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racial profiling
Database of Court Filings Shows ‘Startling Pattern of Abuse’ by Federal Agents Against Citizens in Minnesota
A new database of sworn affidavits filed by the ACLU shows masked agents detaining citizens based on race without warrants, ignoring IDs, and pointing weapons at them.
Feb 05, 2026
Federal agents deployed to Minnesota by the Trump administration are systematically violating the rights of US citizens and lawful residents, according to more than two dozen sworn affidavits made available this week as part of a class action lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security.
The suit was filed last month by the ACLU of Minnesota and partnered law firms, which said that as part of President Donald Trump’s Operation Metro Surge, "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.”
The case was launched by three plaintiffs, which include 20-year-old Mubashir Khalif Hussein, a Somali-born US citizen whose brutal arrest and detention was caught on video in December. He was placed into a headlock by masked agents and brought to an ICE office, where he said he was left in shackles for an hour and a half before being released miles from his home in the freezing cold.
The plaintiffs called it just one example of a "startling pattern of abuse spearheaded by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that is fundamentally altering civic life in the Twin Cities and the state of Minnesota."
On Thursday, the online legal policy journal Just Security published a searchable database of the 29 sworn declarations filed so far as part of the case. Nearly all of them were filed by US citizens, while a few others were permanent legal residents or had pending legal status.
The statements detail numerous allegations that agents violated their basic constitutional rights, including by detaining them without showing a warrant; targeting Somali and Latino individuals based on their appearances; ignoring identifying documents that could prove their legal residency or citizenship; restraining them violently; and pointing weapons at them during searches.
Last year, the Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration's claim that when deciding whether to stop someone as part of "roving patrols," agents had the right to consider certain factors, including “the type of work one does,” a person’s use of Spanish or accented English, or their “apparent race or ethnicity."
While critics described it as an invitation to blatant and unconstitutional racial profiling and invasions of privacy, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a concurring opinion that the practice should not prove burdensome to those legally in the US: “If the person is a US citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, that individual will be free to go after the brief encounter,” he said.
Ryan Goodman, a law professor at New York University and the co-editor-in-chief of Just Security, said that the “sworn affidavits show how, on the ground, this is simply not how ICE operates.”
"They did not identify themselves, and they did not present a warrant. They just opened my car door and started yanking me out of the car. I kept saying over and over that I was a US citizen."
One 33-year-old Latino citizen who was born in the US was driving to Menards on January 10 when he suddenly found himself boxed in by two cars at a stoplight. Before he knew it, he said agents were banging aggressively on his windows and one had started pointing a gun at him. When he put his vehicle in park, he said the doors opened automatically.
"When the doors unlocked, the agents did not ask me anything, they did not identify themselves, and they did not present a warrant. They just opened my car door and started yanking me out of the car," he said. "I kept saying over and over that I was a US citizen."
“Once they did get my seatbelt off and finally [pulled] me out of the car, they threw me to the ground and pinned me,” he continued. “They were pulling on my arms so tight to put on the handcuffs. They ripped my jacket, and it was torn up. My wallet fell on the ground. I was still repeating that I am a US citizen. I repeated it over and over. They never asked for or looked at my identification.”
The agents hauled the man into their car and began driving him around and interrogating him for about 20 minutes. He said the first question they asked him was his name.
"It seemed if they were going to violently arrest me before even looking at my identification, that they should have known who I was," the victim said.
Agents eventually realized they'd been searching for another person with the same name and birthdate. They drove their captive behind a warehouse, where nobody could see, and released him. But another agent had taken his car from the intersection. An agent said he'd only give it back if the agent could scan his face, which he did.
“I felt traumatized. My arm hurt, I had bruises from the handcuffs. They were so tight that half of my hand was numb for a few days. I guess it stopped the circulation to my hands while I was handcuffed. I had cuts on my face and hands,” the victim said. “Since this happened to me, I have to pass through that spot every time I drive to work. I keep going back to it and reliving it in my mind.”
According to the database, at least five other US citizens, lawful residents, or legal asylum seekers also claimed in court that they'd had weapons pointed at them by agents during their stops.
