It’s time to break up with false equivalence. Those who followed politics in 2017 will remember the “Unite the Right” white supremacist rally in which neo-Nazis, neo-confederates and white supremacists marched through the streets of Charlottesville. This group, armed with weapons and body armor in anticipation of a fight, initiated a series of skirmishes with counter-protesters after which a man drove his vehicle through a crowd, killing Heather Heyer and injuring 35 others. In the aftermath, Donald Trump said that there were “very fine people on both sides”. He tried to walk that claim back, but firmly maintained that somewhere, buried beneath all those Nazi flags and slur-filled chants, there were some kind-hearted folks who just happened to get wrapped up in it all and that the counter-protestors at the event were responsible for the violence. Echoing this sentiment, when asked if he denounced white supremacist and militia groups during his 2020 campaign, he responded, “Proud Boys stand back and stand by,” and that “somebody’s gotta do something about Antifa and the left.” The Proud Boys did stand back and stand by, and aided in Trump’s attempted self-coup after he lost the election.
Things have not gotten better since then. On Tuesday, the Opinion Editor of the Iowa State Daily wrote an article arguing that white supremacist Nick Fuentes deserves to be mainstream because efforts to end marginalization of Black and queer people made white men feel bad about themselves, placing the blame for hate on its victims. On Wednesday, an alum wrote an article accusing the citizens of Minnesota of being “hyper-partisan agitators taking disruption training funded by NGOs,” a claim that is categorically false and has been repeatedly debunked, in the same article where he calls for readers to avoid blindly following what their “chosen political party has told them to think.” That author likely read that lie on Donald Trump’s echo-chamber social media app, Truth Social, where Trump has repeatedly made this false claim. This follows persistent lying by the administration in the wake of ICE shootings. After Jonathan Ross killed Renee Good, Kristi Noem called Good a “violent rioter” who had been “stalking and impeding” ICE agents before “weaponizing her vehicle” to try to kill them. Trump claimed that “she didn’t try to run him over, she ran him over.” This has been proven to be untrue, and the Trump administration is blocking all attempts at an inquiry. After the killing of Alex Pretti, federal officials claimed he approached ICE agents with a gun drawn and the intention to “massacre law enforcement.” This was also false. Pretti did not have a weapon drawn when he approached officers, and he was unarmed and restrained when he was shot repeatedly. Still, Trump has “truthed” several videos showing Pretti spitting on and kicking an ICE vehicle, in an attempt to justify his killing. So why does the administration make these claims? Why attack the victims’ characters so adamantly? Does kicking a car or blocking traffic warrant execution? Why refuse independent investigations, if indeed they believe these killings were an accident?
The strategy this administration is using is the same as that of the tobacco and oil industries about lung cancer and climate change, respectively. By funding pseudoscience and manufacturing debate, tobacco and oil companies convinced media organizations to treat cigarettes, causing lung cancer and fossil fuels, causing climate change, as speculation rather than widely proven facts. We are in a similar era of disinformation and false equivalence. We are in an era where intolerance (like Neo-Nazism and white supremacy) is not treated as a violation of a social contract, voiding reciprocal tolerance, but seen as justifiable due to the misguided belief that humanity is a zero-sum game. We are told the lies that if Europe benefits, the U.S. must be losing. That if historically marginalized groups are accepted, white men must be marginalized. That if migrants are treated as members of our communities, others somehow lose. Real life is not a tradeoff, and humanity is stronger when we care for one another and defend each other’s dignity. This is a pillar of democracy that cannot be compromised.
Yet it is being compromised. As members of communities are kidnapped off the streets by masked agents, this is being falsely equated with the heinous act of living in a country that arbitrarily cancels residents’ legal statuses and leaves families in legal limbo by failing to adequately adjudicate asylum cases. Residents who have lived here for years, neighbors who have cared and cried and fallen in love and paid taxes, are now at risk of being detained for having the “wrong” accent. This is, at its core, not a law enforcement operation. If the goal were to ensure that everyone in the country is here “legally”, then the federal administration would not be going to such great lengths to retroactively remove citizens’ and residents’ legal statuses. This is a manufactured crisis that is using false equivalence to justify violence. In fact, ICE is explicitly attempting to recruit white supremacists. Comparisons to the demonization of Jewish communities during the Holocaust might seem alarmist if ICE’s violence was not being done by self-avowed neo-Nazis and white supremacists, but here we are, and they are using the same tactics. Figures on the right are using examples of individuals to justify violence against entire ethnicities at taxpayer expense, despite 95% of detainees having no violent convictions, 73% having no criminal convictions and half of all detainees having no pending charges at all. In fact, immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than those born in the U.S. and pay more than their fair share in taxes. Not only is committing violence against a group of many based on the actions of a few a violation of the Geneva Convention, this argument is being used to create a false equivalence between minor wrongdoing (e.g., parking ticket) and kidnapping, incarceration, separation from families and expulsion from homes.
Ironically, ICE has repeatedly broken the law. Suffolk County, NY was ordered to pay $112 million to immigrants who were wrongfully detained on behalf of ICE. Minnesota has seen twice as many unlawful detention lawsuits in just the first three weeks of 2026 as in all of 2025. ICE is facing billions of dollars in lawsuits due to the violent nature of its arrests and its disregard for due process. They are even facing a lawsuit for deporting three citizen children, one of whom is a 5-year-old being treated for kidney cancer. Citizens are being detained alongside migrants. Schools have been closed because agents entered school grounds, pepper-sprayed onlookers and detained staff a few blocks from where my aunt lives. Protestors have been pepper-sprayed, tear-gassed, blinded and killed. There is no world in which human dignity has value where any of this is justifiable. There is no wrong that can make this right.
It is not radical to see what ICE is doing and recognize that it is inexcusable. It’s not extremist to say that this violence is unnecessary. ICE can end this by leaving. They don’t have to do this. Lawmakers, too, have the power to stop this. The citizens of Minnesota who have been working tirelessly to protect their communities against hostile outsiders are not paid extremists, and they’re not uniquely brave, or idealistic or radicalized. They are ordinary, caring people who see a clear wrong in the world and have decided to do something about it. And to me, they are my friends, my relatives, my neighbors.
Here is what I ask of you, reader. Firstly, don’t listen to politicians who lie to you, blatantly and repeatedly. Consider why they might be so insistent that you use their social media platforms and believe their narratives. Offer consideration proportional to evidence. Second, call it out when someone says that they’re deporting “violent illegals.” Don’t buy the false equivalence that justifies unjustifiable ideology. Talk to your friends and family about what is happening; this isn’t politics as normal. Third, if you can, talk to a real human from the Twin Cities area about what it’s like to live there right now, and show them some love. Support them in whatever way you can. If you have the means, find a local group providing mutual aid to friends and neighbors and donate. What is happening to them today may be what happens to everyone else tomorrow; be the person you would admire in the history books. Finally, hold our representatives accountable. Call your representatives and tell them how important our democracy is to you. The U.S. representatives for Ames are Chuck Grassley, Joni Ernst and Randy Feenstra. Tell them we must not spend another cent on ICE.
This ends when enough of us say it does.
Self-written bio: Thomas Lenz is a UMN alumnus and ISU grad student.
