Good morning,
My name is Brandon Siguenza, and I am a US citizen from Minneapolis. Yesterday, while doing legal observation, ICE stopped their cars to harass my friend and me. They sprayed pepper spray into the vent of our vehicle. We held our hands in the air and told them we were not obstructing, that the car was in park and they were free to drive forward and away. There was no active immigration raid. They returned to their cars, and drove forward a bit, then decided to stop again. They surrounded us, smashed the windows of our car, opened the doors (they were unlocked), ripped my friend and I out of the car and arrested us on charges of obstruction.
I was put in an unmarked SUV, separated from my friend. As I was put in the back seat an ICE agent tore the whistle off my neck and said “I’ll be taking this, I might need it later.” My phone was knocked out of my hand while being arrested. As we drove away I asked the driver and the passenger if they wouldn’t mind buckling my seatbelt, as they were driving erratically. I was ignored. I asked them if I could have the handcuffs loosened, as I was losing circulation, and was told no. At one point the passenger realized his own driver’s license was in the backseat next to mine, and tried to surreptitiously grab it without me seeing it.
We were taken to the Whipple federal building, where I saw dozens of brown people being processed in an unheated garage. I was frisked, told of my charges, and saw buses and vans being prepped. I later learned that these were being filled with detainees and driven to the airport for deportation. As we were led in, I noticed that the building was very busy. I got the impression that one of the 2 agents bringing me around was being trained. At multiple points throughout my stay, government agents were unable to open doors, not sure where they were meant to be going, and overall confused and overwhelmed. They couldn’t figure out how to use the building phones, or complained about a lack of cell service preventing them from checking the internet or making calls.
The people in the cells were extremely scared. We heard people screaming “let me out!”, crying, wailing and terrified screams. There were cells with as many as 8 people. I have no way of knowing how long they have been there, if they were allowed any contact with the outside world, or if they were being brought food or water. Most people were staring at the ground with almost no energy. I was not allowed to talk to anyone imprisoned. I distinctly remember seeing a desperate woman. She was staring at the ground with her head in her hands crying, hopeless, while her friend or family member sat on a bathroom seat observed by 3 men.
My friend and I were put in an area for “USCs,” which we eventually learned meant US citizens, separated by gender. We were imprisoned for 8 hours, during which my friend was never allowed a phone call. I was allowed to call my wife and tell her where I was. During my interview with Special Agent William and Special Agent Garcia, they asked me to empty my pockets. When I pulled out gloves, Agent William said those were meant to be taken when I was processed, and complained about having to fill out the form again. He frisked me once more, where he found glass in my pocket from when our car window was shattered. He filled out the form listing my personal items again, but put the wrong date. I was read my rights, I pleaded the fifth and was led back to my cell.
Food, water, and bathroom breaks were extremely difficult to acquire. I would ask over the intercom provided in the cell for a bathroom break, be told someone was on their way, then ask again 20 minutes later, be told someone was on their way, wait another 20 minutes, etc. Eventually they either turned off the intercom or it stopped working, because no one would respond. I could get water and bathroom breaks by pounding on the glass when someone happened to walk by and beg them directly. Hours would go by without anyone checking on us. I am vegan and the only food they offered were turkey sandwiches, fruit snacks with gelatin, and granola bars with honey. I eventually ate a granola bar out of hunger.
I was in the cell alone for between 1 and 2 hours, then another man was put into my cell, whose shirt was ripped open from his arrest, and an injured toe, who was carried aggressively into an unmarked car during his arrest. After about 4-5 hours, another man was brought in who had a cut on his head from his arrest. He told me he was tackled by 4 or 5 agents during his arrest. At no point was he offered medical assistance.
Later I was told that a lawyer was here to see me, and I was able to speak with him in a visitation room. The special agent told me that the door could not be closed all the way, so it was cracked during my interaction with my lawyer. I got the impression that they were not used to having lawyers present, and were trying to follow procedure as best they could. I asked an agent if the other detainees were allowed lawyers and was not answered.
At one point, 3 men from the department of Homeland Security Investigations brought me into a cell. They insinuated that they could help me out. After inquiring several times what exactly they meant they finally told me that they could offer undocumented family members of mine legal protection if I have any (I don’t), or money, in exchange for giving them the names of protest organizers, or undocumented persons. I was shocked, and told them no.
Finally, after hours of detention, I was told to follow an agent. At no point was I told whether or not I was being charged, or where I was going, but I was led out of the building. I asked if I could use a phone to call my wife to pick me up, and was told I could not. After pleading for several minutes eventually Special Agent William let me use his phone to call my wife. As I was escorted off the property by government agents, I was told to turn right. I was escorted to the protest area, where 5 minutes later, tear gas was deployed and I was struck by a paint ball gun. I was not protesting, I was simply being released without charges after an 8 hour detention. I was on the other side of the street, as instructed by the agents that released me and the agents shouting orders over a bullhorn. A passerby who was tear gassed was panicking and having an asthma attack, so I helped her find a medic to get her an inhaler. I used a stranger’s phone to co-ordinate pickup, and was picked up by my wife.