Two other US citizens and one lawful permanent resident detailed being subject to physical force during stops.
One 53-year-old Somali man, a US citizen since 2008, said he was physically grabbed and dragged from his car, handcuffed, and pinned against the vehicle by masked agents.
"One officer pressed his knee into my back," he said. When I screamed out in pain, another officer put his elbow into my neck, and one of the officers yelled at me, ‘Shut the fuck up, son of a bitch!’ One of the officers responded, ‘Why don’t you go back to your country?’"
"I believe that I was stopped solely because of the color of my skin and our appearance, including wearing a hijab."
One 22-year-old Somali-American citizen who was born in Minnesota said that on January 21, five agents hopped out of their car with multiple guns drawn as she was on her way to work.
She said they demanded to see proof of her citizenship, but rejected her valid ID, claiming it was fake. They demanded to see her passport, which US citizens are not required to carry under US law. The agents told her they did not believe she was a US citizen because of her “accent.”
"I believe that I was stopped solely because of the color of my skin and our appearance, including wearing a hijab," she said. "It was clear that the ICE agents did not know who I was when they stopped me. I had not violated any traffic laws, and the vehicle I was driving was registered to my mother, who is a United States citizen."
It's one of at least five cases in the database in which agents dismissed proof of a citizen or legal resident's status.
There have also been many other documented instances, including some caught on video, in which agents have detained a citizen or legal resident or refused to let them go because they believed the person's “accent” did not sound American.
All 29 of those who filed affidavits in the case have alleged unconstitutional racial profiling.
One 25-year-old Somali man, a US citizen born in Atlanta, said a group of masked agents accosted him and his mother while he was shoveling snow.
He said they were joined by a pair of unmasked men who appeared to be livestreaming and helped the agents to box him in. He later identified one of them as a right-wing YouTube influencer named Ben Bergquam.
Even though the vast majority of Somalis living in the US are citizens, he said the agents and the streamers were laughing and referring to him and his mother as "illegal aliens."
"I was unsure if I was going to be seriously injured or killed."
At least 12 people in the lawsuit have filed sworn testimony stating that agents forced them to stop while they were driving.
In one case, a Hispanic US citizen said that after following him for a few blocks, agents put on their lights and "rammed" his car off the road.
"An agent came up to my window, asking if I was a citizen. I was furious. I told them I was a citizen and they damaged my car," he said. "Instead of apologizing, they demanded that I produce documents to prove I was a US citizen. I was too angry. I told them again that I was a US citizen and I didn't have to prove it to them."
He said the episode lasted 45-60 minutes, with agents repeatedly demanding his ID, name, and place of birth. Eventually, he says, they confirmed his citizenship by taking photos and videos of him and scanning his license plate.
He said agents told him they would pay for the damages to his car, but that they drove away without providing any insurance information.
"Even though I am a United States citizen and I was carrying proof of my citizenship with me, ICE agents didn't believe me," he said. "I felt intense fear and shock. I was unsure if I was going to be seriously injured or killed."
The affidavits were filed as part of the case Hussen v. Noem, which claims that agents have violated Minnesotans' rights to equal protection and against unreasonable searches and seizures. A hearing is scheduled to take place later this month.
“The government can’t stop and arrest people based on the color of their skin, or arrest people with no probable cause,” said Kate Huddleston, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. “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.”
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Abolish ICE—and DHS Too
The reality is that while ICE’s violence has become more public, what we are seeing today is not a deviation from how it has always acted. For ICE, mass surveillance, assaults, arrests, prolonged detainment, and killings of citizens and noncitizens alike are normal.
Jan 21, 2026
On a September morning, armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents broke in and raided the home of 15-year-old Marie Justeen Mancha while her mother was running an errand. They blocked the door, accused her of being an “illegal,” and questioned Marie about her and her mother’s legal status. They are both US citizens.
This break-in was part of a widespread sweep targeting Hispanic communities in southeast Georgia. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) accused ICE of using “Gestapo-like” tactics to trample “on the constitutional rights of every person of Hispanic descent who was unfortunate to be in their way.”
