A class-action lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has accused federal immigration officials of carrying out a racial profiling campaign of 'massive scale' as part of the Trump administration's crackdown in Minnesota. The suit, filed on Thursday in federal court, claims that agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the Border Patrol have been 'violently stopping and arresting countless Minnesotans based on nothing more than their race and perceived ethnicity'. It specifically highlights the targeting of Somali and Latino people.
The lawsuit details the case of Mubashir Khalif Hussen, a 20-year-old US citizen. According to the suit, Hussen was grabbed by two federal agents in an unmarked car on 10 December while he was out getting lunch. He was pushed into a restaurant and then hauled back out into the snow, where agents allegedly put him in a headlock. Hussen repeatedly told the agents he was a US citizen and asked to retrieve his coat and phone to show his passport card, but the agents refused. His supervisor later showed a copy of his passport card, which was also ignored. Hussen was driven to a second location and then to an ICE field office at Fort Snelling, where he was released without charges and told to walk seven miles back in the December cold. In a separate incident, agents pepper-sprayed Hussen in the face after he recorded them from a public sidewalk.
The Department of Homeland Security denied the allegations, calling them 'disgusting, reckless, and categorically FALSE'. In a statement, DHS said that targets for immigration enforcement are determined by legal status, not race, and that its agents use 'reasonable suspicion' to make arrests. The department insisted there are no 'indiscriminate stops' being made.
The Trump administration's crackdown in Minnesota began in December, shortly after the president made derogatory comments about the state's large Somali population. The operation, which is slated to involve more than 2,000 agents, has been described as the largest immigration enforcement action in US history. It has sparked widespread peaceful protests, as well as scattered incidents of violence. The president has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy active-duty military or federalised National Guard troops to quell the unrest.
