The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, accusing federal immigration authorities in Minnesota of racial profiling and unlawful arrests during a surge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids.
The 72-page lawsuit, filed on Thursday on behalf of three US citizens, alleges that Somali and Latino communities have been disproportionately targeted. It names the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its secretary, Kristi Noem, along with several Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers, as defendants.
According to the lawsuit, one plaintiff, 20-year-old Mubashir Khalif Hussen, was detained by masked ICE agents while walking to lunch in Minneapolis’ Cedar-Riverside neighbourhood in December 2024. Despite stating he was a citizen, agents allegedly refused to check his ID, placed him in a headlock, and took him to a federal building where he was shackled and fingerprinted. After his release, Hussen was allegedly pepper-sprayed by an agent while recording a protest from a public sidewalk.
Another plaintiff, 25-year-old Mahamed Eydarus, was shovelling snow with his mother when they were surrounded by masked federal agents who demanded identification to ensure he was “not illegal”. The agents allegedly instructed his mother to remove her niqab and questioned why they were speaking Somali, referring to it as a “foreign language”.
ACLU Minnesota attorney Catherine Ahlin-Halverson said: “ICE and CBP’s practices are both illegal and morally reprehensible. Federal agents’ conduct … is a grave violation of Minnesotans’ most fundamental rights.” Kate Huddleston, an attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, added: “The government can’t stop and arrest people based on the colour of their skin … These kinds of police-state tactics are contrary to the basic principles of liberty and equality.”
