Unicorn Riot

Two of the 15 defendants charged in a federal conspiracy for their activism during ICE's deadly Operation Metro Surge spoke to Unicorn Riot a week after their home was raided by federal agents.

“It’s about quelling dissent in Minneapolis,” said healthcare worker and activist Isaac Sant to Unicorn Riot a week after his home was raided by federal agents. “And it’s about coming after the movement that rose up against ICE during Metro Surge in December and January.”

The 36-year-old Sant, listed at the top of a federal conspiracy indictment, said the charges are “a naked attempt to silence our voices, to squash dissent and to have a chilling effect on organizing here in the Twin Cities.” Which Sant noted, is “not going to work.”

The 94-page indictment unsealed on June 16 describes many of the defendants as “anarchists” and “antifascists,” both labeled as “terror groups” in the most recent White House counterterrorism documents.

The charges are a continuation of Trump and Stephen Miller’s vindictive domestic policies as federal agencies are directed to go after political opponents using the NSPM-7 directive and an executive order designating antifa as a domestic terrorist organization — despite there being no formal classification of antifa as a terror org. Antifa is an ideology against fascism and is short for anti-fascist.

“With regards to NSPM-7, just know that these cases are going to continue. And while we may be anarchists, please don’t think that it’s going to stop there,” said Sant’s housemate Cal Robinet, who’s also one of the 15 indicted.

Speaking to UR, Robinet, a 37-year-old union electrician and activist, noted the Niemöller poem, First They Came, and said what the government is calling antifa is actually a “boogeyman that doesn’t exist” and they’re using that to go “after anybody who says no to them.”

“When they say we’re coming for anti-fascists, what they’re calling Antifa is a boogeyman that doesn’t exist. What they’re doing is they’re going after anybody who says no to them. And you should not be surprised when that starts applying to you.”

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