These young brothers sacrifice normal teenage life to be full-time ICE watchers in Minneapolis — and say they won’t regret it

Brothers Ben Luhmann, 17, and Sam Luhmann, 16, pose together outside the ICE detention center in Broadview, Illinois, on November 14. (Audrey Luhmann via CNN Newsource)

The teenagers’ names are Sam and Ben, but to the federal immigration agents they interact with daily, the two boys wielding cell phones and taking down plate numbers are a duo known as “the brothers.”

The 16- and 17-year-old Chicago siblings said they have earned an array of nicknames since becoming dedicated witnesses documenting the Trump administration’s Operation Midway Blitz — the turbocharged immigration crackdown that swept through Windy City neighbourhoods starting in September.

Now, the boys are trailing agents in Minneapolis, following the epicenter of immigration enforcement in the US as it’s shifted north to the Twin Cities. They are part of a ballooning wave of observers across the North Star State, where tensions have soared during encounters between thousands of federal agents and protesters — unwavering and furious — in the wake of the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

Sam and Ben Luhmann are trained ICE watchers, documenting federal immigration agents’ actions with cell phone video and quickly warning of agents’ locations with whistles and car horns. Their efforts are reflective of a growing movement across the country as thousands of parents, teachers, clergy members and community organizers have sought training on what they can legally do when they see an immigration arrest.

The Trump administration, however, has criticized bystanders recording immigration officials during enforcement operations. In July, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said “violence” against the agents includes “videotaping (ICE officers) where they’re at when they’re out on operations, encouraging other people to come and to throw things, rocks, bottles.”

Critics of the immigration crackdown say observers are necessary, given what they describe as dangerous tactics by federal agents that put people at risk. Trump administration officials counter that they are taking necessary steps to keep Americans safe and said ICE officers are facing a significant increase in assaults. Federal officials also said officers are exercising restraint despite facing threats and attacks.

The brothers now couch surf between family members’ homes and Airbnbs, intent on documenting what some describe as the unprecedented aggressiveness of Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis.

“(Federal agents are) constantly pushing people and beating them up, kneeing them in the face when they’re down on the ground, or shoving their head into ice or pavement so that they’re scraped up,” Ben said.

The homeschooled boys spend their days in south Minneapolis following suspected federal vehicles in their silver 2018 Toyota Corolla, writing down license plate numbers and sending immigration agents’ locations in group chats with other observers.

When the agents stop, so do the brothers, jumping out into frigid temperatures to film operations on their phones and Sam’s chest-mounted GoPro camera — videos they upload online.

Since their arrival in Minneapolis two days after Good’s death, they’ve captured hours of footage of protesters facing chemical irritants, beatings and detentions.

They’d rather be fly fishing and making music

Sam saved his money working at a veterinary clinic for over a year to buy his GoPro camera so he could film himself fly fishing — not to stand in the glacial cold capturing violent imagery of DHS agents, he said.

“There’s a lot of things I’d rather be doing,” Sam said, like tying his own flies to catch and release fish with friends. “It seems like all my time is being used on this, which I will never regret doing this because I feel like people have to do something.”

A high school senior who has started collecting college application letters, Ben said he’d otherwise be spending his time writing songs and experimenting with music production. Neither brother has immediate plans to go into professional advocacy or documentary work, they said.

But the boys said they choose to patrol in hopes of protecting immigrants and protesting the Trump administration’s approach to immigration enforcement.

“I think it’s so wrong, and it’s hard to see that and just say, ‘It doesn’t personally affect me, so I’m gonna ignore it and let other people suffer the consequences,’” Sam said. “This is happening, it’s not okay, and I’m gonna do something about it.”

The brothers are homeschooled by their mom, Audrey, who juggles teaching, child-rearing and advocacy work. During Operation Midway Blitz, Ben and Sam would patrol in the morning, come back around noon and knock out their schoolwork in a dizzying turnaround.

“I’d get home and do college applications,” Ben said. “That was the worst vertigo in the world.”

Because of the sheer size of the operation in Minneapolis compared to Chicago, the boys said they’re finding themselves more often sacrificing schoolwork for patrolling.

But they don’t think that means they’ve stopped learning.

“Here, it’s been more difficult, but this is almost like an internship. We’re seeing things that most Americans will never see again in their lives, hopefully,” Ben said. “The people we’re getting to meet and the experiences we’re getting, and the things you learn through this work, is invaluable.”

More operations and agents in Minneapolis, alongside more resistance and community

As scores of federal immigration agents marched through the streets of Chicago last year, Sam and Ben remembered feeling overwhelmed by their afternoons spent observing operations.

ICE’s presence in Minneapolis has marked such an escalation from what they witnessed in the Windy City, they said, that by the time they get home to upload their videos, it’s already time to sleep and do it all over again.

Roughly 3,000 ICE and Border Patrol agents are currently conducting immigration operations in the Minneapolis area, according to a January 26 DHS court filing, but border czar Tom Homan said Thursday he asked immigration authorities to prepare an eventual “drawdown plan” for agents in the city. In early January, DHS described the federal presence in Minneapolis on X as the “largest DHS operation ever.”

On their first day in Minneapolis on January 9, the brothers recalled not needing to check in with patrol group chats or even look for the federal agents. They were everywhere, and impossible to miss.