SPLC filed a class-action lawsuit against ICE on behalf of five US citizens. In addition to compensation for property damages, the lawsuit sought a court order to stop ICE from conducting similar raids in the future.
Sound familiar? That occurred in 2006—20 years ago.
ICE is not broken. It is not reformable. It must be abolished.
The reality is that while ICE’s violence has become more public, what we are seeing today is not a deviation from how it has always acted. For ICE, mass surveillance, assaults, arrests, prolonged detainment, and killings of citizens and noncitizens alike are normal.
Between 2015 and 2021, ICE agents were involved in at least 59 shootings across 26 states and two US territories. At least 24 people were injured and 23 were killed.
A 2018 Los Angeles Times review of ICE activities found more than 1,500 cases of the agency wrongfully arresting and targeting US citizens for deportation and prolonged detainment. This includes Davino Watson, a US citizen, who was illegally detained by ICE in 2008 and spent 1,273 days in their custody. The agency faced no consequences for this grave injustice.
Between 1994 and 2019, the average daily population of detained immigrants grew from 7,000 to 50,000. In December 2025, the number was nearly 66,000—the highest level ever recorded. While President Donald Trump alleges that ICE is “removing some of the most violent criminals in the World from our Country,” 73% of those arrested by ICE have no criminal convictions.
ICE is not broken. It is not reformable. It must be abolished.
Abolish ICE
ICE has always relied on violent tactics, racial profiling, and increasingly invasive surveillance technology. It has faced persistent criticism from activists, nonprofits, and news outlets for its discriminatory practices. Yet, over the years, ICE has only become more aggressive.
There are many reasons for this: first, ICE agents, like other officers, have qualified immunity to prosecution. If they are involved in a potentially criminal incident, that case is reviewed by ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility. This office lacks the authority to discipline agents. Instead, any suggestion on disciplinary measures goes back to the agent’s supervisor, who then decides whether to administer it. If they do, the ICE agent can still appeal. This triggers a lengthy process that can take years to resolve.
Second, most of their work targets undocumented immigrants and people of color—populations that are both exceedingly vulnerable to police violence and to have their suffering ignored by America’s white-dominated political institutions.
Turns out, state-sanctioned violence—not healthcare, welfare, education, or housing—has broad bipartisan support.
Third, ICE operates according to the immigration-control strategy known as “attrition through enforcement.” The goal is to compel undocumented immigrants to self-deport by making their lives increasingly more difficult. This is accomplished by limiting their access to jobs, housing, and social services; utilizing aggressive policing methods (e.g. workplace raids, home surveillance, coercion, ruses, and targeting family and friends); as well as public displays of state-sanctioned violence. This is why the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) launched an aerial and ground assault on a Chicago apartment building in November 2025. For DHS and ICE, the more violent they become, the more likely that immigrants in the US will self-deport. That violence will also deter people from entering the country in the first place. Violence and state terror are core components of ICE’s formal policing strategy.
Fourth, ICE has been strongly and consistently supported by both Democrats and Republicans. Between 2003 and 2024, ICE’s annual budget grew from $3.3 billion to $9.6 billion. As part of the One Big Beautiful Act (OBBA), Congress allocated $75 billion to ICE over four years, approximately $18.7 billion per year. Even now, despite growing public outcry against ICE, Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), refuse to commit to defunding the agency. Turns out, state-sanctioned violence—not healthcare, welfare, education, or housing—has broad bipartisan support.
Fifth, but perhaps most importantly, is the reason why ICE and DHS were initially created. As the Department of Justice (DOJ) noted in 2004, “The primary mission of ICE is to prevent acts of terrorism by targeting the people, money, and materials that support terrorists and criminal activities.” Under DHS, immigration control is first and foremost about counterterrorism.
This is why ICE has such broad and invasive policing powers; why Republicans have insisted for years that terrorists are entering the country via the US-Mexico border; why the Trump administration designated groups like Tren de Aragua and La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) as terrorist organizations; and why Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Czar Tom Homan have been so quick to label Renee Nicole Good a “domestic terrorist.”
It's also why simply abolishing ICE doesn’t go far enough. DHS must be abolished too.
