The Swedish resistance to ICE continues. Sveriges Radio highlights an unexpected weapon in the struggle: knitted red hats.

Eva Kilander from Halmstad knits in protest against the actions of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the United States.

The “protest knitting” emerged as a result of Eva’s belief that words are insufficient to express the frustration she feels over American authorities wanting to identify and deport illegal migrants and criminals who have been ordered deported.

“You get furious. That they’re allowed to go about things the way they do — you can hardly put it into words,” Eva tells P4 Halland.

In the segment, the red hat is claimed to have become “a symbol of resistance,” and it is pointed out that the Norwegian resistance movement wore red hats during its fight against Nazism in World War II.

Support for the ICE protests is portrayed as massive, and Eva claims that Facebook is being “flooded with red hats”:

“In my feed there are loads of hats. People care.”

The news segment follows Swedish journalistic practice: no clarifying follow-up questions are asked, and nothing is problematized.

That “people care” within what constitutes Eva’s social media bubble is probably entirely accurate, but the question remains: what is it that motivates these people to engage in—and protest against—American domestic policy?

That would have been interesting to learn, but Eva is never asked why she wants to protect illegal migrants and criminals ordered deported, including murderers and rapists.

Nor is she ever asked why she did not take up protest knitting ten years ago: between 2009 and 2016, the Obama administration carried out the deportation of a record 2.4 million illegal immigrants, entirely without protests from Sweden.

The number of official ICE deportations during Trump’s second term is estimated, by comparison, to be a modest 130,000 to 200,000 people, with 128,039 documented deportations through June 2025.