“With the greater number of agents, it felt like an invasion through your streets,” Ben said. “Just caravanning around, grabbing any Brown or Black person walking down the sidewalks.”

DHS has staunchly denied that its agents engage in racial profiling, calling the allegations “disgusting, reckless and categorically FALSE.”

“This type of garbage is contributing to our officers facing a more than 1300% increase in assaults against them,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement. “A person’s immigration status makes them a target for enforcement, not their skin color, race or ethnicity.”

But the most shocking difference from Chicago, Ben said, has been the agents’ “step up in terms of aggression” and “lawlessness.”

“It’s been just a blatant disregard for human rights,” Ben said. “They brutalize people.”

In one incident captured by the brothers on January 21, a clash erupted between protesters and federal agents — which ended in someone being pepper sprayed directly in the face while they were held down by three agents. It’s unclear what started the clash, or what led the agents to restrain and spray the protester.

The federal agent who sprayed the person can be seen earlier holding the pepper spray canister toward other protesters and yelling at them to “get the f**k back” multiple times.

Other agents attempt to disperse the crowd from the area and eventually deployed chemical irritants, leaving the area clouded with many people coughing. In a second video of the incident filmed by Ben, you can hear his voice in the background: “This is what happens when they have ICE in Minneapolis. They don’t know how to do their job!”

Prior to the incident, the agents had been at a nearby gas station and “repeatedly harassed and blocked by hostile crowds while simply trying to take bathroom breaks,” leading them to use crowd control measures, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to CNN.

The outsized resistance efforts to immigration operations in Minneapolis have been a welcome surprise, the brothers said. Even in the freezing cold, Ben and Sam spot ICE watchers on every corner with their whistles donned, waiting to act if they see a federal vehicle or operation in progress.

“In South Minneapolis, (we’re) seeing how much people care and these teams that people can put together just because they love their neighbour and want to protect people,” Sam said. “It’s been very cool to see more people doing the work that we’ve been doing in Chicago out here.”

Parents say sons’ encounters terrify them, but ‘how could I say no?’

The day Pretti was shot by federal agents, Audrey received a text from a friend: “Where are your boys?”

She spent the next few minutes poring over their iPhone locations, checking them against the address of the shooting, and waiting for more information. An app on her phone showed the brothers’ locations in the same place — down to the cross street — as the reported shooting.

“They were saying a White male has been shot,” Audrey said. “At that point, I was shaking. I finally found the video of the shooting, and I might be the only person on Earth that was relieved.”

Audrey and her husband, Andrew, a professor at Wheaton College in Illinois, said they took Sam and Ben to their first “No Kings” protests and pro-Palestinian walks in the wake of the latest war in Gaza.

Audrey and Ben observed ICE for the first time together in September in the early days of Operation Midway Blitz, when they met other concerned community members. Within hours, they developed the skeleton for resident patrol groups in Chicago.

Ben and Sam began patrolling daily, encountering ICE agents and studying their rights to observe before they started sharing their videos of operations with anyone who asked.

“I watch their videos clammy-handed and shaking, but also deeply proud,” Audrey said.

When the boys asked to travel to Minneapolis as the operations evolved, Audrey and Andrew said they were nervous, but felt their sons belonged there.

“They’ve learned so much and been influenced so much by people’s faith and hope and strength and courage and integrity, generosity, humility,” Audrey said.

She added: “As a parent, how could I say no? How could I say, ‘No, you need to stick to your book learning, and just ignore this for now, we’ll read about it in history books later.’ Like, are you serious?”

The parents said they’ve surrounded themselves with friends and family and credited their church community for also encouraging the boys’ mission. Supporters have sent them gas money, donations for dinners at Chipotle and pairs of warm wool socks to get them through the Minneapolis winter.

“One thing we’ve tried to emphasize to them throughout their whole lives is to follow Jesus,” Andrew said. “And, as part of that, we see Jesus always going to the places of greatest need. … We’re not going to tell them not to do that.”

ICE watchers in Minnesota surge amid escalated enforcement

Since the Trump administration deployed thousands of federal officers to carry out immigration operations across the US, growing networks of volunteers — like Ben and Sam — who call themselves ICE observers appear to be intensifying their efforts.

In the Minneapolis area, now the epicenter of Trump’s crackdown, interest in ICE watching activity is roaring.

One Minnesota immigrant advocacy group reported a threefold increase in the number of people signing up to become legal observers the day after Good was killed by an ICE officer earlier this month.

“To say this — the killing of Renee Good lit a fire under the community — would be an understatement,” said Ryan Perez, a leadership and organizing director with the advocacy group COPAL, part of a network of 5,000 trained civilians who monitor immigration enforcement. “It really is a remarkable moment.”

Good has been linked to efforts monitoring federal agents in neighbourhoods across Minneapolis in the weeks leading up to her death.

Following Pretti’s death on January 24, scores of protesters have taken to the streets, armed with cell phones and bright orange whistles, as local officials implore Minnesotans to continue documenting ICE operations.

For the brothers, any risk is worth letting people across the country witness the unprecedented operation as it unfolds.

“Every day we see how blatantly wrong it is and how hateful it is,” Sam said. “There needs to be this little sacrifice for people to go out there and document and stand up for what’s right.”