From Attorney General’s Office to Immigration Protests: The Dark Money Trail Behind ICE Watch Trainings

A former top aide to New York Attorney General Letitia James now leads a nonprofit that’s funding controversial anti-ICE training programs across the country. The story reveals how dark money flows from billionaire donors to street-level immigration protests.

What happens when a former government insider trades the corridors of power for the world of progressive activism? The answer might surprise you – and it involves millions of dollars, encrypted communications, and training sessions that teach protesters how to ‘slow down’ federal immigration agents.

Anna Brower spent years as the right-hand woman to New York Attorney General Letitia James, managing a staff of 2,200 people and a $400 million budget. But last September, she made a career pivot that’s now drawing intense scrutiny from conservative watchdogs. Brower became the inaugural president of the Hopewell Fund, a nonprofit that distributed more than $91 million in grants in 2024 alone.

Here’s where things get interesting. The Hopewell Fund serves as the fiscal sponsor for an organization called States at the Core, which has been conducting what it calls ‘ICE Watch’ training sessions across the country. Since President Trump’s second inauguration, more than 12,000 people have participated in these seminars, learning techniques that range from documenting federal agents to forming what training materials describe as ‘blockades’ against immigration enforcement.

The training materials I’ve reviewed reveal a fascinating contradiction. While Brower publicly states that her organization ‘actively discourages individuals from disrupting or interfering with law enforcement activity,’ the actual content tells a different story. One June 2025 training handout explicitly instructed participants to ‘slow’ immigration officers down by ‘getting in the way with a few bodies’ and forming blockades when five or more ICE Watchers are present.

These aren’t just theoretical discussions. The trainings have real-world consequences, as we’ve tragically seen in Minneapolis. Two ICE Watch participants – Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both 37 years old – were fatally shot by federal immigration officers during confrontations in January. Both incidents occurred after the officers gave directions that weren’t followed, highlighting the dangerous intersection between activist training and federal law enforcement.

The money trail behind these operations reveals the sophisticated machinery of modern progressive activism. Hopewell Fund was part of what critics call the ‘Arabella Advisors network’ – a constellation of nonprofits that collectively raised $2.4 billion in the 2020 election cycle alone. That’s more than the Democratic and Republican National Committees combined.

But here’s where the story gets even more complex. Arabella Advisors officially ceased operations in November 2025, restructuring into two new entities: Sunflower Services and Vital Impact. Conservative watchdog Scott Walter, who literally wrote the book on Arabella’s operations, calls this a ‘rebrand’ designed to make the network ‘less toxic’ after years of scrutiny.

The international dimension adds another layer of intrigue. Last week, the conservative group Americans for Public Trust revealed that Hopewell received $2.8 million from the Switzerland-based Oak Foundation. This comes as the Trump Justice Department has set its sights on criminal probes of left-wing entities, including those backed by George Soros’s Open Society Foundations.

Caitlin Sutherland, executive director of Americans for Public Trust, argues that the seminars ‘deliberately’ tell protesters to obstruct enforcement operations in apparent violation of federal law. ‘The IRS has made clear that nonprofits cannot fund illegal acts,’ she told reporters, ‘and that specifically includes deliberately blocking traffic and disrupting government work.’

The training materials reveal sophisticated tactics that blur the line between observation and interference. Participants are instructed to gather ‘identifiable information’ from ICE agents, including badge numbers, weapons carried, and vehicle descriptions. They’re taught to use encrypted channels to avoid sharing ‘incriminating’ information – language that suggests awareness of potential legal jeopardy.

One particularly revealing slide deck cautioned participants not to ‘incriminate yourself or others’ while simultaneously providing detailed instructions on how to document and potentially disrupt federal operations. The presentations were co-hosted by States at the Core and Protect Rogers Park, a Chicago-based group that’s been refining these tactics since the first Trump administration.

The human cost of these confrontations became starkly apparent in Minneapolis, where Operation Metro Surge – the largest immigration enforcement operation in U.S. history – deployed 2,000 agents to the Twin Cities area. The operation, which officially ended in February 2026 after widespread protests and political backlash, resulted in multiple civilian deaths and hundreds of wrongful detention lawsuits.

What makes this story particularly compelling from a scientific perspective is how it illustrates the evolution of modern political organizing. These aren’t spontaneous grassroots movements – they’re sophisticated operations backed by billionaire donors and managed by experienced political operatives. The transition from Brower’s government role to nonprofit leadership represents a well-worn path in American politics, where expertise gained in public service is leveraged for private advocacy.

The methodology behind these training programs also reveals careful attention to legal boundaries, even as participants are encouraged to push against them. The materials simultaneously warn against interference while providing tactical guidance that could easily cross into obstruction. It’s a delicate balance that reflects the complex legal landscape surrounding protest rights and federal law enforcement.

As this story continues to unfold, it raises fundamental questions about the role of money in American politics, the boundaries of legitimate protest, and the human consequences when ideology meets enforcement. The deaths of Good and Pretti serve as tragic reminders that these aren’t just abstract policy debates – they’re matters of life and death playing out on American streets.

The restructuring of the Arabella network and Brower’s transition from government service to activism leadership suggest that this model of political organizing isn’t going away anytime soon. If anything, the sophistication and scale of these operations appear to be increasing, even as they face growing scrutiny from both government investigators and conservative watchdog groups.