Two Minneapolis residents have been monitoring the actions of immigration officers during the Trump administration Latest crackdown They say they were detained without charge for several hours in disturbing conditions, denied phone calls, and pressured to identify protest organizers and people living in the country illegally.
The accusations brought by Brandon Siguenza and Patty O’Keefe suggest that DHS is using similar tactics in Minneapolis and St. Paul as it did during the 2013 crackdowns. Los Angeles, chicago and New Orleans. Federal officers are again using roving patrols, warrantless arrests, and aggressive tactics such as spraying chemical irritants, smashing car windows and recording protesters, including Renee Judd and her car in the moments before. An ICE officer shot and killed her.
According to organizers and a lawsuit filed by the ACLU, immigration officers also surveilled activists who were monitoring their activities in the Twin Cities, violating their First Amendment rights. Siguenza, who like his friend O’Keefe is a US citizen, said the immigration officer who questioned him on Sunday offered him money or legal protection if he gave up the names of organizers or neighbors who were in the country illegally.
“At some point, the officer said in vague terms that it looked like I was in trouble and maybe he could help me,” Siguenza said, noting that he declined the offer.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigration, Customs, Enforcement and Border Patrol, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
Siguenza and O’Keefe, who are among an unknown number of Twin Cities residents observing immigration officers on duty, were arrested Sunday while pursuing ICE officers who were driving by and making arrests. The officers stopped in front of O’Keefe’s car, fired pepper spray through her windshield vent and smashed her car’s windows even though the doors were locked, the two told The Associated Press.
According to O’Keefe, the customers made fun of her appearance and laughed at her. She said they also posed Kill the gooda 37-year-old mother of three who was shot in the head last week by an ICE officer in front of her wife.
O’Keefe said the officer who sprayed their car on Sunday threatened them, saying “obstructing” them was the reason Judd was killed.
“It was very clear that they were trying to humiliate me and break me down,” O’Keefe said.
Siguenza and O’Keefe said they were arrested and taken in separate, unmarked cars to the hospital A highly restricted federal facility On the edge of Minneapolis, which serves as the main focus of the crackdown. They were placed in adjacent cells designated for American citizens, one for men and the other for women. Each cell was also used for other detainees, was no larger than 10 feet by 10 feet (about 9 square meters), and had a concrete bench, a flat-screen television, a two-way mirror, and a surveillance camera.
On their way to the cells, they saw other detainees screaming and screaming for help, though most of them were staring at the floor dejectedly, they said. In one case, they observed a woman trying to use the restroom while three male agents watched. The vast majority of those arrested were Hispanic men, although some were from East Africa – and Minnesota is home to The largest Somali community in the country.
“Just hearing the deep pain that people were feeling in this center was horrific,” O’Keefe said. “Then we compare that to the laughter we heard from actual customers…it was very surreal and kind of shocking.”
One of his cellmates suffered a cut to his head and the other suffered a cut to his toe, but neither received medical help, Siguenza said. He added that their requests to get water or go to the bathroom outside their cells were also ignored.
O’Keefe and Siguenza were able to speak with lawyers, but only Siguenza would let him make a phone call — he called his wife.
Siguenza, who is Hispanic, said Homeland Security investigators took him to another room and offered him money or legal protection for any family members who might be in the country illegally in exchange for giving up the names of protest organizers or neighbors who did not have legal immigration status. But he said he rejected the offer, noting that he did not have any family member without legal status.
Siguenza and O’Keefe, who shared their story widely on social media, were released by the evening without charges.
Once they left the facility, they were again beaten with chemicals that officers used against protesters in the area.
“We were not accused of a crime,” Siguenza said. “We were released and then tear gassed on our way out.”
Conditions in immigration detention facilities across the country have been the subject of complaints, including a lawsuit over one that served as an operations center in the Chicago area that resulted in… The supervisory visit of the judge He ordered the situation to improve.
The Department of Homeland Security has defended conditions in its facilities, saying detainees are being fed and their medical concerns are addressed. They praised the success of anti-immigration campaigns, saying they had led to the arrest of thousands of people in the country illegally.
O’Keefe and Siguenza believe their arrest was intended to intimidate them and other critics of the anti-immigration crackdown.
The rights of U.S. citizens and non-citizens are slightly different in immigration detention than in criminal detention, according to Lynne Damiano Pearson, an immigration attorney at the National Immigration Law Center. But detainees retain basic rights in both cases, including access to a lawyer, telephone, food, water, and privacy from the opposite sex when using the bathroom.
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Associated Press reporter Sophia Tarin contributed to this report.