The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, accusing federal immigration authorities in Minnesota of racial profiling and unlawful arrests amid widespread Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids.
In a 72-page lawsuit filed on Thursday on behalf of three community members who are all US citizens, the ACLU accused federal immigration agents of violating citizens’ constitutional rights, arguing that Somali and Latino communities in the state have been disproportionately targeted.
Naming the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its secretary, Kristi Noem, as defendants, along with several other Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers, the lawsuit points to what it describes as a “startling pattern of abuse spearheaded by the Department of Homeland Security … that is fundamentally altering civic life in the Twin Cities and the state of Minnesota”.
“Masked federal agents in the thousands are violently stopping and arresting countless Minnesotans based on nothing more than their race and perceived ethnicity irrespective of their citizenship or immigration status, or their personal circumstances. At the center of DHS’s campaign are Somali and Latino people, who are being targeted for stops and arrests based on racial profiling motivated by prejudice,” the lawsuit said.
It added: “DHS’s crude dragnet ensnares non-citizens, including individuals with immigration status, without warrants or any lawful basis for arrest. And its discriminatory practices also sweep in numerous US citizens in the process, shackling them and scanning their faces while ignoring documentation of US citizenship.”
According to the lawsuit, one of the plaintiffs, 20-year old Mubashir Khalif Hussen, was detained by masked ICE agents while walking to lunch in Minneapolis’ Cedar-Riverside neighborhood last December.
Despite repeatedly stating “I’m a citizen,” Hussen said agents refused to check his ID, placed him in a headlock and took him to the Whipple federal building in south Minneapolis. There, Hussen was shackled, fingerprinted, and denied medical assistance and water before being released, the lawsuit alleged.
“At no time did any officer ask me whether I was a citizen or if I had any immigration status,” Hussen said in Thursday’s press release from the ACLU, adding: “They did not ask for any identifying information, nor did they ask about my ties to the community, how long I had lived in the Twin Cities, my family in Minnesota or anything else about my circumstances.”
Following his release, Hussen walked by ICE officers and protesters earlier this month and recorded the scene on his phone from a public sidewalk. A car carrying federal agents then drove past him and, as it did, one agent rolled down the window and pepper-sprayed directly into Hussen’s face, the lawsuit said.
Another plaintiff, 25-year-old Mahamed Eydarus, was shoveling snow out of his parking space with his mother after leaving work last month when they were surrounded by several unidentified, masked federal agents in plain clothes.
The agents allegedly did not identify themselves or present a warrant, but demanded identification to ensure Eydarus was “not illegal” and also questioned his mother. The lawsuit further alleges that the agents instructed Eydarus’s mother to remove her niqab, a religious face covering, separated her from her son and questioned why they were speaking Somali, referring to it as a “foreign language”. The agents eventually left without asking about their community ties or providing any explanation.
In a statement on Thursday, ACLU Minnesota attorney Catherine Ahlin-Halverson said: “ICE and CBP’s practices are both illegal and morally reprehensible. Federal agents’ conduct – sweeping up Minnesotans through racial profiling and unlawful arrests – is a grave violation of Minnesotans’ most fundamental rights, and it has spread fear among immigrant communities and neighborhoods. No one, including federal agents, is above the law.”
Echoing Ahlin-Halverson, Kate Huddleston, an attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said: “The government can’t stop and arrest people based on the color of their skin, or arrest people with no probable cause. These kinds of police-state tactics are contrary to the basic principles of liberty and equality that remain a bedrock of our legal system and our country.”
The Trump administration has defended its immigration sweeps in Minnesota, saying the operations target people living in the US illegally, particularly those with criminal records, and are aimed at tackling what officials describe as widespread fraud.
The operations have come under intense scrutiny in recent days following the killing of Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother, by a federal agent, which has sparked intense protests in Minnesota and nationwide. The DHS has defended ICE’s use of force, saying its agents acted lawfully and in self-defense when confronted or threatened.
However, Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, and local officials have sharply disputed this framing, calling the surge of thousands of federal agents an unconstitutional and harmful “federal invasion”, as well as a “campaign of retribution” that has terrorized communities and violated residents’ rights.
The Guardian has reached out to the DHS for comment.
