MINNEAPOLIS — State officials are suing the Trump administration over the widespread immigration operation taking place across the Minneapolis region.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, comes days after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Macklin Good in her car as she blocked the road.
State Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a press conference that federal agents during the surge have arrested peaceful bystanders, detained U.S. citizens and fired chemical irritants at demonstrators and others exercising their First Amendment rights, including outside a local high school. The lawsuit calls on the Trump administration to end its immigration crackdown in the state.
"Thousands of armed and masked DHS agents have stormed the Twin Cities to conduct militarized raids and carry out dangerous, illegal, and unconstitutional stops and arrests in sensitive public places, including schools and hospitals—all under the guise of lawful immigration enforcement," the lawsuit says. The complaint also alleges that immigration agents have engaged in racial profiling.
In a statement, Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin accused Ellison of "prioritizing politics over public safety," and called the allegations of racial profiling false, saying, "Law enforcement uses 'reasonable suspicion' to make arrests, as protected under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution."
"President Trump's job is to protect the American people and enforce the law — no matter who your mayor, governor, or state attorney general is," McLaughlin said. "That's what the Trump administration is doing; we have the Constitution on our side on this, and we look forward to proving that in court."
More than 2,000 federal immigration agents are in Minnesota, and that number is expected to increase.
On Monday, an NPR reporter witnessed multiple instances where immigration agents drove around Minneapolis and questioned people about their immigration status. Some took place in the parking lots of big box stores.
"Are you a green card holder? Do you have it on you?"
Those were some of the questions federal immigration agents asked Joel Keleekai as he was charging his Tesla in a parking lot.
It's unclear why Border Patrol agents chose to question Keleekai and other drivers who were also charging their vehicles. All of them were people of color. All of them were able to prove they were in the U.S. legally after showing documentation.
Keleekai, who is a permanent U.S. resident, told NPR he knew this could happen given the number of immigration agents in the state and the amount of time he spends driving every day.
"We don't want this to escalate. As you see, ICE is going around and people are getting killed," he said. "We just gotta do our best out here to make sure that we live to see tomorrow."
In a statement, DHS's McLaughlin said, "ICE does not randomly arrest people or conduct operations without specific objectives. Nor does federal law enforcement execute operations without undergoing proper procedure, such as securing warrants when necessary."
These tactics are highly unusual. In the past, immigration enforcement agencies had focused on targeted operations. But the Trump administration has appeared to have shifted its tactics and, in Minnesota, become even more aggressive with its immigration crackdown.
Vice President JD Vance said in a press conference recently that immigration agents were also going door to door in an attempt to find undocumented immigrants.
The Trump administration's efforts are receiving fierce backlash from local public officials, and people in Minneapolis.
Residents are organizing in group chats and trailing immigration agents, honking their horns and making noise, alerting their neighbors of ICE's presence and migrants of their rights.
In a separate incident witnessed by an NPR reporter, a man who was on his way to work was briefly detained and asked questions about his legal status.
The man asked NPR to identify him by his initials of M.A. because he fears for his safety for speaking to the media. He said he was born in Somalia, but is a U.S. citizen. He was released by immigration agents.
"I know my rights here — I'm a U.S. citizen, I'm legal here, I've been over 25 years here," M.A. said.
Things seemed chaotic Monday in the Minneapolis region. Immigration agents could be seen in many places driving in unmarked vehicles.
A particularly tense exchange happened Monday afternoon in south Minneapolis. Immigration officers in a vehicle rear-ended a resident's car.
An NPR reporter was on the scene shortly after the incident and could see the rear left side of the car damaged.
The driver, Christian Molina, told NPR he and his wife Lorena, both U.S. citizens, were driving separate cars on their way to drop one off with a mechanic when he saw immigration agents engaging with another person.
Molina said he stared at them before they started chasing him.
"They don't have a reason to stop me, they are not the police," Molina said in Spanish.
After federal agents ran into his vehicle, Molina said the agents kept asking him about his immigration status. He refused to give them an identification; Molina told the federal agents he would only give his drivers license if Minneapolis Police officers showed up.
Molina said the federal agents left after running his license plate and confirming his identity.
Lorena, the wife, said she felt scared.
"I felt like I had the need to talk to the officers and say, 'Hey, please ignore whatever he's saying, let him live!'" she said.
Christian Molina said he is not afraid of immigration agents.
"They are abusing their power," Molina said.
Illinois and the city of Chicago also took legal action Monday against the Trump administration over its immigration enforcement actions. Chicago officials and Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
"The Trump administration has repeatedly violated the law and undermined public trust," Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said in a news release about the lawsuit. "These actions weren't just unlawful; they were cruel, needlessly inflicting fear and harm on our communities."
That lawsuit alleges that federal immigration agents interrogate residents about their citizenship status without reason to believe they are in the U.S. illegally, that they "make civil immigration arrests without a warrant and without probable cause, and deploy tear gas and other noxious chemicals without warning against persons who are not resisting," the city's news release says.
Copyright 2026 NPR
