Is there an underground group that are helping with the anti ice people
Executive summary
There is no credible reporting in the provided sources that a single clandestine “underground” organization is secretly running or uniformly supporting the anti‑ICE movement; rather, the movement is a web of formal advocacy groups, labor unions and highly decentralized neighborhood networks that use encrypted chats, training sessions and rapid‑response tactics to monitor and confront ICE actions [1] [2] [3]. Some outlets emphasize organized left‑leaning groups and unions playing coordinating roles, while others describe a leaderless, hyperlocal phenomenon — both narratives are supported in the reporting [4] [5] [2].
1. What the reporting actually documents: networks, not a secret cabal
Multiple mainstream outlets document coordinated action by established advocacy groups — Indivisible, the ACLU, 50501 and labor unions have helped organize nationwide protests and days of action, offering public coordination and resources rather than clandestine direction [4] [6] [5]. At the same time, local rapid‑response and neighborhood “ICE watch” groups using Signal chats, whistles and upstander trainings have proliferated, creating agile, decentralized responses to enforcement activity that are openly organized even when they use encrypted communications for operational security [7] [2] [3].
2. Encrypted chats, “commuters” and rapid‑response: tools, not proof of a shadow group
Reporting from The Atlantic and PBS describes people who follow ICE convoys organized on neighborhood Signal groups who call themselves “commuters,” and cites thousands of rapid‑response volunteers in some neighborhoods — tactics that look like grassroots intelligence‑sharing but are documented as community self‑organization, not as the work of a hidden underground organization [2] [7]. Waging Nonviolence and other outlets likewise document social‑strike planning and mass noncooperation supported by unions and community groups, framing these as movement tactics rather than covert conspiracies [3].
3. Leaders, trainers and the appearance of coordination
The Atlantic and the New York Times report training sessions and volunteer drills run by nonprofit trainers to prepare people to confront or document ICE actions, producing the impression of coordination while maintaining that no single group directs the movement; some organizers explicitly describe it as leaderless and hyperlocal [2] [1]. National organizations, including Indivisible and unions, provide logistical muscle for public protests and campaigns — a hybrid model of formal and grassroots activity that can look organized without implying an underground cell [4] [8].
4. Claims of “outside agitators” and partisan framing
Attempts to characterize protesters as paid agitators or controlled by a single ideological nucleus are contested in the reporting: fact‑checking and local historians emphasize that many protesters are local volunteers with long traditions of civic organizing, and that labels like “outside agitator” have historically been used to discredit mass movements [7]. Conversely, partisan outlets have emphasized socialist or communist involvement and suggested orchestration by leftist groups; those claims coexist with credible documentation of mainstream group involvement but do not prove a secret underground network [9] [5].
5. What the sources do not show and the limits of available reporting
None of the supplied sources documents a covert criminal underground organization that clandestinely supplies logistics, weapons, or illegal sheltering specifically for “anti‑ICE people”; the evidence instead points to a mix of visible organizing by NGOs and diffuse, decentralized neighborhood systems that use encrypted communications and public trainings [1] [2] [6]. Without investigative reporting or leaked documents explicitly alleging a hidden, centralized clandestine group, the available record supports a decentralized movement model rather than a single underground conspiracy [7] [3].
6. Why this distinction matters
Labeling disparate tactics and groups as a monolithic underground can be used politically to delegitimize protest and justify heavier enforcement; conversely, overstating central control can obscure the real, documented roles of unions, nonprofits and community volunteers who openly coordinate rallies, trainings and rapid responses [4] [3] [7]. The reporting suggests a distributed ecosystem of activism — formally organized campaigns plus leaderless neighborhood networks — not an underground apparatus operating in secret [1] [2].