Report alleges China-linked donor money backed Minneapolis anti-ICE protest

Anti-ICE protests in Minnesota might seem like "grassroots" efforts led by concerned citizens, but they are actually funded with money from megadonors — some of which comes from China.

A so-called "ICE Out" march attracted an estimated 15,000 left-wing political activists to a frozen, snow-covered Minneapolis on Friday, with participants chanting "ICE out now" and calling for an end to federal immigration enforcement in the city.

While presented as a spontaneous uprising by everyday people, the demonstration — similar to many that have regularly emerged during President Trump’s terms — featured a familiar group of politically motivated activists and highly active online figures.

They organize on radical message boards and encrypted messaging apps, but are financially supported by funds from radical leftist billionaires.

“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 extreme network. But they aren’t alone,” Scott Walter, president of Capital Research and an expert on dark money organizations, told The Post.

Walter was referring to the People’s Forum and the Party for Socialism and Liberation, both funded by China-based former software executive Singham.

Both groups promoted the "ICE Out" protests — organized by another group, called 50501 — through social media, and Walter said their members attended, but noted they have recently been encouraging their members to blend in more with the crowds.

“What’s new is, we are seeing really extreme Communist splinter groups appearing alongside an American Federation for Teachers union or the Ford Foundation.

“That’s a disturbing trend for those of us who follow these matters. Normally, they wouldn’t have been publicly side by side with those people,” Walter said.

“That kind of self-policing on the left seems to be disappearing.”

Singham, who did not respond to a request for comment, has become a major funder of left-wing activist networks, including protests in Minnesota and other cities, all coordinated from his base in Shanghai.

“They work together through complex networks of understanding. An average protester might have little understanding of the Neville Singham network, but [they will be] friends with people in several other groups. He himself probably belongs to half a dozen groups, because their groups are constantly creating new names,” Walter said.

Lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee and other GOP members are investigating whether his financial support constitutes foreign influence or violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, exploring potential connections between his network and Chinese Communist Party propaganda efforts.

“Have you noticed there are no pro-Palestinian and anti-ICE protests happening at the same time? If it was organic, you would see multiple protests happening simultaneously, but you don’t see that,” Ian Oxnevad, a senior foreign affairs fellow at the National Association of Scholars, told The Post.

“There are no mass protests like this against what is happening in Iran, for example, or any number of genocides that have occurred. It’s always very specific causes that are anti-Western, essentially,” he added, referring to anti-regime unrest in Iran that has allegedly seen 36,000 protesters killed in recent weeks.

Friday’s Minneapolis protest took place under the umbrella of the 50501 network, which operates largely in the shadows.

50501 lists its nonprofit “partners” on its website, including the Ford Foundation-funded Voices of Florida, a “black and queer-led” pro-abortion nonprofit, and former Bernie Sanders PAC Political Revolution.

The New York-based Ford Foundation philanthropic endowment, which provided Voices of Florida with $100,000, is the 90-year-old philanthropic network founded by the carmaker Henry Ford that now states its mission is reducing inequality and promoting social justice.

Other notable left-wing activist groups present across Minnesota since mass civil disruptions began late last year included Indivisible — funded by Hungarian billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundation — the Sunrise Movement, and Unidos Minnesota.

Tax filings and other records reviewed by The Post indicate that since 2016, the Sunrise Movement received at least $2 million from funders in the so-called Arabella network, a DC-based progressive network.

Indivisible received $107,000 from the Arabella network, $6.5 million from 90-year-old Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss, and $7.6 million from Open Society Foundation.

Local group Unidos Minnesota and its anti-ICE branch Monarca have become regular participants in demonstrations and unrest in the Twin Cities.

A January investigation by The Post revealed the group is funded by a non-governmental organization called Tending the Soil Minnesota, which had about $1 million in assets in 2023, comprised of grants from the Arabella network, the Amalgamated Charitable Foundation, and the Minnesota-based McKnight Foundation, according to tax filings.

Walter says there are multiple groups with different names and different funding sources to make things deliberately obscure and hard to trace.

“The mainstream media is very eager to always portray it as just poor ordinary Americans outraged by this horrible injustice. But, no, the person who organized it is a leader in five or ten different entities.

The abbreviation “Fifty states, fifty protests, one day,” 50501 was established immediately following Trump’s second inauguration in January 2025. Little is known about it, besides being supposedly organized by one mysterious, anonymous Reddit user who uses the handle u/Evolved_Fungi.

It is described as a decentralized, rapid response online group responding to “the anti-democratic and illegal actions of the Trump administration and its plutocratic allies.”

The group has claimed credit for 11 mass demonstrations over the past year, with the first occurring less than two weeks after Trump’s second inauguration.

Alongside Indivisible, the group participated in anti-Elon Musk demonstrations at car dealerships last spring and in so-called “No Kings” rallies, which attempt to brand Trump as an “authoritarian monarch.”

“I don’t think it’s just anti-Trump. Trump threatens what the left perceives as significant progress they’ve made toward their agenda over the past several decades,” Oxnevad said.

“Typically, you have Republicans who don’t really roll back any left-wing initiatives, they just slow them down. Trump is actually rolling many of them back. That threatens the overall agenda of the left. And that’s something they haven’t really experienced before.”

Arabella, Ford Foundation, and Open Society did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.

Little is known about the u/Evolved_Fungi account behind 50501, including the owner’s identity and country of origin. The person provided a rare interview to Newsweek in February 2025 after 50501’s inaugural demonstration against Trump.

The alleged protest organizer boasted of degrees in marketing and engineering and expressed an interest in reading psychology books. A review of his online activity also revealed he is active in the men’s anti-circumcision movement.

The user told the outlet: “I really felt like people needed something to connect to, and just watching everyone 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.”

The user u\Evolved_Fungi did not respond to a request for an interview from The Post.

“I’m just like everybody else,” the person allegedly identified as u/Evolved_Fungi told the outlet. However, without any further evidence, we will have to take their word for it.