Abolish DHS
For the Bush administration, DHS “would make Americans safer” by creating a department “whose primary mission is to protect the American homeland.” To this end, DHS “would unify authority over major federal security operations related to our borders” thereby “allowing a single government entity to manage entry into the United States. It would ensure that all aspects of border control, including the issuing of visas, are informed by a central information-sharing clearinghouse and compatible databases.”
Importantly, for DHS, the goal of defending “the American homeland” is about more than protecting US citizens, preventing destruction of property, or policing criminal offenses. It is about protecting the identity of America.
As President George W. Bush noted in his 9/11 address, “Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts.” A month later, he remarked that, “The [9/11] attack took place on American soil, but it was an attack on the heart and soul of the civilized world.” In the same speech, he announced the establishment of the Office of Homeland Security.
We must completely sever immigration services from a national security apparatus designed to police all immigrants as potential terrorists.
DHS was created to protect “our way of life” and “our freedom.” To defend “the heart and soul” of America. This sentiment is echoed by Trump’s DHS: “Protect your homeland, defend your culture.” More recently, on January 9, DHS posted on Twitter-X, “We’ll have our home again.”
From its inception, DHS has been tied to an image of the “homeland” as continuously under existential and physical threat from invaders both at our gates and already here. A key rationale for integrating immigration enforcement and control agencies within DHS was that the 9/11 hijackers entered the US legally. They were, as President Trump would describe them, “the enemy within.” This is still the rationale with which DHS and ICE currently operate. Anyone who threatens “civilizational erasure” and the loss of America’s Christian, English-speaking, and Western identity is a legitimate target of surveillance and violence.
Abolishing ICE is insufficient. We must completely sever immigration services from a national security apparatus designed to police all immigrants as potential terrorists. Abolishing DHS is necessary. This does not, however, entail dissolving all its agencies, most of which predate the department. Some, like the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that processes asylum requests and issues visas, should be preserved and transferred to a department better suited to serving immigrant communities.
One might object that abolishing DHS would make America vulnerable to terrorism; however, three points are worth emphasizing: First, prior to DHS, the US already had counterterrorism measures. For instance, the CIA reported to President Bill Clinton in December 1998 about a potential terrorist attack in the US that might involve hijacking an aircraft. White House Counterterrorism Chief Richard Clark testified that the Bush national security team was not sufficiently concerned about that information.
Second, since 9/11, the majority of terrorist attacks have been thwarted by traditional law enforcement tools. In recent years, most cases of terrorism stem from domestic threats, predominantly “white supremacist and anti-government extremist individuals and groups.” Yet, DHS has been slow to acknowledge and properly tackle these threats.
Third, as an organization, DHS was always flawed. It was hastily put together using arbitrary and questionable criteria. Moreover, as former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff acknowledged, because the entire purpose of the department is preventing terrorism, DHS officials inevitably feel pressured to exaggerate the threats facing the nation. This “security theater” creates more public fear that results in greater government spending on oftentimes expensive and wasteful preventative measures.
Even at the time of DHS’s founding, there were concerns that the US was creating an all-encompassing domestic surveillance apparatus that would eventually undermine civil liberties and endanger the public. Seth Stodder, who served in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) under President Bush and DHS under President Barack Obama, had largely dismissed such concerns. He argued that the Constitution would ultimately safeguard Americans. Now he recognizes the threat: “To suddenly see DHS become this kind of mechanism of authoritarian intimidation and incipient fascism [under the Trump administration] is disorienting, and frightening. It makes me think that maybe DHS was a bad idea.”
But arguably the Trump administration’s disregard for the Constitution and the rule of law have only made the problems of DHS and ICE more blatant. They didn’t become a mechanism of authoritarian intimidation under Trump—they always were.
Now is the time for action. For the sake of all those who have been assaulted, wrongfully detained, and killed, we must abolish ICE and DHS.
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Trump's DHS Sued to End Lawless Stops and Arrests in Minnesota
"ICE and CBP's practices are both illegal and morally reprehensible," said an ACLU of Minnesota staff attorney. "No one, including federal agents, is above the law.”
