The anti-ICE activist playbook is not subtle. Show up at an immigration enforcement operation. Get in the agents’ faces. Record everything. Hope someone uses force so you can post “police brutality” content and fundraise off it. It’s a coordinated tactic, and it’s been documented repeatedly.
In Fort Myers, Florida last week, it didn’t go according to plan.
Maria Negrete Raya — a Mexican national in the country illegally — participated in what appears to have been a coordinated effort to interfere with ICE agents as they concluded a detainment operation. Video captured by her own group shows her opening the door of an ICE vehicle as agents were attempting to leave the scene. That forced agents to exit the vehicle and physically deal with the disruption. Raya ended up on the ground. Fellow activists jumped in. The whole thing was caught on camera — by the activists themselves.
Journalist Julio Rosas, reviewing the video the activists chose to release, put it precisely: “Their own video shows the torta opening the car door to get to the ICE agent as they appear to be leaving, forcing the other agents to push her back. Then the rest of the group jumps in to attack the agents. When an agent tells the videographer that they were attacked, she replies with, ‘I fucking see everything, y’all fucked up’ as if the agents somehow started the fight. These people are wannabe victims.”
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier’s office launched an investigation into the incident and arrested Raya Wednesday morning. She faces felony charges for battery on a law enforcement officer. Her mug shot has been released. And Uthmeier delivered the three-word summary that should be posted at every entry point into the Sunshine State: “This isn’t Minnesota.”
That line deserves to be unpacked. Minnesota is where the vouching system allows virtually anyone to vote by having a friend vouch for them. Minnesota is where the “Feeding Our Future” fraud network stole $250 million from a children’s food program. Minnesota is where Governor Tim Walz — now trying to “mess with Texas” on education policy after getting his lunch handed to him — presided over years of progressive governance that produced exactly the environment of lawlessness these tactics rely on.
Florida is not Minnesota. Florida prosecutes people who attack federal law enforcement officers. Florida AG Uthmeier has been aggressive about exactly this kind of obstruction — the same pattern he’s using to pursue noncitizen voters, Medicaid fraud, and anyone who thinks the state’s law enforcement infrastructure is there to be gamed.
The activists thought their video would make heroes of them. Instead it documented the moment the ringleader opened an ICE vehicle door and manufactured the confrontation she got. Felony charges. Florida AG. Mug shot released. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.