Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania ran an exercise simulating how the Second US Civil War might begin. It appears to have predicted what’s happening in Minnesota.
cf. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/21/ice-minnesota-trump
HR News || In October 2024, a team at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law (CERL) ran a tabletop exercise simulating how a modern American civil war might begin. The scenario was chillingly specific: a president orders a highly unpopular federal law-enforcement operation in a major city. Local officials resist. Courts freeze. Federal agents clash with state authorities. The exercise, led by professor Claire Finkelstein, was meant as a warning. By January 2026, it had become a blueprint for reality.
“In that exercise, a president carried out a highly unpopular law-enforcement operation … resulting in an armed conflict between state and federal forces.” — Claire Finkelstein, University of Pennsylvania
On January 7, 2026, Minneapolis became ground zero. ICE agents, deployed in unprecedented numbers as part of Operation Metro Surge, fatally shot Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen, mother, and poet. She was unarmed, sitting in her car, when an agent fired three times — hitting her in the chest, forearm, and head.
The Department of Justice refused to investigate the officer, and the FBI barred Minnesota officials from accessing evidence, deepening the standoff between state and federal authorities 22,24,25.
The atmosphere in Minneapolis is not theoretical. 3,000 federal immigration agents now patrol the streets, vastly outnumbering local police. Businesses have closed. Schools shut down. Protesters clash daily with federal forces, chanting “ICE Out!” as they demand an end to what they call an occupation 23,26,27.
“People in our neighborhood have been terrorized by ICE for six weeks.” — Minneapolis resident, January 2026
Good’s killing was the ninth time since September 2025 that ICE agents opened fire on civilians in five states and Washington, D.C. Four others have died in similar encounters. The pattern is clear: ICE is not just enforcing immigration law — it is waging a campaign of intimidation and violence.
The violence in Minneapolis is not an aberration. Across the country, ICE’s tactics have grown increasingly sadistic and systematic.
- Detained immigrants at the Fort Bliss detention camp in Texas have reported officers crushing their testicles during beatings, a tactic used to coerce compliance or punish resistance. One man described how an officer “grabbed my testicles and firmly crushed them,” leaving him with lasting injury and hearing loss from fingers forced into his ears.
- Sexual abuse is rampant. A 2025 ACLU investigation found 41 credible reports of physical and sexual abuse in ICE detention, including assaults on pregnant women and coercive threats to force deportations.
- Medical neglect is standard. Detainees suffer from untreated infections, denied medications, and are held in unsanitary, overcrowded cells. In December 2025 alone, ICE recorded its deadliest month ever, with multiple deaths linked to neglect and abuse.
“They can’t do what they are doing without infrastructure that has been built up over decades.” — Setareh Ghandehari, Detention Watch Network
- 32 people died in ICE custody in 2025 — the highest toll in two decades.
- 73,000 people are now detained, an 84% increase in a single year.
- 74% of those detained have no criminal convictions — most are locked up for civil immigration violations.
- Non-criminal arrests by ICE surged by 2,500% between January 2025 and January 2026.
This is not law enforcement. It is state-sanctioned terror.
The Standoff: States vs. the Federal Leviathan
The killing of Renee Good exposed a constitutional crisis. Minnesota officials, including Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison, demanded accountability. The FBI responded by locking them out of the investigation and seizing all evidence.
“This is a war that’s being waged against Minnesota.” — Governor Tim Walz, January 2026
The pattern is repeating nationwide:
- Texas, North Carolina, Alabama, and Florida have seen grassroots networks form to track ICE movements, document abuses, and protect communities.
- Hotels, businesses, and even Airbnb hosts are refusing to service ICE agents, part of a growing “#ICEOut” movement.
- Legal observers and activists now patrol neighborhoods, blowing whistles and recording ICE operations to deter abuses and gather evidence.
Yet the federal government is doubling down. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has granted ICE agents “absolute immunity,” emboldening further violence. The agency’s budget has ballooned to $170 billion, funding an expansion of detention camps, surveillance tech, and armed raids.
