The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Minnesota filed a class action lawsuit against officials from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), accusing them of repressing free speech rights of people observing and protesting against the federal government’s immigration enforcement activities, according to an ACLU statement on Dec. 17.
The lawsuit, filed on Dec. 17 at the federal district court in Minnesota, names multiple Trump administration officials as defendants, including DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, ICE acting director Todd Lyons, and unidentified federal agents. The complaint was filed on behalf of six individuals.
The lawsuit called the administration’s immigration enforcement in Minnesota a “cruel, arbitrary, and unlawful campaign” that led to people expressing “disdain” over defendants’ conduct.
“But Defendants cannot tolerate the thought of being recorded, observed, or criticized. They have acted to suppress this dissent by abducting United States citizens and holding them incommunicado for hours like the masked secret police of pre-World War II Germany or Pinochet’s Chile,” the lawsuit said.
“They have pepper-sprayed, violently subdued, and aimed assault rifles at protesters and observers, and even followed observers home to scare them in a tactic lifted straight from the mafia. This repression of speech is just one more instance of the federal campaign to besiege cities across the United States in an unprecedented attack on civil liberties.”
According to DHS, “The First Amendment protects speech and peaceful assembly—not rioting. DHS is taking reasonable and constitutional measures to uphold the rule of law and protect our officers,” a spokesperson said in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times.
DHS said that officers have been subject to tremendous pressure and attacks from people opposing law enforcement officers, including criminals.
“Rioters and terrorists have opened fire on officers, thrown rocks, bottles, and fireworks at them, slashed the tires of their vehicles, and have destroyed multiple law enforcement vehicles,” the department spokesperson said.
“Others have chosen to ignore commands and have attempted to impede law enforcement operations and used their vehicles as weapons against our officers. Despite these grave threats and dangerous situations our law enforcement is put in they show incredible restraint in exhausting all options before any kind of non-lethal force is used.”
On Dec. 12, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said the agency’s enforcement personnel were facing a 1,150 percent increase in assaults and an 8,000 percent increase in death threats.
“This is the reality of what our ICE officers are facing every day as they go to work to simply do their job and enforce the law,” she said.
In one incident of violence, an ICE officer was attacked by an illegal immigrant who “savagely bit the officer’s hand while resisting arrest,” the DHS said.
Allegations
The lawsuit detailed several instances of immigration officers allegedly detaining protestors, including plaintiffs, which it argues was a violation of their rights.
The lawsuit alleges that plaintiff Susan Tincher, who has lived in Minneapolis for three decades, woke up to alerts on her phone on Dec. 9 about ICE agents arresting people across her neighborhood. She drove to the site of activity, stood six feet away from a female officer, outside the perimeter, and asked, “Are you ICE?” the suit states.
“Mere seconds later, several agents forced her to the ground, handcuffed her, and brought her to the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building (‘Whipple Building’) in Minneapolis, where federal immigration activities are headquartered. Agents cut off some of her clothes and her wedding ring, shackled her, and left her in a cell for hours. She was released without charge,” the lawsuit alleges.
The complaint alleged the violation of the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights of free speech, free press, and free assembly. The complaint also alleged violation of the plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment rights against unlawful seizure and excessive force.
“Plaintiffs and the Plaintiff Class reasonably fear further violation of the Fourth Amendment if they continue to observe, record, or participate in constitutionally protected activity.”
Regarding Tincher, DHS said that she was arrested after assaulting a federal agent and “tried to break through a security perimeter set up for public safety, ignored lawful commands, and became violent.”
The lawsuit asked the court to issue a permanent injunction prohibiting the defendants from engaging in unconstitutional conduct and retaliating against the plaintiffs, based on Amendment violations.
The lawsuit also asked the court to expunge all records created by the defendants regarding the plaintiffs during the course of Operation Metro Surge.
The operation, launched by ICE earlier this month, targets the “worst of the worst” illegal immigrants who flocked into Minnesota under the assumption that the state’s “sanctuary” policies would protect them, DHS said on Dec. 12.
That same day, DHS announced it had arrested more than 400 illegal immigrants as part of Operation Metro Surge, including a Burmese national convicted of third-degree criminal sexual conduct using force or coercion, a Laotian convicted of first-degree criminal sexual conduct with a child under 13, and a Somali convicted of robbery.
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