Horrific and chilling describe the scenes in Minneapolis: a state of siege as 3,000 ICE agents — most wearing masks and carrying heavy rifles — patrol the streets of Minneapolis. American citizens are being threatened and asked for their papers.

People peacefully exercising their First Amendment protest rights are being tear gassed and arrested. A 37-year-old mother of three lost her life in what looked to most observers like a summary execution. And now ICE is violating the Fourth Amendment by executing warrantless searches of people’s homes.

The editors of Commonwealth, a respected leading magazine of the Catholic faith, on January 22nd issued this strong rebuke against President Trump’s authoritarian tactics in Minneapolis: “With its reckless siege on Minneapolis–supported by an influx of three thousand agents, or five times the size of the city’s police department–the Trump administration has demonstrated that fraud investigation and immigration enforcement are pretexts for a show of federal force and violent suppression of civil rights and political dissent.

What’s plain to anyone who’s seen videos of drivers pulled from cars, American citizens asked for their papers and threatened with gunfire, pastors and parents shot at close range with pepper balls, or schoolchildren caught in clouds of tear gas is that another boundary has been crossed. Five years after whipping up a loose army of supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol and stop the certification of an election he lost, Trump has deployed a well-funded paramilitary force to execute his authoritarian agenda.

There is ample reason to question the legality of ICE’s actions in Minneapolis. The conduct of its masked and heavily armed agents is clearly out of control. Many are underqualified and poorly trained. As to whether the shooting death of Renee Nicole Good was justified, Trump’s Justice Department has declined to investigate what to many looked like a summary execution. But it has opened spurious investigations of Minnesota governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey. Rather than take part in this legal charade, a number of federal prosecutors have resigned in protest.

The President has shown no interest in calming the tensions he has stoked. The good news is that polling shows that Americans are increasingly troubled by the chaos and violence the administration has unleashed. A majority disapproves of ICE raids and the conduct of agents. Most say that ICE is making cities less safe. Protesters in Minneapolis and elsewhere have reminded us of what that entails–and why it’s necessary.

The administration’s brutality against immigrants is a violation of universal human rights, and its suppression of protests a flagrant assault on civil liberties. It is up to all people who believe in moral decency and the rule of law to demonstrate that it is not.” It is time for good folks in the Upper Peninsula to speak out against ICE’s tactics to our elected officials.