“We are switching from ‘defense’ to ‘offense,’ ensuring we don’t just watch out for ICE agents but create the conditions to hold elected officials accountable.” — Immigrant rights organizer, 2026
The Resistance: From the Streets to the Halls of Power
The backlash is building. Polls now show 46% of Americans support abolishing ICE, up from 19% in late 2024. In Minnesota, state legislators are introducing bills to limit cooperation with ICE and increase oversight.
- Protests have erupted in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and Washington, D.C., with thousands taking to the streets under the banner “Abolish ICE.”
- Mutual aid networks provide legal support, food, and shelter to those targeted by ICE, while encrypted chat groups coordinate rapid response to raids.
- Cities and states are passing “sanctuary” laws, refusing to collaborate with federal immigration enforcement.
The message is clear: ICE’s reign of terror will not go unchallenged.
The University of Pennsylvania’s simulation warned of a civil war sparked by federal overreach and local resistance. Today, that simulation is playing out in real time with federal agents in tactical gear, detained immigrants with crushed testicles, and mothers shot in the street.
The question is no longer if America is in a civil conflict, but how far it will go.
“If we are seeing this sort of extreme violence in broad daylight, imagine what people must be facing behind closed doors.” — Setareh Ghandehari, Detention Watch Network
The resistance is growing. The standoff is deepening. And the world is watching.
Expert Who Ran Simulations on ‘How Civil Wars Start’ Warns Minnesota Is Exactly What It Looks Like
“If we keep having these crises, one of them is going to get really ugly.”
Brad Reed || Experts are warning that the Trump administration’s ongoing crackdown in Minnesota could quickly get out of hand and could even result in a second US civil war.
Claire Finkelstein, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, wrote in a Wednesday column published by the Guardian that she and her colleagues at the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law (CERL) conducted a tabletop exercise in October 2024 that simulated potential outcomes if a US president were to carry out law enforcement operations similar to the ones being conducted by the Trump administration with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Minnesota.
“In that exercise, a president carried out a highly unpopular law-enforcement operation in Philadelphia and attempted to federalize the Pennsylvania’s National Guard,” Finkelstein explained. “When the governor resisted and the guard remained loyal to the state, the president deployed active-duty troops, resulting in an armed conflict between state and federal forces.”
Finkelstein noted that such a scenario is alarmingly close to what’s currently going on in Minnesota, where Gov. Tim Walz has placed his state’s National Guard on standby and President Donald Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, which would give him broad powers to deploy the military on US soil.
The simulation also projected that the judiciary would be of little help to any state that found itself in the president’s crosshairs.
“We concluded that in a fast-moving emergency of this magnitude, courts would probably be unable or unwilling to intervene in time, leaving state officials without meaningful judicial relief,” Finkelstein explained. “State officials might file emergency motions to enjoin the use of federal troops, but judges would either fail to respond quickly enough or decline to rule on what they view as a ‘political question,’ leaving the conflict unresolved.”
Steve Saideman, a political scientist at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, argued that the situation now is even more dire than the one Finkelstein and her colleagues imagined in their simulation.
In a post on Bluesky, Saideman argued that the US is “hours or days away from civil war.”
“This might sound extreme,” he acknowledged, “but if Walz has the Minnesota National Guard blocking ICE operations, the usual response of the federal government to governors using National Guard against feds is to call out the Army… What happens if the Army confronts Minnesota National Guard? We have no idea. But one real possibility is: bam.”
Saideman added that, given the nonstop chaos of Trump’s presidency, it’s only a matter of time before it eventually boils over into real civil conflict.
“If we keep having these crises, one of them is going to get really ugly,” he said. “Crises under Trump are street cars—there is always another one coming along. We have gotten lucky thus far, but if a citizen shoots at ICE or if the Minnesota National Guard tussles with ICE, things may escalate very quickly.”
In a New York Times column published on Monday, Lydia Polgreen argued it was no longer a stretch to equate what is going on in Minnesota with a war being waged by the federal government against one of its own states.
“It might not yet be a civil war, but what the White House has called Operation Metro Surge is definitely not just—or even primarily—an immigration enforcement operation,” wrote Polgreen. “It is an occupation designed to punish and terrorize anyone who dares defy this incursion and, by extension, Trump’s power to wield limitless force against any enemy he wishes.”
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