In federal Lake Street operation, ICE agent’s Norse patch sparks questions over ideology

As dozens of federal officers stormed a Minneapolis Mexican restaurant Tuesday as part of a large-scale operation, one agent drew special attention from protestors and social media users for the patches adorning his shoulders.

On his right side, the masked officer wore a patch reading “ICE” – the official logo that comes standard issue on uniforms of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

On the left shoulder, he wore a patch that is not standard issue. It showed an image of a bearded Viking skull emblazoned over an eight-prong wayfinder, a Nordic image called a “Vegvisir.”

“St. Paul Field Office Special Response Team,” read the customized black-on-white text surrounding the image.

Combined with the agent’s military-style camouflage, assault rifle and black mask, some saw the patch as a menacing sign, perhaps indicative of an extremist ideology, like that of the violent white supremacist groups that have co-opted images of the Norse god Odin in recent years, called “Odinists.”

“I am deeply concerned about this patch on one of the ‘officers,’” wrote Brandon Schorsch, who was present outside the raid and posted a video of the agent to the social media site Bluesky. Others called it a neo-Nazi symbol, citing online articles associating similar images with racist movements.

The scene was reminiscent of one that unfolded last week in Martha’s Vineyard, when an ICE agent’s interlocking triangle tattoo — a Norse “Volknot” — stoked fear in that East Coast community of a racist agenda embedded in the federal immigration forces sweeping the United States.

Experts who study extremism and contemporary uses of ancient Norse imagery say it’s possible, since white supremacist groups often wear similar iconography to that seen on the ICE agent’s shoulder. But as with the Volknot, they say, this type of Viking symbol is not definitionally associated with any specific ideology, and it’s worn by people, including in military uniforms, for many purposes in different regions of the world.

“It’s very difficult to say that it necessarily represents a political idea or a spiritual idea,” said Mathias Nordvig, head of Nordic studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder, whose focus is contemporary uses of Old Norse symbology. “For some, wearing a badge like that can simply have something to do with their heritage. Say they had some Norwegian ancestry or something like that, and then they saw a cool Viking themed badge and got that.”

The Star Tribune reached out to ICE’s national public affairs office and St. Paul Field Office for an explanation as to the anonymous agent’s intention in wearing the patch, but neither replied.

The patch symbols represent an amalgamation of “Viking-esque” and Icelandic symbols, said Natalie M. Van Deusen, a professor of Scandinavian culture for the University of Alberta, who noted Vikings did not in fact wear horned helmets like the one depicted in the patch. The Vegvisir is a magical symbol meant to provide guidance, particularly in bad weather.

“What this has to do with ICE, I do not know,” she said.

Van Deusen said it’s possible there is a connection between the patch and white supremacy — Norse and Viking Age symbols are routinely appropriated by these groups, she said — “but it is not possible to draw secure connections based on what I see in this patch and without further information.”

Nordvig said he’s not seen ICE agents in raids elsewhere wearing these types of patches that could indicate it fits into a larger trend.

Norse rune symbols have drawn similar suspicion in the past, and have been used by Aryan groups in the United States since the 1980s, Nordvig said.

More recently, Richard Allen, an Indiana man convicted of killing two middle school girls in 2017, attempted to blame the murders on white supremacist “Odinists.”

In western Minnesota, the Asatru Folk Assembly – an Odinist “Nordic heritage group” identified by experts as a white supremacist organization – drew controversy when it opened a whites-only church in the rural town of Murdock in 2020.

Lisa Waldner, a sociology professor at the University of St. Thomas who studies right-wing movements, said the patch evokes symbols often used by hate groups.

“While I cannot say for sure, the symbology looks very similar to what I would expect to see from someone who is affiliated with a racist, neo-pagan extremist group,” Waldner said. “Even if the patch has a more innocent meaning, that design suggests poor judgment and should not be worn by anyone in law enforcement.”