Socialist and communist protest groups ramped up their coordinated demonstrations in blue cities Thursday, escalating their anti-government messaging and vilifying Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after the fatal shooting of a woman in Minneapolis.
The groups, including the Democratic Socialists of America, the Party for Socialism and Liberation and The People’s Forum, rallied their members in New York City, Chicago and elsewhere, while the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, a self-described communist group, activated its members in cities from New Orleans to Minneapolis.
The mobilization spawned demonstrations in multiple other cities, including Burlington, Vermont; Philadelphia; San Francisco; Seattle; Atlanta; and Washington, D.C.
Protesters chanted "Killer Kristi!" at a demonstration in downtown Manhattan, where Noem announced the arrest of 54 alleged Dominican Trinitarios gang members.
"Go to hell, Kristi Noem!" they yelled.
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Other groups, closely aligned with the Democratic Party, including Indivisible and 50501, supported anti-ICE protests around the nation. By late Thursday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a nonprofit that has led anti-Israel protests for years, joined the cacophony of anti-ICE denouncements, declaring, "This is state violence."
In New York, a crowd of about 300 people carried signs that said "ICE Cold Killers" and "ICE is Trump’s Gestapo."
The demonstrations followed the fatal shooting of anti-ICE protester Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer during an ICE enforcement operation in South Minneapolis Wednesday. Demonstrators accused the ICE agent of "cold-blooded murder," while Trump administration officials said he acted in self-defense after the woman drove her Honda Pilot SUV at him, threatening his life.
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Extremism experts are warning that the highly coordinated and choreographed demonstrations risk inciting violence against law enforcement and may be designed to manufacture the appearance of widespread chaos while advancing a coherent ideological agenda that exploits domestic flashpoints to destabilize the country.
"I just wish the average American realized that there is a network of far-left agitators in America who are Marxist-Leninists, socialists, Maoists and even North Korean apologists," Stu Smith, a researcher at the Manhattan Institute with an expertise on domestic terrorism, told Fox News Digital.
"As these ideologues say the issue is never the issue. It’s all about the revolution. After this terrible situation in Minneapolis, they used social media and their networks to mobilize and get on the streets to hurt America."
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At Foley Square in New York, near local ICE offices, leaders from The People’s Forum, a nonprofit activist hub that has received funding from a tech billionaire, Neville Roy Singham, and has close ties to the Chinese Communist Party, stage-managed most of the day's protest.
They arrived at 8:41 a.m., just minutes before the 9 a.m. start, hauling two shopping carts full of bullhorns and premade black-and-white signs printed with the message "JUSTICE FOR RENEE NICOLE GOOD" and a photo of Good with "PARTY FOR SOCIALISM AND LIBERATION" across the bottom.
"Want a sign?" one of the organizers from the Party for Socialism and Liberation asked demonstrators, many of them standing with their hands in their pockets.
One man asked for a switch of signs.
"Can I have the sign that says, ‘ICE OUT OF OUR COMMUNITY’?" he said.
Beyond New York, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization led raucous protests near the site of the killing soon after news spread of the shooting.
According to internal FBI documents made public, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization has been the subject of federal scrutiny. In 2015, the FBI opened an investigation into the group to assess potential criminal activity.
While no charges were filed, internal FBI documents described the organization as a "revolutionary socialist and Marxist-Leninist organization" and cited alleged ties to foreign Marxist-Leninist extremist groups, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Communist Party of the Philippines and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC.
At the New York City demonstration, protesters spoke bluntly about their ideological orientation.
"I personally identify as a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, following the teachings of [former communist China leader] Mao Zedong," said demonstrator Tye Burrus, 18, who held a handmade sign depicting a hammer and sickle smashing a giant ice cube.
Burrus, a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation who self-identifies as transgender, said losing faith in the Democrats and never having faith in the Republicans led to embracing communism.
"So, now I am a communist," Burrus said.
One demonstrator sold copies of the Workers Vanguard, which calls itself a "Marxist Newspaper" of the Spartacist League, the U.S. chapter of the International Communist League.
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"One dollar please," she said, circulating in the crowd.
Another protester handed out copies of a newspaper, The Revolution, which urges readers to "join the fight for socialist revolution." The paper, which identifies itself as a product of the Revolutionary Internationalist Youth and its local chapter at the City University of New York, notes that it advocates "the program of Marx, Lenin, and Trotsky."
Yet another demonstrator, this one from the City University of New York student group, held a sign advocating "FOR A REVOLUTIONARY WORKERS PARTY," a labor party inspired by Soviet communist leader Leon Trotsky. The bottom of the sign said, "REVOLUTIONARY INTERNATIONALIST YOUTH."
Members of Refuse Fascism, a group that describes itself as "anti-fascist," moved through the crowd, handing out slick, freshly printed pamphlets titled "The People’s Indictment of Donald Trump," outlining what organizers described as a history of alleged constitutional violations by Trump. Online, it announced plans for a protest at the White House on Saturday at 1 p.m., posting online, "Trump’s ICE Gestapo commits cold-blooded murder."
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Members of the Democratic Socialists of America, whose endorsed candidate Zohran Mamdani recently won New York City’s mayoral election, attended the protest wearing red hats bearing the group’s "DSA" initials. Protest organizers declined requests for comment.
On X, Mamdani echoed the talking points of the protesters, alleging that "an ICE agent murdered a woman in Minneapolis — only the latest horror in a year full of cruelty."
Among the demonstrators, symbols from different movements appeared side by side. One woman carried a flag for Palestine, while a man banging a cowbell hung a flag of communist Cuba on his backpack.
As the demonstrators circled the sidewalk outside the World Trade Center with Noem inside, Manolo De Los Santos, a founder of The People's Forum and a regular protest organizer, told the crowd that demonstrators weren’t allowed inside.
"We are not going anywhere," he shouted into a bullhorn.
On the spot, The People’s Forum posted De Los Santos’ defiant message on its X account: "NOW. MASSIVE PICKET AT WORLD TRADE CENTER."
But not for long.
Soon after, the staged protest ended, the activists shuffled away and organizers from The People’s Forum bundled up their megaphones and rolled away with their grocery carts filled with signs, neatly stacked and ready for use another day.