MINNEAPOLIS—From Minneapolis to Fergus Falls, from Mankato to Detroit Lakes, ICE agents are swarming over Minnesota after having launched an earlier invasion of Chicago. The people are showing, en masse, that they have had enough by bracing the extreme cold to demonstrate against the state-sponsored terror. The now-daily protests in Minneapolis after ICE agents shot and killed Renee Nicole Good continued today in the city’s streets.
The uprisings against ICE have resulted in the states of Minnesota and Illinois taking the people’s battle into federal court in Minneapolis and Chicago, respectively, to force federal ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents to either strictly obey the law in their actions or to be thrown out of the states altogether by federal judges.
Resistance to ICE raids in the streets preceded the filing of the lawsuits. After the killing of Renee Nicole Good, there were more than 1,500 anti-ICE protests on the weekend of January 11-12 alone and protests continue today. Many of the protesters went beyond just expressing revulsion over Good’s death. Many demanded abolition of ICE altogether or the cutting off of all federal funding going to the agency.
ICE and “immigration enforcement” in general are in line for a record $175 billion in taxpayer dollars this year, all for Trump’s massive plans to deport people from the U.S., including both migrants and non-migrants, citizens and non-citizens.
The Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul joined Minnesota’s lawsuit, filed by progressive Attorney General Keith Ellison. Chicago, led by Mayor Brandon Johnson, a Chicago Teachers Union member, joined the Illinois case.
The real motive of the ICE raiders is to instill fear, says Mark Froemke, chair of Minnesota’s West Central Area Labor Council, headquartered in Moorhead. And fear is not just in the Twin Cities, he added in a telephone interview.
“They’ve been doing raids in Mankato, St. Cloud, and Rochester,” Froemke said of ICE, which now has 3,000 agents in Minnesota. The Trump regime also ordered Customs and Border Patrol agents to Minnesota to investigate fraud involving federal funds for childcare allegedly perpetrated by the state’s Somali immigrant community.
The unspoken subtext of that probe is race. The ICE agents and Customs and Border Patrol officers pick up anybody who is Black or brown, citizen or not, without justification, warrants, or permission to enter stores, churches, hospitals, schools, or businesses, both suits say.
“It’s a terror process,” Froemke said.
“Let’s say you own a restaurant in a lot of these small towns, and ICE raids your restaurant or is just outside of it, it sets off fear. So your help won’t come to work. And the people of the town—even white people—won’t go to your restaurant because they don’t want any trouble.
“Even if they’re American citizens, they’re terrorized. And in a lot of those cases, the margin between staying open or closing is not that great.” So the businesses close and the town is hurt. That’s what happened at two restaurants, owned by the same person, in Fergus Falls and Detroit Lakes, he explained.
The Minnesota suit backs up Froemke’s words. Indeed, it goes beyond them, saying the killing of Ms. Good shows ICE agents act like “masked criminals.”
“Thousands of armed and masked DHS (Department of Homeland Security) agents have stormed the Twin Cities” in Operation Metro Surge “to conduct militarized raids and carry out dangerous, illegal, and unconstitutional stops and arrests in sensitive public places, including schools and hospitals—all under the guise of lawful immigration enforcement,” the lawsuit declares. DHS is the parent department for both ICE and the Border Patrol.
The Trump administration, headed by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, “claims this unprecedented surge of immigration agents is necessary to fight fraud.” In reality, the massive deployment of armed agents to Minnesota bears no connection to that stated objective and instead reflects an alarming escalation of the Trump administration’s retaliatory actions towards the state.
The lawsuit further stated: “This operation is driven by nothing more than the Trump administration’s desire to punish political opponents and score partisan points—at the direct expense of [Minnesota] residents. Defendants’ actions appear designed to provoke community outrage, sow fear, and inflict emotional distress, and are interfering with the ability of state and local officials to protect and care for residents.”
The Minnesota suit specifically cites another ICE agent shooting at an occupied vehicle in St. Paul last September, followed by the killing of Ms. Good on January 7.