Jan 15, 2026
The ACLU on Thursday filed a class action lawsuit aimed at ending "a startling pattern of abuse spearheaded by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that is fundamentally altering civic life in the Twin Cities and the state of Minnesota."
The thousands of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents sent to Minneapolis and Saint Paul by President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have been documented engaging in violent and even unlawful activities, including at least two shootings.
"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," says the complaint, filed in the District of Minnesota.
The state and national ACLU along with Covington & Burling, Greene Espel, and Robins Kaplan filed the suit on behalf of three US citizens in Minnesota and similarly situated people. According to the complaint:
Plaintiffs seek injunctive relief to halt three unlawful policies and practices. First, federal agents are stopping people to question them about immigration status without reasonable suspicion of removability—and particularly targeting those they perceive to be Somali or Latino. Second, federal agents are arresting people for immigration reasons without warrants and without probable cause to believe that they are removable, outrageously including US citizens (who plainly cannot be detained for civil immigration purposes) and individuals with immigration status. And third, federal agents are making warrantless arrests without probable cause to believe the person is a flight risk.
"ICE and CBP's practices are both illegal and morally reprehensible," said Catherine Ahlin-Halverson, staff attorney with the ACLU of Minnesota, in a statement. "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."
The three people named in the complaint are Mubashir Khalif Hussen, Mahamed Eydarus, and Javier Doe. Hussen is a 20-year-old man of Somali descent whose "family came to the United States as refugees, and he grew up in this country," the document explains. He lives in Minneapolis, and "works as a manager at a mental health services provider in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood," where he encountered ICE agents while walking to lunch last month.
According to the ACLU, Hussen told the masked agents that he was a US citizen, but they refused to look at his identification. Instead, they put him in a vehicle and drove him to the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, where he was shackled and fingerprinted. After showing a photo of his passport card, he was eventually freed.
"At no time did any officer ask me whether I was a citizen or if I had any immigration status," Hussen said in a statement. "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."
The complaint stresses that "at the center of DHS' campaign are Somali and Latino people, who are being targeted for stops and arrests based on racial profiling motivated by prejudice."
Trump and others in his administration have repeatedly attacked Somali immigrants and their descendants in Minnesota—including when the president said during a racist tirade at a December Cabinet meeting that "we're going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country."
Kate Huddleston, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, emphasized that "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."
As the Trump administration has flooded the Twin Cities with federal agents, Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey has told ICE to "get the fuck out" of Minneapolis; his city, Saint Paul, and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison have filed a lawsuit against the same agencies and leaders targeted by the ACLU suit; and Democrats in the House of Representatives have introduced articles of impeachment against Noem.
Democratic US Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Somali refugee whose congressional district includes Minneapolis, said Wednesday that "we will not stop fighting until we achieve real justice and accountability. That must begin with impeaching Kristi Noem and ensuring no federal agent can act as a judge, jury, and executioner on our streets."
Omar's remarks in Washington, DC came a week after ICE officer Jonathan Ross fatally shot legal observer Renee Good in Minneapolis, and hours before a federal officer shot and wounded a man in the city during a traffic stop.
"The massive presence of ICE agents as part of Operation Metro Surge has disrupted civic life in the Twin Cities. Minnesotans are at risk of being stopped by ICE while going to work or shopping for groceries," said Greene Espel attorney Kshithij Shrinath. "We will continue to stand with our community and the rule of law."
The president has responded to protests against his immigration operation in Minnesota by threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act so he can send in troops—which Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU's National Security Project, called "unnecessary, irresponsible, and dangerous."
"The real risk to people's safety comes from ICE and other federal agents' violence against our communities, and the killing of Renee Good starkly shows what happens when ICE operates without accountability," Shamsi said. "What's needed now is not federal escalation, but deescalation. Congress must demand these mass federal law enforcement forces leave Minneapolis and refuse to fund ICE and CBP until the administration backs down."
While Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who caucuses with Democrats, said Thursday that "the American people do not want Trump's domestic army," referring to ICE, some Democratic members have signaled that they won't seek to freeze money for the agency ahead of a January 30 deadline for funding the government.
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