During my detention I knew that I was being released. I knew that as a citizen of the United States I have legal protection. The hundred or so other people being detained had no such protection. At this time I don’t need your help, it is the families that are being separated, abused, terrorized, harassed and killed that need your help. If this is happening to me, an American citizen born in the United States, then what is happening to the people in here that have no one calling lawyers on their behalf? That have no constitutional rights to due process? What is happening to the people that they will never be released to see their families, go to their jobs, or walk through their city ever again?
Please take care of yourselves, your family, and your community. I am safe and healthy, if you feel compelled to help, please offer your help to the Immigrant Defense Network at https://immigrantdefensenetwork.org/. If you know someone detained by ICE, call or text CAIR-MN at 612-206-3360 for 24/7 legal intake.
Source: Brandon Siguenza (Facebook), 12 January 2025. Thanks to KFK for the heads-up.
What is it like in the Minneapolis ICE Detention Center? Patty O’Keefe & Brandon Siguenza join Jana to discuss their experience being detained for over 9 hours.
Source: KARE 11 (YouTube), 12 January 2026
In this week’s bulletin: Trade Union Confederation statement after January 9th Russian attacks; statement by Ukraine Social Movement on Venezuela; captivity and oppression in the Russian-occupied territories; problems of the Russian economy; anti-war messages in Russian cities.
News from the territories occupied by Russia:
Ukrainian, abducted as a teenager from occupied Donbas in 2019, sentenced by Russian court to 22 years (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, January 9th)
Ex-military and Ukrainian: No more needed for Russian ‘treason trials’ and massive sentences (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, January 9th)
The Face of Resistance: The Story of Crimean Tatar Political Prisoner Ismet Ibrahimov (Crimea Platform, January 9th)
‘Russian world’ in occupied Luhansk oblast: no heating and deliberately cut off from mobile telephones and Internet (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, January 8th)
Desperate plea from Russian prison: Ukrainian political prisoners need to be freed now, not after ‘peace deal’ (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, January 7th)
Crimean Political Prisoner Tofik Abdulgaziev in Critical Condition (Crimea Platform, January 7th)
The Woman Who Didn’t Break. Part Two (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, January 6th)
Monstrous 27-year sentence against Ukrainian civilian abducted from Russian-occupied Melitopol (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, January 6th)
Weekly update on the situation in occupied Crimea on January 6, 2026 (Crimea Platform, January 6th)
Even Putin supporter debunks Russia’s lies about a ‘Ukrainian drone attack on civilians’ in occupied Khorly (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, January 5th)
No answers & questions to Red Cross after Russia holds 64-year-old Melitopol journalist prisoner for third year (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, January 5th)
“You must not show that you are afraid”: Tales of captivity in the Kremlin-controlled “People’s Republics” (The Insider, January 5th)
News from Ukraine:
Fire Point’s large missiles and contracts: the story of Ukraine’s most enigmatic defence company (Ukrainska Pravda, January 9th)
More artists killed in Ukraine (The Artist, January 9th)
Statement of the KVPU on the critical situation in Ukraine after January 9 Russian attacks (Ukraine Solidarity EU, January 9th)
‘Bro-wolfieʼ: The story of a soldier who survived in Mariupol and rebuilt his life (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, January 8th)
All change: why Zelensky needs to reshuffle Budanov, Fedorov, Shmyhal, Maliuk and other top officials (Ukrainska Pravda, January 5th)
Engineers, missile strikes and high technology: can Ukraine produce more weapons in 2026? (Ukrainska Pravda, January 4th)
Denys, a unionised railway worker on the front line (International Labour Network of Solidarity and Struggle, January 1st)
War-related news from Russia:
Alexander Krichevsky of Izhevsk: Six Years in Prison for a Comment (Russian Reader, January 8th)
The rise and fall of the “Heroes of the Surgut Land”. How the Russian state works with memory of soldiers who died in the war with Ukraine (Mediazona, January 7th)
The streets speak. Anti-war messages in Russian cities (Mediazona, January 6th)
Timofey Anufriev Dies Fighting for Ukraine (Russian Reader, January 6th)
On thinning ice: After almost four years of war, Russia’s central bankers are running out of tricks to keep the economy afloat (The Insider, January 6th)
The Story of Gordey Nikitin: 17 Years for “High Treason” (Russian Reader, December 31st)
Analysis and comment:
Cedos held a discussion on the impact of research on policy change (Cedos, January 9th)
Behind the Contact Line: How would the 20-point peace plan impact the millions of Ukrainians living under Russian occupation? (Meduza, January 9th)
When Information Starts Working on Its Own (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, January 8th)
From master spy to lead negotiator: what does Zelensky’s new chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov, bring to the peace talks? (Meduza, January 8th)
Women’s Careers in STEM: Barriers and Motivations (Cedos, January 7th)
The Non-Peaceful Atom (Posle Media, January 7th)
Key challenges related to possible holding of an all-Ukrainian referendum on changes to Ukraine’s territory (Opora, January 5th)
Social Movement: What’s wrong with US aggression against Venezuela? (Ukraine Solidarity EU, January 3rd)
International solidarity:
Ukrainian leaders in UK call for Kemi Badenoch to sack David Wolfson, Russian assets to be used to aid Ukraine (USC, January 8th)
Upcoming events:
Thursday 15th January, at 7pm, Russia’s War On Ukraine, Us Strategy Review – Stopping The Authoritarians, organised by Ukraine Solidarity Campaign Scotland, register here.
