How can ICE be opposed without striking the match it is intended to spark?

[Update: Given this topic's importance I let 24 people in. If we end up with 20+, I suggest we split into two groups, at least for the discussion.]

Is the vast expansion and use of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), however crudely and incompetently, mainly meant to do what President Trump says? Is the main goal to expel - without the legal "niceties" the Right dislikes anyway - all 10-12 million undocumented immigrants that MAGA believes cause many of the country's problems?

Or is it something worse? Is ICE the Trump Administration's way of getting around laws against using the military against Americans to build its own permanent secret paramilitary force? Or is it much worse? Is ICE invading blue city after blue city to try to provoke enough of a violent response that Trump can invoke the Insurrection Act and/or impose martial law? Full-blown authoritarianism would be the result, whether we hold November's election or not, I fear.

Opinions vary. But that Trump's/Miller's plan is to have ICE occupy one American city after another, and to evolve ICE to resemble more of a paramilitary force than law enforcement is almost beyond contestation, at least IMO.

We have pretty much ignored this type of topic since October. On February 9th, we dive back in to ask: What can be done about ICE? Mass passive resistance, like in Minneapolis? City-wide or state-wide general strikes, which have rarely been used to protest government in over a century? Arrest ICE agents caught committing state crimes? Litigation up to (this?) Supreme Court? Promise to hold ICE and their politician enablers legally responsible for federal crimes when the shoe is on the other foot?

Or something...more drastic? No one wants to say it out loud, if for no other reason that protestor violence almost always has failed as a political weapon in American history. Also, there's the immorality of spilling the blood of innocents AND of the presumptively but not proven guilty. Also, the American public turns against protestors VERY quickly when they are perceived as the instigators of violence.

Finally, all of those failures of street-level active resistance occurred before modern law enforcement existed. J. Edgar Hoover and the Pinkertons did not have modern tools like post-9/11 anti-terrorism laws, police departments armed with military grade weaponry, and their very own surveillance state. President Trump has at least 30%-40% of the public on his side, and probably almost all Republican Party elected and SCOTUS officials.

Still, public opinion has begun to turn on ICE, at least as I write this on 1/26. It seems that ASAP on first date available (February 9th) would be a good date to discuss ICE for the first time.

All points of view will be welcomed at our meeting, BTW. This is true in the sense that people WILL be allowed to speak without being interrupted until they have made their point. People must be respected in Civilized Conversation. Opinions however, once expressed, are subject to disagreement. It's a discussion, after all. I will try to be proactive in shutting down rude or ad hominem remarks. This is seldom a problem in CivCon but might be on a topic like this.

Optional Backgrounders –

Kind of the latest news –
· Trump/Miller plan for mass prison camps for immigrants is VERY unpopular, as is the main goal of mass ethnic cleansing. Recommended.
· Yet they will never stop. Springfield, OH is next.
· ICE brutality is NOT being exaggerated; most just don’t make the news. Here is one short example.
· Breaking news so hard to track: Democrats are holding up DHS funding over ICE abuses. But they can’t agree on proper - and realistic – demands. See here for a discussion.
· Long term plan is no secret: ICE intended to be Trump’s secret police that will, using a total surveillance state already being built, ethnically cleanse the USA and deport dissenters. Recommended.

“What to do about it and how to do it” advice
· How to talk to people about ICE who are not already against it. Recommended.
· Protest tips: How to film ICE safely. Protestors’ rights. ACLU.
· State govts can act. NY will create a uniformed ICE monitoring force. Why not California?
· Key for long term: Mobilizing (protesting) is one thing; whether it leads to organizing is what counts. Recommended.