A federal judge on Friday ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to limit their tactics against protesters in Minnesota, as federal immigration enforcement officers confront demonstrators rallying after a woman was killed by an ICE officer last week.
U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez wrote in her order that ICE cannot retaliate against, arrest or detain “persons who are engaging in peaceful and unobstructive protest activity.”
Officers cannot use pepper spray “or similar nonlethal munitions” on protesters and are barred from “stopping or detaining drivers and passengers in vehicles where there is no reasonable articulable suspicion that they are forcibly obstructing or interfering with Covered Federal Agents.”
The case was brought to Menendez after six people filed a lawsuit in December alleging that ICE officers “subjected them to the use of chemical irritants, intimidation, including by pointing firearms at them, detention, and arrest, in violation of their First and Fourth Amendment rights,” Menendez said.
One of the plaintiffs, Somali-American and U.S. citizen Abdikadir Noor, told Menendez that he pulled his car to the side of the road as he saw masked ICE officers in plain clothes pull over another car “occupied by two Latinos.” Noor joined others in protest against the ICE officers. Officers grabbed protesters and pulled a pregnant woman to the ground before they moved toward Noor, he described.
Noor was arrested and put in a car driving “about 85 miles per hour,” to which Noor said he could not put on his seatbelt. Officers looked at his passport and Noor claimed to hear them say, “[T]hey all come here fraudulently. 50% are here fraudulently”; “Somalis drained Minnesota”; and “Somalis should go back home.” He was detained but was not charged or given paperwork before he was released.
The order cites other incidents of ICE activity to deter protests, where eyewitnesses describe officers pointing their weapons at protesters, using pepper-spray on them or throwing people to the ground before detaining them.
Menendez requested sworn declarations from David Easterwood, acting Field Office Director for ICE’s St. Paul, Minn., office, regarding these incidents with the plaintiffs. She said the declarations he provided about the plaintiffs “are entitled to considerably less weight than Plaintiffs’ declarations.”
The suit was filed before Jan. 7, when ICE officer shot and killed Minneapolis resident Renee Good. The shooting sparked outrage and protests in the city and across the country. The Trump administration defended Ross and accused Good of “domestic terrorism,” claiming she attempted to run Russ over with her SUV.
Menendez’s ruling comes as the Department of Justice (DOJ) issued subpoenas to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) as part of a criminal investigation. Walz called the move “an authoritarian tactic,” while Frey said it was “obvious attempt to intimidate me for standing up for Minneapolis, our local law enforcement, and our residents against the chaos and danger this Administration has brought to our streets.”
Since the shooting, a Venezuelan migrant was shot in the leg by a federal immigration enforcement officer after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the officer was attacked by two people during the arrest. The migrant and the officer were hospitalized and the two people were detained.
ICE has also been accused of detaining four Oglala Sioux tribal members this week. One person was released but the other three remain in custody. Tribal President Frank Star Comes Out said that the tribal members were homeless and detained under a bridge in Minneapolis. DHS stated that it could not “verify any claims” of the tribal members being arrested.