Federal immigration agents are violating Minnesotans’ constitutional rights in the course of their large-scale enforcement action in the Twin Cities, according to allegations in a lawsuit filed Wednesday.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota (ACLU) is leading a suit accusing Department of Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of violating the First and Fourth Amendment rights of Minnesotans by harassing people documenting enforcement activity and by detaining U.S. citizens.
The six plaintiffs include Abdikadir Noor, a Somali American who experienced racist rhetoric when he was detained by ICE for more than four hours on Monday and Susan Tincher, a north Minneapolis resident who was detained and had her wedding ring cut off by ICE agents after observing an arrest in her neighborhood.
“Our ultimate goal is to protect what Minnesotans want to do when they disagree with their government,” said Alicia Granse, a staff attorney with the ACLU.
The ACLU filed the suit in coordination with lawyers from Ciresi Conlin, Forsgren Fisher and Riach Law. The suit is the first major legal challenge to ICE action in Minnesota, which has exploded this month under what the agency calls Operation Metro Surge.
“Since the launch of Operation Metro Surge, we have witnessed a remarkable string of unlawful activity targeting the Minnesota community and Minnesota values,” ACLU Executive Director Deepinder Mayell said.
Some plaintiffs in the lawsuit were intimidated by ICE agents, according to the lawsuit. One, Alan Crenshaw, was sprayed with chemical irritants while protesting ICE activity in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis. ICE agents in Richfield allegedly pointed guns at married couple Janet Lee and John Biestman and told them: “We have your license plate. We know where to find you.”
The lawsuit is attempting to create a protected class of people who observe, document and protest federal immigration actions in Minnesota, Granse said. As part of the suit, the ACLU intends to seek a temporary restraining order to give Minnesotans additional legal protections while the case moves through the court.
Somali American arrested, experienced racism at hands of ICE
Noor, a 45-year-old Fridley resident who has been a U.S. citizen for 20 years, was going to get coffee at Karmel Mall in Minneapolis on Monday when he was pulled over by ICE, according to the lawsuit. His arrest was part of a high profile ICE action near Pillsbury Avenue that was featured in several news articles.
Another car with Latino occupants was stopped at the same time as Noor, according to the lawsuit. When Noor realized it was ICE and not the police, he told agents that he knew his rights and wouldn’t show them anything. The agents then targeted the vehicle with Latino occupants. Noor also encouraged people in that vehicle to assert their rights.
A crowd formed and the situation became tense. Agents began scuffling with a woman who crowd members said was pregnant, throwing her to the ground, according to the suit. Noor was trying to calm the crowd when he was suddenly thrown to the ground and arrested, according to the lawsuit.
With Noor in custody, an ICE agent sped down the highway to the federal Whipple Building near Fort Snelling, not allowing Noor to buckle his seatbelt, according to the lawsuit. As he was processed by ICE, the agent examining his passport told another officer, “They all come here fraudulently. Fifty percent are here fraudulently,” according to the lawsuit. The agent allegedly said that “Somalis should go back home.”
Noor was shackled and placed in a room alone for about four hours, according to the lawsuit, before eventually being read his rights. He was released without any charges or paperwork at about 6 p.m.
“The whole time I was there at the scene, I just wanted to tell the government that what they were doing to the woman, to the Latinos, to all of us, is wrong,” Noor said in a statement included in the lawsuit. “I just wanted to tell people what their rights are in this country and under our Constitution.”
ICE actions causing chaos, difficult to track
Noor is one of several Somali Americans to be detained by ICE during Operation Metro Surge.
Last Tuesday, Mubashir, a 20-year-old Somali Minneapolis resident, was arrested by federal officers in Cedar-Riverside despite repeatedly telling officers of his U.S. citizenship. He offered to show them his I.D. on his phone, but they ignored him.
Several immigrant advocacy groups and elected officials say federal officers are racial profiling people to stop and detain them. Federal officers were seen driving around immigrant-dense neighborhoods, like Cedar-Riverside and near E. Lake Street, stopping to question people on public streets about their immigration status, Miguel Hernandez, a member of the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee, said in an interview last week.
Federal officers confronting immigrants to question and arrest them is a major shift from past large-scale enforcement actions that drew crowds of protesters, he said, such as the ICE raid at Bro-Tex in St. Paul.
“I think they figured out this community is going to stand up and resist and that larger operations are not effective because they get bogged down by the community asking for accountability,” he said. “These smaller snatch-and-grab units can just disperse to grab and go quickly.”
Since the beginning of Operation Metro Surge, Hernandez said it’s been difficult to track ICE arrests.
“It’d be like trying to count water,” he told the Sahan Journal. “You can measure it in volume, but it gets everywhere.”
More legal challenges could come
In September, the Supreme Court issued an emergency action to temporarily allow officers to make arrests based on race, language and occupation. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said at a Tuesday morning news conference that he is working with legal partners and intends to file legal action on federal enforcement action. He did not specify when he’ll file, he added.
Other states, such as California and Chicago — the locations of ICE operations that occurred in recent months — have pending lawsuits against the Trump administration challenging the use of racial profiling on immigration-related arrests.
“This seems to be very much about content, fear and a disregard of the rule of law as opposed to law and order,” said Simon Trautman Cordova, an associate attorney for the Minnesota Justice Coalition.
In Mubashir’s case, he told officers multiple times that he had proof of U.S. citizenship and without evidence disproving that, continuing to detain and fingerprinting him violates his Fourth Amendment right, Catherine Ahlin-Halverson, an attorney for the ACLU, told Sahan Journal.
She also said a person detained by federal immigration officers without a warrant has the right to remain silent or verbally tell officers about their rights. They can also ask to leave or call an attorney, but it’s not guaranteed officers will grant it.
For decades, holding officers accountable for violating a person’s constitutional rights during an immigration-related arrest or questioning is “really hard,” said Michele Garnett McKenzie, executive director of the Advocates for Human Rights, a nonprofit legal organization.
“In the immigration context, those checks and balances are really missing,” she said at a Wednesday afternoon news conference hosted by the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The Trump administration’s ramped up federal immigration enforcement is putting those questions “front and center” she said.
In addition to targeting neighborhoods and immigrant-owned businesses during Operation Metro Surge, federal agents have waited outside homes to arrest immigrants, according to immigrant advocacy groups. In public spaces, like on the street, federal officers have the authority to question or detain someone they suspect to be violating immigration law, immigration attorneys say.
“It’s crucial to continue to shed light on the unlawful conduct by ICE agents and the brutality and cruelty in which they are pursuing Minnesotans regardless of their immigration status,” Ahlin-Halverson said.
