Federal immigration agents have broken windows and dragged occupants out of their vehicles. They have forcefully tackled people to the ground. They have pushed and shoved protesters, and deployed pepper spray directly in their faces.
For weeks, residents have documented the scenes unfolding as federal agents pursue President Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota. The videos have circulated widely and intensified outrage and fear among many Minnesotans.
Marty Kurcias, 76, who was protesting at the airport on Friday, said the aggressive treatment he has seen of Minnesotans was jarring. “It can’t go on like this,” he said, adding, “We don’t abide by cruelty or violence.”
Trump administration officials have defended the tactics as necessary in the face of widespread protests. But the heavy-handed use of force has drawn mounting scrutiny.
The New York Times reviewed dozens of videos taken in recent weeks and identified multiple aggressive tactics that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agents used during immigration arrests and in encounters with protesters.
Officers forcibly entered homes without a judge’s warrant.
On Sunday, federal agents were seen dragging a man from his home in St. Paul. The man was later identified as ChongLy Scott Thao, a Hmong immigrant and naturalized U.S. citizen with no criminal record, according to his family. Mr. Thao and his family said that the armed agents did not present a warrant or allow him to show identification at the time of arrest.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that Mr. Thao refused to be fingerprinted or facially identified and that he had matched the description of two sex offenders they were seeking.
An internal memo, leaked by a whistle-blower group, showed that ICE officials had drafted guidance saying that their officers could enter homes without a judicial warrant and that they could rely instead on administrative warrants that are issued by a government agency and do not go through the federal court system.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the department, acknowledged that officers had relied on administrative warrants to enter homes to conduct arrests.
John Sandweg, who served as an acting director of ICE under President Barack Obama, said the practice of entering homes without a judicial warrant would be a significant departure from decades-old ICE policies and procedures.
They interrogated people because of their ethnicity or accents.
Administration officials have repeatedly said that the operations in Minnesota have targeted violent criminals and people who pose a serious threat to the community. But immigration agents have confronted and interrogated people because of what they assumed their race or ethnicity to be.
A video posted on social media and additional footage provided to The New York Times show one man, Ramon Menera, questioned by immigration agents who told him they were asking for documentation because of his accent.
Mr. Menera told The Times that he is a U.S. citizen and that the agents released him after he provided them with his passport card.
In July, a federal judge prohibited immigration agents in the Los Angeles area from targeting people based on assumptions about their race or ethnicity, but the Supreme Court lifted the order in September.
They broke windows and dragged occupants from their cars.
Immigration agents are taking sharp measures to detain and arrest people. That includes people who do not appear to be a danger to the community and in some cases people who are not the targets of immigration enforcement operations at all.
A widely shared video taken in Minneapolis shows immigration agents dragging a woman, later identified as Aliya Rahman, from her car, after one agent shattered the window on the passenger side.
The Homeland Security department later said that the woman was an “agitator” who ignored multiple commands to move her vehicle away from the scene. Ms. Rahman told CNN that she was not there to protest, and that she had received conflicting commands.
Another video shows one agent breaking the window of a car after a man inside refuses to open the door. Multiple agents then tackle the man, later identified as Orbin Mauricio Henriquez Serrano, to the ground.
Shattering a window and pulling someone out of their car can escalate an encounter significantly, said Geoffrey P. Alpert, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of South Carolina. It would be suitable only in a situation in which the federal agents had probable cause to suspect that the target had committed a violent crime like murder, rape or robbery, he said.
It was not immediately clear whether the man fit that description. The Homeland Security Department said only that he was an undocumented immigrant from Honduras who failed to obey officers’ orders.
They used force on people who were already restrained.
The Times found multiple instances of several agents tackling someone to the ground and proceeding to handle that person aggressively, in one instance placing a knee on the person’s neck.
In another case, video shows five immigration agents holding a man to the ground as one agent repeatedly strikes the man in the face with his knee.
A strike to the head is generally considered deadly force, justified only to defend against imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury to the officer or another person, said Christy Lopez, a professor at Georgetown Law. “There was nothing in that video that indicated that was the situation,” she said.
The available video does not show what led up to the encounter. Ms. McLaughlin said in a statement to The Times that the man had violently resisted arrest. She added that officers are trained to use the minimum necessary amount of force.
They met protesters with force.
Immigration agents have increasingly clashed with protesters in recent weeks after a federal officer shot and killed a woman, Renee Good, on Jan. 7. Protesters have gathered in small groups and in large crowds, honking car horns, blowing whistles and yelling at and filming ICE agents. Immigration agents have been filmed exchanging insults and jeers with the protesters.
Videos showed multiple cases when agents were quick to use physical force with protesters, shoving or tackling them. In one instance, an agent gets out of a car, walks up to a protester who is standing in front of the agent’s car and shoves him into the middle of the street.
Ms. Lopez said that the First Amendment gives people the broad right to protest, record and yell things, even profanity, at officers.
In a statement to The Times, Ms. McLaughlin characterized the protesters as “rioters and terrorists,” and said that they had assaulted law enforcement and vandalized federal vehicles.
They deployed chemical irritants at close range.
Videos also documented multiple occasions when, in confrontations with protesters, immigration agents deployed chemical irritants with little to no warning — firing directly in people’s faces.
A federal judge in Minneapolis cited several episodes of “gratuitous deployment of pepper spray” in a ruling last week that ordered agents not to retaliate against peaceful protesters. A federal appeals court temporarily lifted those restrictions on Wednesday.
In a video of a protest taken on Jan. 7 near where Ms. Good was killed, federal agents can be seen on multiple occasions hitting protesters in the face with pepper spray and other irritants at close range. Earlier in the video, one of the protesters throws a snow ball at one of the agents, and some protesters are blocking an agent’s vehicle.
They continued to operate with anonymity.
In many of the videos The Times reviewed, immigration agents drove in unmarked cars, and wore ski masks, neck gaiters or other face coverings. Many also wore a cap and shades, further obscuring their identities, a practice that has been common in immigration operations across the country.
Federal officials have said that face coverings protect the agents and their families from retaliation, such as having their home address or contact information shared online.
But the practice runs counter to protocols for most other law enforcement personnel, like police officers whose uniforms include badge numbers. And critics have suggested that the agents have been emboldened to act with impunity, knowing that their identities are hidden and that it would be difficult to hold them accountable.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