Thursday 5th February, at 6.30pm. Try Me For Treason reading and discussion event at Clore Lecture Theatre, Birkbeck College Clore Management Centre, Torrington Square, London WC1E 7JL. Details here.
This bulletin is put together by labour movement activists in solidarity with Ukrainian resistance. To receive it by email each Monday, email us at 2022ukrainesolidarity@gmail.com.
Source: News from Ukraine Bulletin no. 178, 11 January 2026
Beginning in 1943, the War Department published a series of pamphlets for U.S. Army personnel in the European theater of World War II. Titled Army Talks, the series was designed “to help [the personnel] become better-informed men and women and therefore better soldiers.”
On March 24, 1945, the topic for the week was “FASCISM!”
“You are away from home, separated from your families, no longer at a civilian job or at school and many of you are risking your very lives,” the pamphlet explained, “because of a thing called fascism.” But, the publication asked, what is fascism? “Fascism is not the easiest thing to identify and analyze,” it said, “nor, once in power, is it easy to destroy. It is important for our future and that of the world that as many of us as possible understand the causes and practices of fascism, in order to combat it.”
Fascism, the U.S. government document explained, “is government by the few and for the few. The objective is seizure and control of the economic, political, social, and cultural life of the state.” “The people run democratic governments, but fascist governments run the people.”
“The basic principles of democracy stand in the way of their desires; hence—democracy must go! Anyone who is not a member of their inner gang has to do what he’s told. They permit no civil liberties, no equality before the law.” “Fascism treats women as mere breeders. ‘Children, kitchen, and the church,’ was the Nazi slogan for women,” the pamphlet said.
Fascists “make their own rules and change them when they choose…. They maintain themselves in power by use of force combined with propaganda based on primitive ideas of ‘blood’ and ‘race,’ by skillful manipulation of fear and hate, and by false promise of security. The propaganda glorifies war and insists it is smart and ‘realistic’ to be pitiless and violent.”
Fascists understood that “the fundamental principle of democracy—faith in the common sense of the common people—was the direct opposite of the fascist principle of rule by the elite few,” it explained, “[s]o they fought democracy…. They played political, religious, social, and economic groups against each other and seized power while these groups struggled.”
Americans should not be fooled into thinking that fascism could not come to America, the pamphlet warned; after all, “[w]e once laughed Hitler off as a harmless little clown with a funny mustache.” And indeed, the U.S. had experienced “sorry instances of mob sadism, lynchings, vigilantism, terror, and suppression of civil liberties. We have had our hooded gangs, Black Legions, Silver Shirts, and racial and religious bigots. All of them, in the name of Americanism, have used undemocratic methods and doctrines which…can be properly identified as ‘fascist.’”
The War Department thought it was important for Americans to understand the tactics fascists would use to take power in the United States. They would try to gain power “under the guise of ‘super-patriotism’ and ‘super-Americanism.’” And they would use three techniques:
First, they would pit religious, racial, and economic groups against one another to break down national unity. Part of that effort to divide and conquer would be a “well-planned ‘hate campaign’ against minority races, religions, and other groups.”
Second, they would deny any need for international cooperation, because that would fly in the face of their insistence that their supporters were better than everyone else. “In place of international cooperation, the fascists seek to substitute a perverted sort of ultra-nationalism which tells their people that they are the only people in the world who count. With this goes hatred and suspicion toward the people of all other nations.”
Third, fascists would insist that “the world has but two choices—either fascism or communism, and they label as ‘communists’ everyone who refuses to support them.”
It is “vitally important” to learn to spot native fascists, the government said, “even though they adopt names and slogans with popular appeal, drape themselves with the American flag, and attempt to carry out their program in the name of the democracy they are trying to destroy.”
The only way to stop the rise of fascism in the United States, the document said, “is by making our democracy work and by actively cooperating to preserve world peace and security.” In the midst of the insecurity of the modern world, the hatred at the root of fascism “fulfills a triple mission.” By dividing people, it weakens democracy. “By getting men to hate rather than to think,” it prevents them “from seeking the real cause and a democratic solution to the problem.” By falsely promising prosperity, it lures people to embrace its security.
“Fascism thrives on indifference and ignorance,” it warned. Freedom requires “being alert and on guard against the infringement not only of our own freedom but the freedom of every American. If we permit discrimination, prejudice, or hate to rob anyone of his democratic rights, our own freedom and all democracy is threatened.”
Notes:
https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=armytalks
War Department, “Army Talk 64: FASCISM!” March 24, 1945, at https://archive.org/details/ArmyTalkOrientationFactSheet64-Fascism/mode/2up
Source: Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, 9 January 2026
