Ever Defiant in Minnesota

Our residents’ hatred of ICE is much more practical than you imagine

“ICE OUT” flag as advertised on Etsy

I never watch corporate mainstream-media “news”, so it took me awhile to accidentally stumble upon this video:

Minneapolis pizza shop workers, community members chase off ICE agents

This was posted in January, 2026, at the height of the ICE raids in Minneapolis. Here’s a summary:

• A small group of ICE agents tried to enter a shop called Wrecktangle Pizza in Minneapolis.

• The owners successfully blocked the agents from entering.

• A small crowd outside similarly demonstrated its hostility toward the agents.

Among the comments of the female shop owner who was interviewed were these:

• “We defended this community.”

• “We probably put a target on ourselves by helping people, which is just sickening.”

• “Minneapolis strong. Community first. They don’t belong here. They’re not this community. They’re not what we believe in.”

Beyond that, the owners presented themselves as virtuous philanthropists, having raised $83,000 for local “non-profits”, no doubt committed to equally wonderful ideals.

What would I do?

I cannot speak for the owners of Wrecktangle, but I can tell you what I would do if I were inclined to increase my profits by hiring illegal aliens. First, I’d get familiar with our federal immigration law. Here is the core of it (it’s not very long):

8 U.S. Code § 1324 - Bringing in and harboring certain aliens

In particular I’d pay attention to section 3A:

“Any person who, during any 12-month period, knowingly hires for employment at least 10 individuals with actual knowledge that the individuals are aliens described in subparagraph (B) shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned for not more than 5 years, or both.”

I’d find it interesting that our federal law contains a loophole that is seemingly designed to allow employers to hire up to nine illegal aliens without facing any penalties. But even with the loophole, there’s still a gnarly problem: as an employer I need to run payroll, and running payroll always involves identifying employees. Specifically according to the IRS:

You are required to get each employee’s name and Social Security number (SSN) and to enter them on Form W-2 (this requirement also applies to resident and nonresident alien employees).

So it’s pretty plain that in order for me to legally employ someone, that person must have a Social Security number. (Yes, legally present non-citizens can get SSNs.) Obviously, hiring “undocumented” persons is a criminal offense, if for no other reason than that I must evade the payment of employment-related taxes; I couldn’t pay them even if I wanted to.

Given all this, I’d adopt the following hiring policy at my pizza shop (if I had one):

• Keep the number of illegal aliens below ten.

• But since there is so much money to be made (via tax evasion), let’s have as many as possible without incurring jail time - so we’ll keep it at nine.

• Pay the illegal employees in cash.

This works out very well for me, though not so much for my illegal employees:

• I evade the payment of the employer portion of Social Security and Medicare (SS&M) taxes entirely.

• I can pay “after-tax” cash wages to my aliens, since that’s what legal employees also effectively receive in the short term. So:

  • in addition to my evading the “employer” portion of SS&M taxes,

  • I also don’t pay the “employee” SS&M taxes,

  • nor do I pay the portion of the employee’s gross wages that the employee would have to pay in income taxes.

Let’s see how the numbers work:

Yessir, now that is some serious social justice! By simply not reporting my illegal-alien employees, for every $100 of reported gross wages for a legal employee, I am paying $25.30 less per head!

Who loses?

The reality (which never seems to occur to the self-righteous folks who support all this) is that if employers of illegal aliens are making out by hiring them, obviously it must all be at someone’s expense. To calculate that, let’s dispense with the silly idea that there are “employee” portions of SS&M-related taxes, since all such taxes are unconditional and ultimately paid by the employer.

So then: instead of paying $107.65 for every $100 of gross wages that would be paid to a legal employee, the employer is ripping off the employee of:

• $12.40 in Social Security taxes,

which would have accrued to the employee’s Social Security benefit account. Beyond that, the employer is ripping off the U.S. taxpayers of:

• $2.90 in Medicare taxes and

• $10 in income taxes that would have been paid by the employee.

Of course, my illegal employees could not complain of this. Since I’ve never acknowledged their existence, I could simply fire dissenters immediately and/or report those persons to ICE and have them removed. Illegal aliens obviously cannot organize, so unions are not a problem here. How convenient for me.

Beyond all that, my pizza joint would be ripping off any competitors who are hiring strictly legal employees by putting them at a competitive price disadvantage. There’s no way to calculate the exact value of that.

Needless to say, my hiring of illegal aliens is an act of incredible virtue. In fact I don’t even need to say it; the nearly unanimous comments on the WCCO video say it for me! And TV station WCCO, our local CBS affiliate, also seems to concur - by interviewing all these pro-illegal-alien neighbors to the exclusion of all others.

But I wouldn’t merely let my neighbors and local media speak for me. No, with all that extra money that I rip off from my employees, U.S. taxpayers, and competitors by hiring aliens rather than citizens, I could afford to mount a promotional campaign that clearly demonstrates my superb virtues to everyone. I’d mount a campaign like this one:

This Minnesota Pizza Shop Is Delivering Free Food to Vulnerable Neighbors Amid ICE Crackdown

Wow. Who could out-virtue me after all that?

The Mystery of Tom Homan

Perhaps nothing illustrates the political wisdom of certain people better than the story of Tom Homan, who has held various leadership positions in ICE over many years.

You can explore this in greater detail here:

Obama Praised Tom Homan Now The Left Hate Him!

