Minnesota pushes back as Trump’s immigration crackdown hits home

Minnesota and its Twin Cities, Minneapolis and St Paul, are taking the Trump administration to court, accusing Washington of unleashing a sweeping immigration enforcement operation that local officials describe as nothing short of a “federal invasion”.

The lawsuit, filed on Monday alongside a request for a temporary restraining order, seeks to halt what the Department of Homeland Security has called the largest enforcement operation in its history. Around 2,000 immigration agents are already operating across the state, with reports that another 1,000 Border Patrol officers are being deployed.

The legal challenge comes amid mounting anger over the fatal shooting of a Minneapolis mother of three, Renee Nicole Good, by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent during a brief encounter earlier this month. The killing has sparked mass protests and intensified scrutiny of the federal operation.

“This is, in essence, a federal invasion of the Twin Cities and Minnesota, and it must stop,” State Attorney General Keith Ellison said at a news conference. “These poorly trained, aggressive and armed agents of the federal state have terrorised Minnesota with widespread unlawful conduct.”

According to the lawsuit, federal agents have used excessive and lethal force, carried out warrantless arrests and targeted sensitive locations such as courts, churches and schools. Ellison said local police have responded to 20 cases of what he described as apparent abductions of Minneapolis residents by ICE agents.

The death of Good, 37, has become a flashpoint. She was shot by ICE agent Jonathan Ross while sitting behind the wheel of her car during a 40-second encounter. Conflicting official accounts of what happened have fuelled public outrage, with activists and local leaders accusing federal authorities of lying and pointing to video analysis that appears to contradict government statements.

In recent weeks, social media has filled with videos showing federal agents questioning members of Minnesota’s Somali community and demanding proof of citizenship, deepening fear among residents in a state that is home to the largest Somali population in the United States.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said the operation has been carried out “indiscriminately” and appears to rest on basic misunderstandings about who actually lives in the city.

“I think the initial impetus to come to Minnesota, was go to Minnesota, arrest and deport a bunch of Somali people,” Frey said last week. “And then they get here and they realize that the Somali people who would be arrested or deported are all legal. They’re all US citizens.”

On Monday, Frey described the wider fallout across the Twin Cities.

“The damage that we are suffering right now … it’s schools shutting down, it’s businesses closing, it’s people being afraid to go out and get groceries and therefore are going hungry,” he said. “This is intentionally putting us in a very difficult position that is not pro-business and is not pro-safety.”

“If this were about fraud, then you’d see an invasion perhaps of accountants,” he added. “But that’s not what you see. What you see is people being indiscriminately taken off our streets.”

St Paul Mayor Kaohly Her said the climate of fear has reached the point where she now carries her passport everywhere. “Because I don’t know when I’m going to be detained,” she said. “We are being attacked as American citizens right now.”

Tensions continued to rise on Monday evening, when hundreds gathered at a strip mall in St Cloud after reports that more than two dozen ICE officers had assembled near Somali-owned businesses.

Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar called the situation “a dangerous time” and described the federal operation as “unconscionable”.

Ellison noted that non-citizen immigrants make up just 1.5 percent of Minnesota’s population, half the national average and lower than states such as Utah, Texas and Florida, arguing this undercuts claims that the state is a major centre of immigration fraud.

“Donald Trump doesn’t seem to like our state very much,” he said.

The Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota said the operation, which began more than a month ago, was being carried out under what it called “the racist pretense of fraud investigations targeting the Somali community”.

Federal officials have defended the crackdown. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on Sunday that the deployment of additional officers was meant to ensure agents could operate “safely” amid ongoing protests. More than 2,000 arrests have been made since December.