Thousands of demonstrators flooded the streets of Minneapolis last week demanding an end to federal immigration enforcement, but new research suggests the movement may be far less grassroots than organizers claim.
An estimated 15,000 activists marched through the city on Friday chanting “ICE out now” and calling for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be barred from operating in Minnesota. While promoted online as a spontaneous uprising of concerned citizens, some say the protest reflects a coordinated, well-funded campaign driven by professional activist networks and megadonor money.
According to reporting by the New York Post, influence researchers believe the demonstration fits a familiar pattern seen repeatedly during President Donald Trump’s time in office: large-scale protests branded as organic but quietly supported by wealthy donors and ideological organizations operating behind the scenes .
Scott Walter, president of Capital Research and an expert on political funding networks, told the outlet his team believes China-based financier Neville Singham plays a central role in supporting some of the groups tied to the protests.
“My team’s best judgement is that it’s the Neville Singham network that is most active [in Minnesota], partly because that’s the most crazy network. But they aren’t alone,” Walter said.
Singham has been linked to funding radical activist organizations such as the People’s Forum and the Party for Socialism and Liberation, both of which reportedly promoted the Minneapolis protest online. While the march itself was organized under the banner of a group calling itself 50501, analysts say members of these other organizations were present and increasingly blend into crowds to avoid scrutiny.
“What’s new is, we are seeing truly extreme Communist splinter groups showing up alongside an American Federation for Teachers union or the Ford Foundation,” Walter said. “That’s a disturbing trend for us who follow these things. Normally, they wouldn’t have been cheek by jowl publicly with those people.”
The 50501 network, shorthand for “Fifty states, fifty protests, one day,” emerged shortly after Trump’s second inauguration in January 2025. The group claims to be a decentralized, rapid-response movement pushing back against what it describes as “the anti-democratic and illegal actions of the Trump administration and its plutocratic allies.”
Little is publicly known about the group’s leadership. It is allegedly run by an anonymous Reddit user operating under the handle u/Evolved_Fungi, who previously told Newsweek, “I really felt like people needed something to connect to, and just seeing everybody struggle with what to do it was like ‘Here. Here’s a date. Here’s a time. Here’s a place. Go.’ […] It was amazing. I was absolutely thrilled with the response.”
Ian Oxnevad, a senior foreign affairs fellow at the National Association of Scholars, questioned why demonstrations consistently focus on narrow political targets.
“Have you noticed there’s no pro-Palestinian and anti-ICE protests going on at the same time? If it was organic, you would see multiple protests going on simultaneously, but you don’t see that,” Oxnevad said.
The Minneapolis rally is part of a wave of anti-ICE activism unfolding nationwide as federal deportations and enforcement actions increase. Demonstrations have been reported in California and other major cities, with some escalating beyond marches into disruptions of public meetings and confrontations with law enforcement.
As federal investigators and lawmakers continue probing the financial networks behind these demonstrations, the Minneapolis protest may prove less a spontaneous cry from the streets and more a case study in how modern activism is engineered, funded, and deployed.
