Less than a week after President Donald Trump disparaged all people from Somalia as “garbage” Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have deployed in force to Minneapolis-St.Paul, Minnesota, targeting the largest Somali community outside Africa. As of this writing, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has confirmed 19 arrests.
Many more people, including at least one US citizen, have been detained in the ongoing raids. This past Wednesday, an Edina-born Somali-American woman was kidnapped by ICE agents while shopping in downtown Minneapolis. Despite being a US citizen, ICE agents kidnapped and ziptied her before taking her to a local jail.
Even though she repeatedly insisted she was a US citizen, ICE held her for over 24 hours. She was only released from jail after her husband, a paralegal, provided federal agents her passport.
In an interview with the local Fox affiliate, the woman’s cousin, who is a legal Somali immigrant, said that while she was in federal custody she pleaded with agents to let her go, “but they ended up sexually assaulting her.” According to the victim’s cousin, the agents mocked the woman, questioning her over what “she could be hiding in her hijab.”
The cousin continued, saying that agents joked that she was wearing the wrong attire “to try and run away from us.” The woman, still suffering trauma from the incident, did not wish to be identified or interviewed. On Friday DHS told Fox it “could not comment on the incident without additional information.”
The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations confirmed that at least five people were arrested on Monday and Tuesday last week. On Wednesday, MIRAC confirmed federal agents also arrested a group of day laborers.
The vast majority of the 80,000 people of Somali descent living in Minnesota are US citizens or legal residents. Yet, in an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union, Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan claimed without evidence, “there’s a large illegal Somali community there. There’s an illegal alien community, a large illegal alien community there.”
The detainment of the Edina-woman is one of hundreds, if not thousands of cases this year where immigration police have assaulted and handcuffed US citizens under the guise of immigration enforcement. A report published by Pro Publica in October found more than “170 cases this year where citizens were detained at raids and protests” while more than 20 were held for over a day “without being able to call their loved ones or lawyers.”
In a disturbing incident last week in Key Largo, Florida, a woman in medical scrubs was stopped by immigration agents while driving and forcibly removed from her vehicle. In a video that has been seen millions of times, the woman can be heard screaming that she is a US citizen as immigration thugs handcuff her.
“I’m a U.S. citizen, please help me!” she screamed. As agents cuffed her, she said, “This is unfair. Why are you doing this to me?”
As the woman was cuffed and held in a vehicle, immigration agents searched her car and found her driver’s license confirming she is a US citizen. Alan Regaldao, a spokesperson for CBP said the woman refused to “cooperate and identify herself with all levels of law enforcement there.” DHS later said the woman refused to roll her window down all the way, prompting her detainment.
Asked to comment Sunday on CNN as to why there are so many incidents of immigration police aggressively pursuing and detaining citizens, Homan justified agents’ actions stating, “I can’t tell you how many times an illegal alien claims to be a US citizen. It happens all the time.”
Coinciding with the raids in Minneapolis, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents under the command of Obergruppenführer Gregory Bovino have deployed to New Orleans, Louisiana. The AP found that of the 38 people arrested in the first two days of immigration raids in Louisiana, “less than a third” had any criminal history. DHS has indicated it plans to operate in the region for the next two months and aims to arrest 5,000 people.
Refuting claims that kidnapping operations are specifically targeting violent criminals, videos from Minneapolis and southern Louisiana show immigration thugs harassing and accosting workers as they go to gas stations to fill up. Underscoring the deep unpopularity of the raids among the working class, in one video a man records Border Patrol agents as they accost workers in Minneapolis. In the video a woman can be heard saying “You’re not welcome here,” while the man is heard saying, “Get the f*ck out of here.”
In Kenner, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans, workers at a local gas station locked their shop and refused entry to Bovino and other CBP thugs loitering outside the station. Another video shows community members blowing whistles and keeping watch outside a school after ICE agents were spotted in the community.
On Sunday, anti-ICE protesters continued to demonstrate and track federal agents throughout Kenner. Protesters carried signs reading “no human is illegal” and “No trespassing, we don’t open the door for ICE.”
AP reported Sunday that in response to growing anger of Trump’s mass deportation operation state and federal police are tracking “online criticism and protests” and compiling “regular updates” to be shared between agencies. According to one report viewed by AP and circulated among police on Sunday, opinions on the raids, “remain mixed, with some supporting the operations while others are against them.”
According to the report, FBI and CBP agents are currently tracking “discussions on the online forum Reddit that local residents have used to exchange information about the immigration raids.” In response to a question from AP, Louisiana State Police spokesperson Danny Berrincha, confirmed that cops are “monitoring social media activity related to protests, activism and other forms of public response.”
The AP’s report follows a November report by the Brennan Center which found that ICE is spending upwards of $25 million on spy technology including “social media monitoring systems, cellphone location tracking, facial recognition, remote hacking tools, and more” to track and intimidate those who opposed federal kidnapping operations.
The monitoring of social media accounts by the government underscores that the attacks on immigrants are an attack on the democratic rights of the entire working class. The same techniques, technologies and legal warfare used by the federal government and police against anti-ICE protesters will be turned against all sections of the working class regardless of immigration status.
Portending further attacks on the US Constitution, on Friday, the Supreme Court confirmed it will be hearing the case on Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order. E.O. 14160 seeks to deny birthright citizenship to children born in the US to undocumented or temporary-status parents. Lower courts have blocked the order as it blatantly violates the 14th Amendment, adopted in the aftermath of the Civil War which guaranteed citizenship to all those born in the US regardless of race or ancestry.
It is expected that arguments will begin in the spring with a possible ruling as early as June 2026.
Read more
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- The “garbage” in the White House: Trump’s racist diatribe against Somalis