agent conduct (later stayed by the Eighth Circuit)⁴⁹
President Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act⁵⁰
The pattern mirrored 2020: a real and tragic incident, followed by immediate framing through pre-existing networks, rapid escalation from specific grievance to systemic critique ("abolish ICE"), sustained pressure through coordinated legal, political, and street action.
Part VI: The Doctrine Made Explicit
What makes Minnesota different from other immigration flashpoints is the degree to which organizers have been explicit about their strategy.
The NCRI report notes that activists in the Singham network view the 2020 protests as proof that "the ability for mass struggle now exists inside the United States."⁵¹ This framing treats George Floyd's death not as a singular tragedy but as a tactical validation—evidence that the right combination of outrage, infrastructure, and outside support can produce transformational results.
De Los Santos's April 2024 call to recreate "the violent protests of the summer of 2020" was not a slip of the tongue. It was a statement of doctrine.
The IDN's establishment before Operation Metro Surge began—funded by nearly $1 million from the Bush Foundation—demonstrates pre-positioning rather than organic response. The explicit training of thousands in "rapid response" and "legal observation" tactics, the encrypted communication networks, the coordinated media strategies: none of this materialized spontaneously after Good's death.
It was waiting.
Conclusion
The same network that helped turn George Floyd's death into a national uprising has spent five years building the capacity to do it again. They have studied what worked in 2020, professionalized their operations, secured substantial funding, and pre-positioned infrastructure across Minnesota.
When Renée Good was killed on a Minneapolis street, that infrastructure activated precisely as designed.
Minnesota was chosen—first as the place where 2020 proved the model, then as the laboratory where that model would be refined and redeployed. The current crisis is not an accident of geography or politics.
It is the product of strategy.
References
Simonson, Joseph. "Anti-Israel Group Encouraged Columbia Protesters to Re-Create 'The Summer of 2020' Hours Before Students Stormed a Building." Washington Free Beacon, May 1, 2024.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.; Nesi, Chris. "Radical anti-Israel nonprofit urged rampaging Columbia occupiers to recreate BLM 'summer of 2020' riots." New York Post, May 5, 2024.
Wu, Daniel. "134 protesters arrested on 2 campuses had no connection to schools, NYPD says." Washington Post, May 2024.
"Neville Roy Singham." Wikipedia. Accessed January 24, 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Roy_Singham
Mozur, Paul, et al. "A Global Web of Chinese Propaganda Leads to a U.S. Tech Mogul." New York Times, August 5, 2023.
Network Contagion Research Institute. "Contagious Disruption: How CCP Influence and Radical Activism Exploit Social Media to Drive the 'Shut It Down For Palestine' Movement." May 2024.
Ibid.
Ibid.; House Ways and Means Committee. Letter to Manolo De Los Santos, September 4, 2025.
The People's Forum (@PeoplesForumNYC). X post, December 21, 2021.
House Ways and Means Committee. "Chairman Smith Exposes U.S. Nonprofit as Likely CCP-Funded Propaganda Arm Operating Under Tax-Exempt Status." Press release, September 4, 2025.
Ibid.
Senate Judiciary Committee. Letter to Attorney General regarding The People's Forum, August 2025.
"Manolo De Los Santos." Black Alliance for Peace biography. Accessed via Cuba Center, May 2024.
Nesi, Chris. "Who is Manolo De Los Santos? Leader of Hamas-cheering radical NYC group has ties to Cuba." New York Post, May 6, 2024.
Ibid.; Cuba Center. "CubaBrief: Anti-Israel activists behind Columbia university protests trained in Cuba for years." May 6, 2024.
Gonzalez, Mike, and Mary Mobley. "How the Revolutionary Ecosystem Sustains Pro-Palestinian Protesters and the BLM Movement." Heritage Foundation Special Report, June 25, 2024.
Bush Foundation. Grants Database: COPAL Education Fund. Accessed January 2026. https://www.bushfoundation.org/grants-database/
Ibid.
Immigrant Defense Network. "About." https://immigrantdefensenetwork.org/. Accessed January 2026.
Star Tribune staff. "Inside the organized resistance to ICE in Minnesota." Minnesota Star Tribune, December 27, 2025.
The Star News Network. "Former Political Director for Gov. Tim Walz Leads Nonprofit Behind Part of 'Organized Resistance' to ICE in Minnesota." January 9, 2026.
COPAL Education Fund. IRS Form 990, 2024.
Star Tribune staff. "Amid surging ICE raids, Twin Cities protesters mobilize to document arrests." Minnesota Star Tribune, December 20, 2025.
Ibid.
Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee. "About." https://www.miracmn.com/. Accessed January 2026.
Star Tribune, December 20, 2025, op. cit.
Monarca. "Upstander Basics." https://monarcamn.org/upstander-basics. Accessed January 2026.
Nesi, Chris. "Minnesota's lefty activist group 'Monarca' training civilians to resist ICE agents — ramping up activities." New York Post, January 10, 2026.
Ibid.
Monarca, "Upstander Basics," op. cit.
Ibid.; New York Post, January 10, 2026, op. cit.
Unidos Minnesota. IRS Form 990, 2023.
Star Tribune, December 27, 2025, op. cit.
National Lawyers Guild Minnesota. "About." https://nlgmn.org/about-2/. Accessed January 2026.
Ibid.; National Lawyers Guild. "Legal Observer Program." https://www.nlg.org/massdefenseprogram/los/
National Lawyers Guild. "The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) and the NLG Minnesota Chapter mourn the killing of Renee Nicole Good." Statement, January 2026.
Heritage Foundation, June 25, 2024, op. cit.
Ibid.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Press briefing, January 6, 2026; "Operation Metro Surge." Wikipedia. Accessed January 24, 2026.
"Killing of Renée Good." Wikipedia. Accessed January 24, 2026; Fox 9 Minneapolis. "Minneapolis ICE shooting: Renee Good's death ruled homicide by Hennepin Co. Medical Examiner." January 23, 2026.
ACLU of Minnesota. "ACLU and ACLU of Minnesota Demand Immediate Action After ICE Shoots and Kills Minnesota Woman." Press release, January 7, 2026.
Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota. "ICE Terrorizes Communities Across Minnesota, Murders Minneapolis Woman." Statement, January 2026.
ACLU. "ICE Out For Good Weekend of Action." Press materials, January 2026.
Minnesota Department of Public Safety. Statement on National Guard activation, January 17, 2026.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. "Attorney General Ellison and cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul sue to halt ICE surge into Minnesota." Press release, January 12, 2026.
ACLU of Minnesota. "ACLU Sues Federal Government to End ICE, CBP's Practice of Suspicionless Stops, Warrantless Arrests, and Racial Profiling of Minnesotans." Press release, January 15, 2026.
"Operation Metro Surge." Wikipedia, op. cit. (documenting Menendez ruling January 16, 2026 and Eighth Circuit stay January 21, 2026).
ABC News. "Minneapolis ICE shooting updates." Live updates, January 2026.
NCRI, May 2024, op. cit.
