As our Managing Editor Jennifer Van Laar covered, the multi-layered networks of anti-ICE Signal chat groups and how these are used to engineer and support the attacks on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol (BP) agents, foment unrest, and escalate violence in Minneapolis points to an "organized insurrection" occurring before our eyes.
Dive Deeper: Anti-ICE Signal Chats: Walz Administration Implicated, Foreign Funding Revealed
The findings by investigative journalist Asra Nomani further corroborate what Van Laar and guerrilla journalist Cam Higby have uncovered.
The skirmish that led to Saturday's fatal shooting of an agitator by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis and the response that followed were driven by a complex network of far-left organizations with a wide range of causes, a Fox News Digital investigation found.
A coordinated web of encrypted chats, street alerts and tracking of ICE "Abductors" in a sophisticated database reviewed by Fox News Digital shows that agitators were already mobilized at the scene where 37-year-old Alex Pretti was killed minutes before any shots were fired.
Nomani's investigation further uncovered that minutes before Alex Pretti was shot and killed by a BP agent, a large number of agitators were activated to be at the scene. Almost as though they knew something horrible was about to go down, and they were called there to "witness" it.
Nomani's X thread reads, in part:
According to these messages shared in the encrypted Signal chat, activists were already mobilized BEFORE any shots were fired—tracking, broadcasting and summoning people to Nicollet Avenue with one objective: to obstruct the work of federal agents. Encrypted Signal chats show “rapid responders” were dispatched to intercept ICE and Border Patrol agents during an active law enforcement operation. This wasn’t accidental. It was organized interference—designed to escalate confrontation.
A far-left network helped put Alex Pretti in harm's way, then made him a martyr. Encrypted Signal messages show 'rapid responders' mobilized demonstrators to harass and track federal agents, then socialist groups capitalized on the killing to foment chaos. https://t.co/26fLFkeMte
— Asra Nomani (@AsraNomani) January 26, 2026
But this "local" network quickly disseminated the violence to the activists nationally and to the legacy media. Riddle me this: On Saturday, the Associated Press was the first outlet to report the identity of the person shot by BP agents. How did they know that a) this was Veterans Affairs Hospital ICU Nurse Alex Pretti who had been shot? and b) that they knew where his parents were and reached out to them to confirm it was their child? One can surmise AP did some shoe-leather news gathering, but even law enforcement was not able to quickly identify Pretti before the AP story broke. This network knew exactly who he was and knew which outlets to broadcast the information to in order to seed the narrative of another "murder" by out-of-control, untrained ICE and Border Patrol agents.
Over the following hours, a national network of socialist, communist and Marxist-Leninist cells in the United States leveraged the tragic fatality into a nationwide protest operation. While grief and outrage over Pretti's death is genuine, the network's real-time rapid response, using short sensational video clips and emojis as weapons of propaganda, offers a window into the disciplined logistics, messaging and coordination of far-left warriors fomenting insurgency-like confrontation with authorities.
There has been corroboration and confirmation from government officials that they are aware the coordination is no coincidence, and that it is tightly organized. Some reports are alleging that certain elected Minnesota officials may be involved.
ICE Assistant Director Marcos Charles said Sunday that the violence on the streets was "not a coincidence," considering the "chaos and mayhem" that agitators are fomenting in Minneapolis. At the same press conference, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) Commander-at-Large Greg Bovino confirmed that Pretti was "on the scene several minutes" before the fatal shooting.
But as we are seeing with the rampant Minnesota fraud engineered through the Somali community, exposure is only one phase of unraveling this tangled web. How does one lawfully go about rooting out, shutting down, and then defunding these networks? In a step toward that, on Monday, FBI Director Kash Patel revealed that the Signal chat groups are now being investigated by the FBI for this coordination activity.
WATCH:
MASSIVE BREAKING: FBI Director Kash Patel confirms the Bureau has opened an investigation into the Signal group chats EXPOSED by independent journalist Cam Higby.
— RedWave Press (@RedWave_Press) January 26, 2026
“We look at all this stuff. As soon as Higby put that post out I opened an investigation on it.”⁰⁰“That sort of… pic.twitter.com/IpTRMldwsk
But demonetizing this highly-funded operation is critical and necessary to disintegrate the cohesiveness of the network. Remember when the Trump administration neutered and defunded USAID? While there were protests mounted across the country in the first few months of 2025, most of them were anemic and had lost their narrative punch. One reason behind this is that they had not yet recouped their financial losses from the removal of the money-laundering NGOs. Somewhere along the way, they did, and the result has been the rise and dominance of ICE-Watch and other anarchist groups.
Data Republican is unearthing donors who financially supported a Minneapolis insurrection fund via a left-wing crowdfunding app called "Chuffed."
🚨💵 BREAKING: SIGNALGATE DONORS LIST AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD; POLITICIANS + FOREIGN LEADERSHIP CONFIRMED?
— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) January 26, 2026
In one of the files revealed by @camhigby , a resources file directs people with money to a website, Stand with Minnesota, which in turns directs donors to a campaign ran by… pic.twitter.com/5CDhWxRKhk
BREAKING: SIGNALGATE DONORS LIST AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD; POLITICIANS + FOREIGN LEADERSHIP CONFIRMED?
In one of the files revealed by @camhigby, a resources file directs people with money to a website, Stand with Minnesota, which in turns directs donors to a campaign ran by Tending the Soil on Chuffed.
More about Tending the Soil later. What to know: the campaign is hosted by Chuffed and the first donation came from Jonny Soppotiuk, a Canada-based community organizer who is part of Chuffed leadership and specializes in fundraising. He is most likely a central figure in raising money.
So, yeah. Starting to look like foreigners are playing a key role in all of this.
That's not all. I've put together a spreadsheet of 4000+ donors and their possible identities.
Whatever the ongoing investigations surrounding Alex Pretti's death reveal about what went down in those moments between him and the BP agents, this anarchist network and their interference in federal law enforcement affairs are at the heart of why Pretti is dead. Had it not been for the interference and agitation by this anti-ICE network, Pretti probably would not have been there. These nefarious actors do not care about dead bodies on either side of the fence; they are only interested in the destruction of America from the inside out, while collecting martyrs for their cause.
The money source needs to be defunded and quickly.
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