I’ve seen insurgencies up close — and anti-ICE actions look eerily familiar

Americans remain bitterly divided over the chaos that’s engulfed Minneapolis as President Donald Trump seeks to deport illegal-immigrant criminals.

Some see the protesters thwarting the enforcement of immigration law as “protecting friends and neighbors” — a form of righteous vigilantism.

Others contend Trump’s efforts are legal and necessary — despite the tragic deaths of two civilians who unlawfully interfered with federal enforcement action.

The tactics and behavior of Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are under deserved scrutiny in the cases of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

But what about the anti-ICE provocateurs, agitators and instigators hell-bent on disrupting and impeding immigration enforcement?

Just how do they “spontaneously” materialize en masse to scream profanities, blast whistles and block official vehicles?

On Saturday, The Post revealed a piece of that puzzle with leaked data from an operation calling itself the “Community of Service.”

The group, led by a cadre of dispatchers, uses the secure messaging app Signal and the business-focused scheduling program AirTable to track ICE activity, schedule volunteer patrollers and spy on the license plates of suspected DHS vehicles in one sector of Minneapolis.

Dispatchers and patrollers working in round-the-clock shifts can quickly rouse members to the site of any ICE action with emoji-coded text messages.

And “Community of Service” appears to be just one of many separate anti-ICE cells taking part in these disturbances, all of them covering their electronic tracks and using aliases to shield their identities.

As a career FBI official who specialized in detecting and countering nefarious networks both at home and abroad, it’s all eerily familiar.

When I deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, I saw similar spotter tactics employed by any number of guerilla groups who communicated via handheld radios to initiate IEDs on roadways traveled by American troops.

The organized crime outfits and narco-traffickers I pursued during my 25-year FBI career sought to protect themselves with tactics much like those of “Community of Service,” operating in separate cells so that compromising one wouldn’t expose the rest.

In the 1990s and 2000s, enterprising criminal networks swiftly adopted new communications channels on video-game console networks, recognizing that law enforcement remained focused on monitoring landlines, pagers and cellphones.  

Put it all together, and the anti-ICE movement looks less like a populist, grassroots uprising of outraged soccer moms — and more like a criminal insurgency.

History is littered with empires undone by insurgent campaigns, from the fall of Rome to the collapse of czarist Russia.

Former CIA senior operations officer Rick de la Torre told FOX News Digital last week that the Minneapolis protests strongly resemble the insurgencies outlined in official US Army and CIA manuals — “decentralized movements” embedded among civilians that wield propaganda to “exploit triggering events,” prioritize rapid communications and focus on “persistent surveillance” of their foes.

No wonder FBI Director Kash Patel announced last week that his agency would be examining anti-ICE encrypted group chats on Signal to determine if users “broke the law” or “incited violence.”

Of course, opponents argue this is overreach.

And they’re right that inveighing against a government you disagree with in a private chat is not against the law — and is enshrined in the First Amendment as protected free speech.

Yet in Minneapolis, civilians serving within the anti-ICE mobilization effort as “rapid responders” have moved into dangerous territory as they obstruct and impede enforcement of immigration laws.

The chaos that follows is much like the BLM protests and riots of 2020, when genuine, constitutionally protected demonstrations turned violent as anarchists and Antifa’s “black bloc” agitators — employing aliases and clad in black clothing and masks to conceal identities — capitalized on public anger over the death of George Floyd.

Those activists, along with many of today’s anti-ICE organizations, work directly with the Democratic Socialists of America and espouse Marxist-Leninist ideologies.

And some prominent Democrats are actively lending a hand — while looking to spread the uprising beyond Minnesota.

The leaked “Community of Service” Signal chats reveal that its dispatchers include a Gov. Tim Walz appointee to a city board, the wife of a Democratic state representative and well-known Democratic attorneys and educators.

In New Jersey, Gov. Mikie Sherrill last week announced the launch of an online portal for public upload of videos of ICE operations in the Garden State.

In Seattle, Mayor Katie Wilson says she’ll prohibit ICE from accessing city-controlled properties and will deploy local cops to verify federal agents’ IDs.

Expect more of these state-sanctioned insurgency tactics to be unleashed when the enforcement of America’s immigration laws comes to a sanctuary city near you.

James A. Gagliano is a retired FBI supervisory special agent and a member of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund board of directors.