Prosecutors on Tuesday charged 15 people with conspiring to impede federal immigration agents who carried out a massive enforcement campaign in Minnesota this year, according to court documents.
Some are charged with additional offenses including solicitation to commit a crime of violence, interstate threats, interstate stalking, assaulting a federal officer and destruction of government property. Minnesota U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen announced the charges at a Tuesday morning news conference.
Rosen said the actions of the 15 people charged went beyond peaceful protest and constitutionally protected free speech.
“These defendants are not being charged for what they said, but what they did. They all joined an agreement, a conspiracy, to interfere with lawful immigration enforcement operations. The conspiracy was not to interfere with their voice, but by force,” Rosen said.
Twelve of the 15 people indicted were arrested by ICE agents Tuesday morning, Rosen said. One, Kyle Wagner, was arrested in a February raid in south Minneapolis. Two more remain at-large, Rosen said.
According to the indictment, the defendants are members of a group called Direct Action Minnesota, which describes itself as a coalition of people engaged in community defense during the federal immigration operation.
Much of the indictment focuses on Direct Action Minnesota’s group chat on Signal, a messaging platform known for being private and secure that was used by many rapid response groups during Operation Metro Surge.
The charges specifically allege that members of Direct Action Minnesota tried to block ICE officers’ movement to and from the Whipple Federal Building near the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on Jan. 23 and March 1.
Rosen did not answer questions from reporters about any specific physical assaults by the defendants against federal agents. He shared a video in which Wagner called on his followers to “get your [expletive] guns and stop these [expletive] people,” but declined to answer if Wagner or any of his social media followers had actually threatened agents with firearms.
Federal prosecutors have previously charged 36 Minnesotans with assaulting or impeding federal agents during Operation Metro Surge, but many of those cases have since been downgraded and at least 15 have been dismissed, court records show. Rosen told reporters Tuesday he doesn’t believe those cases have failed, and said more charges could come.
“If you are actively conspiring to impede law enforcement, actively conspiring to commit the acts that today’s indictment alleges, you ought to assume that we’re watching you and that we will get you,” Rosen said.
The individuals charged are scheduled to make their first court appearances at 2 p.m. Tuesday at the federal courthouse in downtown St. Paul.
The charges come after Operation Metro Surge sent thousands of federal immigration officers to Minnesota earlier this year. During the operation, federal agents shot three people, killing two and injuring one. The operation caused widespread protests across the state and country.
Minneapolis City Council Member Jason Chavez told Sahan Journal he received many calls Tuesday morning reporting that community members who observed ICE activity were being arrested by federal agents in south Minneapolis.
“These are our neighbors who have literally put everything on the line to protect our immigrant community, so it’s very sad to see what’s happening today,” Chavez said.
Dozens of protesters representing rallied outside of the federal courthouse building in Minneapolis on Tuesday morning. The rallygoers called the arrests them a “naked political attack” by President Donald Trump over resistance to his administration’s immigration enforcement operation earlier this year.
“We condemn the U.S. Attorney’s Office here, who have carried out these political prosecutions. They have acted on marching orders directly from Donald Trump and we’ve seen their prosecutions fail already,” said Anna Hall, a criminal defense attorney and member of the National Lawyers Guild. “They charge without sufficient evidence, they have brought cases on false testimony and they’ve been forced to drop cases already.”
Activist and civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong, who herself is facing federal charges for entering Cities Church during a protest in January, echoed Hall, calling the arrests “trumped up charges,” and urging the crowd to support the protesters arrested Tuesday morning.
“For the 15 people who were arrested this morning for standing up, we have to continue to stand up for them,” Levy Armstrong said. “They put their necks on the lines, they put their bodies on the lines, they put their jobs on the line to stand up for freedom, justice, and equality.”
Minneapolis resident Lizzie Rose, 42, who was charged in January for assaulting a federal agent but has since had the charges dropped, told Sahan Journal that when she heard about the arrests this morning, her first thought was “Are they going to come for me again?”
Speaking at the rally Tuesday, she told the crowd to continue using their voice.
“They want you to shut up, they might put you on the DHS website, they might do all of these things but in reality, when this ideally ends, we’re going to know we’re here for the right reasons and that we did the right thing,” Rose said.
This is a developing story, check back for updates.
