Immigration agents draw guns and arrest activists following them in Minneapolis
Immigration agents draw guns and arrest activists following them in Minneapolis
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Immigration officers with guns drawn arrested activists who were trailing their vehicles on Tuesday in Minneapolis, while education leaders described anxiety and fear in Minnesota schools from the ongoing federal sweeps.
Both are signs that tension remains in the Minneapolis area after the departure of high-profile commander Greg Bovino of U.S. Border Patrol and the arrival of Trump administration border czar Tom Homan, which followed the fatal shooting of protester Alex Pretti.
“There’s less smoke on the ground,” Gov. Tim Walz said, referring to tear gas and other irritants used by officers against protesters, “but I think it’s more chilling than it was last week because of the shift to the schools, the shift to the children.”
At least one person who had an anti-ICE message on clothing was handcuffed while face-down on the ground. An Associated Press photographer witnessed the arrests.
ICE agents are changing their tactics
Federal agents in the Twin Cities lately have been conducting more targeted immigration arrests at homes and neighborhoods, rather than staging in parking lots. The convoys have been harder to find and less aggressive. Alerts in activist group chats have been more about sightings than immigration-related detainments.
Several cars followed officers through south Minneapolis after there were reports of them knocking at homes. Officers stopped their vehicles and ordered activists to come out of a car at gunpoint. Agents told reporters at the scene to stay back and threatened to use pepper spray.
Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said agents detained the activists because they hindered efforts to arrest a man who is in the country illegally.
A federal judge last month put limits on how officers treat motorists who are following them but not obstructing their operations. Safely following agents “at an appropriate distance does not, by itself, create reasonable suspicion to justify a vehicle stop,” the judge said. An appeals court, however, set the order aside.
Bovino, who was leading immigration enforcement in Minneapolis and other big U.S. cities, left town last week, shortly after Pretti’s death became the second local killing of a U.S. citizen in January.
Homan, who was dispatched to Minnesota to succeed Bovino, has warned that protesters could face consequences if they interfere with officers.
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Walz and education leaders held a news conference to say the presence of immigration officers is frightening some school communities. Brenda Lewis, superintendent of Fridley Public Schools in suburban Minneapolis, said she has been followed twice by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents since speaking publicly on Jan. 27 and that school board members have had ICE vehicles outside their homes.
Lewis, a U.S. citizen, said she has seen SUVs with tinted windows, multiple masked people inside and out-of-state license plates. She goes on neighborhood patrols near schools with a security guard.
“Students are afraid to come to school, parents are afraid to drop them off,” Lewis said. “Staff are coming to work wondering if today will be the day something happens in one of our buildings.”
She said Fridley, which has Somali and Ecuadorian families, has added security, adjusted drop-off procedures and increased mental health support. Tracy Xiong, a social worker in the Columbia Heights district, said she has been coordinating grocery deliveries to school families and finding volunteers to drive children.
There was no immediate response to a request for comment from the Department of Homeland Security and ICE about the concerns of educators.
Grand jury seeks communications, records
Meanwhile, Tuesday was the deadline for Minneapolis to produce information for a federal grand jury. It is part of a U.S. Justice Department request for records of any effort to stifle the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Officials have denounced it as a bullying tactic.
“We have done nothing wrong and have nothing to hide, but when the federal government weaponizes the criminal justice system against political opponents, it’s important to stand up and fight back,” said Ally Peters, spokesperson for Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat.
She said the city was complying, but she didn’t elaborate. Other state and local offices run by Democrats were given subpoenas, though it is not known whether they had the same deadline. People familiar with the matter have told the AP that the subpoenas are related to an investigation into whether Minnesota officials obstructed enforcement through public statements.
No release for man in Omar incident
Elsewhere, a man charged with squirting apple cider vinegar on Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar will remain in jail. U.S. Magistrate Judge David Schultz granted a federal prosecutor’s request to keep Anthony Kazmierczak in custody.
“We simply cannot have protesters and people — whatever side of the aisle they’re on — running up to representatives who are conducting official business, and holding town halls, and assaulting them,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Bejar said Tuesday.
Defense attorney John Fossum said the vinegar posed a low risk to Omar. He said Kazmierczak’s health problems weren’t being properly addressed in jail and that his release would be appropriate.
Order for release of 2 men accused of assaulting ICE officer fails to stick
Another judge ordered the release of two Venezuelan men who were accused of assaulting an ICE officer, but ICE officials quickly took them back into custody.
Alfredo Aljorna and Julio Sosa-Celis are accused of assaulting the officer the night of Jan. 14. Sosa-Celis was shot in the thigh by the officer during the encounter, triggering protests in Minneapolis.
The officer said he was struck with a broom and snow shovel while trying to subdue and arrest Aljorna after a car crash and foot chase. But the two men deny assaulting the officer. Neither video evidence nor three eyewitnesses supported the officer’s account.
U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson held a hearing Tuesday at which he rejected the government’s appeal of a magistrate judge’s order for the release of the two men on the criminal charges. Magnuson ruled that they could go free.
But an attorney for Sosa-Celis, Robin Wolpert, said in an interview that when she went to speak afterward with her client, who had been in the custody of U.S. Marshals, staff told her that ICE had taken him. She said she wasn’t sure why, or what their next steps would be.
Aljorna’s attorney, Frederick Goetz, said he didn’t know why ICE took his client or their next steps either.
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Raza reported from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. AP reporters Ed White in Detroit and Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed.
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