All this violates the Constitution, and specifically the 10th Amendment in the Bill of Rights, the suit says. That amendment says whatever powers not assigned to the federal government “are reserved to the states and the people.” That includes “inviolable authority to protect the health and well-being of all” who live, work, or visit Minnesota,” it adds.
“The people of Minnesota are entitled to basic safety and dignity…They have the right to move about their daily lives confident that their constitutional rights and civil liberties will…not be infringed.” And they have the right to go to school, work, courts, doctors, and religious services “free from the fear of violence…by the federal government.”
The lawsuit notes that “They expect law enforcement…will follow the law, avoid creating dangerous and chaotic circumstances, and conduct itself in a manner that distinguishes officers from masked criminals.”
The Chicago lawsuit’s language is similar. Both suits demand injunctions to stop ICE. The Minnesota suit also seeks continuing federal court oversight over the Homeland Security Department, including ICE and its agents. And it seeks to reimburse the Twin Cities for pay for their law enforcement officers trying to keep the peace, despite ICE. Minneapolis alone has spent $2 million on police overtime.
In Chicago, the trigger has been ICE violence and viciousness, both in raids and at its detention center in suburban Broadview.
Chicago and Illinois want the federal court to stop agents from “using tactics like roving patrol, biometric scanning and warrantless arrest.” The Chicago suit says “ICE agents regularly trespassed on private property and used riot weapons, like tear gas, on people who weren’t resisting” during Operation Midway Blitz.
“The tactics have left residents fearing for their safety as uniformed, military-trained personnel, carrying semi-automatic firearms and military-grade weaponry, armed with semi-automatic rifles” roam the city, the Chicago suit said.
“We have watched in horror as unchecked federal agents aggressively assaulted and terrorized our communities and neighborhoods in Illinois, undermining constitutional rights and threatening public safety,” said Gov. J.B. Pritzker, D-Ill., one of Trump’s most caustic critics.
“In the face of the Trump administration’s cruelty and intimidation, Illinois is standing up against attacks on our people. Today, Illinois is once again taking Donald Trump to court to hold his administration accountable for their unlawful tactics, unnecessary escalations, and flagrant abuses of power,” he added.
The abuses extend to rideshare drivers at O’Hare Airport, says the Illinois Drivers Alliance, a rideshare drivers group which Machinists Local 701 and Service Employees Local 1 back. The alliance applauded the lawsuit. ICE has camped out in O’Hare’s parking lots and nabbed approximately 50 drivers.
Pritzker and the state show “courage and convictions in standing up to these dangerous raids,” the alliance said. The leaders “are making it clear Illinois will not sit on the sidelines while ICE rips communities and working families apart. The raids are about intimidation and fear.
The lawsuit “sends a powerful message to every rideshare driver, immigrant, and worker that you are not alone and Illinois has your back. No one should be detained, harassed, or killed simply because of where they come from, how they look, or what language they speak….Illinois is showing the nation what it means to protect its people.”
“The Trump administration repeatedly violated the law and undermined public trust,” said Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson
“These actions weren’t just unlawful. They were cruel, needlessly inflicting fear and harm on our communities. My administration will forcefully protect our residents’ rights…Nobody is above the law. This lawsuit is about ensuring there is accountability for the lawless actions of the Trump administration and justice for the Chicagoans who have been wronged.”
In Minnesota and other heavily agricultural states, there’s one difference between Trump’s ICE raids this term and those during his first term, Froemke added in the telephone interview: The ICE agents are leaving workers in rural beef and poultry processing plants alone. During Trump’s first term, in 2017-21, the ICE and Border Patrol agents concentrated on those plants, not the big blue cities.
“If they hit on the meatpacking plants, they shut down production, and they don’t want to do that. People”—the plant owners—“would get upset.” Many of the plants are part of big agribusiness giants, who are also big campaign contributors to the GOP, records show.
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