We cannot know for sure why the two Obama administrations (as opposed to the later Biden administration) chose to obey rather than violate federal immigration law; my theory is that after Trump defeated the Democrats’ designated First Woman President, Democrats became utterly desperate to import millions of illegal voters.

Ever Defiant

It is not merely small employers who are in on this - apparently the largest companies operating in Minnesota are on board with enabling the employment of illegal aliens to the max; in fact they don’t even hide it:

Who Is Really Behind our Illegal Immigration?

So it appears that, from our largest companies to our smallest, ripping off taxpayers and employees via employment fraud is de rigueur here. That’s in addition to the other more direct, explicit fraud going on - but that is a whole other story. It does seem strange though that in a place with such a high proportion of self-described socialists, there is so much acceptance of the idea that it’s just fine to starve the government. I guess Minnesota has a special sort of socialism where you don’t have to pay in – you just draw goodies out. Gee, I could get behind that myself!

Minnesotans have great values - not just vague philosophical values, but actual numerical values that you can put in a spreadsheet. It’s hard to argue with someone who saves almost a quarter of her expenses for every illegal alien she employs. Yes, when it comes to ripping off our taxpayers and workers by violating the social contract that we have with our federal and state governments, Minnesota is ever defiant.

So let’s wrap up by returning to the statement of the Wrecktangle Pizza woman:

“We probably put a target on ourselves by helping people, which is just sickening.”

Yes ma’am. No doubt you are helping people. And I have little doubt about precisely which people you are helping.

==== ADDENDUM OF 7/12/2026

My purpose in writing this article, by the way, is not to disparage our immigrants, even the illegal aliens who come here. If I had been born in Mexico, I’d probably have come here myself, one way or another. Consider that Mexico (for example) is a cartel-controlled country, where politicians who are not aligned with the cartels are simply murdered. Consequently we can surmise that being employed or otherwise conducting business in Mexico involves being extorted. It is the hopelessness of their situation, I presume, that drives so many to flee here. And be assured that the irony of the cartels being financed by our USA drug addicts is not lost on me.

It has taken me a decade to realize how much of the work that has been done on my behalf has presumably been the work of illegal aliens. Years ago I had my roof replaced and was surprised when an all-Hispanic crew arrived and only the foreman spoke any English. They did fantastic work, by the way, and even added some extras that I requested. Similarly, it is not lost on me that the janitorial staffs of places I patronize might well be here illegally. I do appreciate the work they do, just as I’d appreciate a well-done job by anyone.

Our retailers now seem to be crossing the line though, when they staff their stores with clerks who cannot speak English, even in places where the vast majority of patrons do. Recently I visited a Walmart in Eden Prairie, MN; I don’t think I saw a single employee who wasn’t Somali, and the one from whom I tried to get help spoke little or no English. Months earlier while on vacation I visited a Walmart in Auburn, ME, and the “associates” there were almost all Hispanic, and the one that I asked for help spoke no English; she held a phone to my face, and at the time I didn’t realize it was probably running a translation app. Really?

In any event, my ire is reserved for the business folks and politicians who are filling their pockets with the proceeds of breaking our laws while holding themselves up as humanitarian paragons of virtue. Hypocrisy always galls me. We live in a generally lawful country (that’s why people come here) where we have laws governing employers and unions and such; if the USA wants and needs more immigrant labor than it currently imports legally, then let’s change the laws until the demand is legitimately met. All I ask is a level playing field where everyone plays by the rules.

Even more galling are the “liberal” common folk who hold themselves in high esteem for supporting “sanctuary” policies, as if we are benefitting everyone by breaking our own laws. My guess is that they haven’t spent five minutes contemplating the consequences of their beliefs, including the fact that they are being duped and robbed, and that the people for whom they advocate are also being robbed. Really, how dumb do you have to be to believe that we are better off breaking (rather than fixing) our own laws?

Most of the people who come here illegally probably do so out of desperation caused by the criminal dysfunction in their own countries – within which there is no escape, since those criminals run the government and the corporations as well as the explicitly criminal organizations. With the ever-increasing acceptance of criminality by our own government, our corporations, and our general population, we are gradually transforming ourselves into the sort of place that our immigrants are fleeing here to escape.

==== ADDENDUM OF 7/16/2026

Let’s explain this in a way that might appeal more to our virtue-signaling anti-ICE neighbors:

If you are already getting Social Security income, or are expecting to be some day, and if you’re insured by Medicare or expect to be some day, then every employer of illegal aliens is robbing you of your future. The Social Security and Medicare systems did not save up your contributions over the years, and they aren’t saving them now; current SS and Medicare payments are paid almost entirely via current contributions of current employers. According to the Social Security Administration itself:

So if you are collecting Social Security or are insured by Medicare today, the payments are coming from current employers who are legally employing current employees.

Employers who are paying illegal aliens in cash are circumventing both Social Security and Medicare payments. Our SS&M system is designed to be currently funded on the presumption that all our employment activity is legitimate and is therefore being taxed. To the degree that employers are hiring illegal aliens, that system is being de-funded.

An interesting question for your Democrat friends who are screaming “ICE OUT” is: do you expect to retire some day? If their answer is “yes”, you might take the opportunity to point out that there might be a cost to their political activism, and that they themselves will very likely be paying it.