Minnesota, Illinois sue Trump administration to block immigration surges

MINNEAPOLIS, USA – Minnesota and Illinois sued President Donald Trump‘s administration on Monday, January 12, seeking to block a surge of immigration enforcement officers into their states, following the fatal shooting of a Minnesota woman by an ICE officer last week.

The lawsuit brought by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison names as defendants US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and several US immigration officials, asking a federal court in Minnesota to declare the surge unconstitutional and unlawful.

The state accused the Republican administration of racially profiling its citizens and of targeting Minnesota because of its Democratic leanings. State officials said they would ask the court to impose a temporary restraining order on the federal surge as soon as Tuesday, when a hearing will be held.

“The deployment of thousands of armed, masked DHS agents to Minnesota has done our state serious harm. This is, in essence, a federal invasion of the Twin Cities and Minnesota and it must stop,” Ellison told a press conference, referring to Minneapolis and Saint Paul.

Illinois filed a similar federal lawsuit against the Trump administration on Monday over what Democratic Governor JB Pritzker called DHS’s “dangerous use of force.” The Illinois lawsuit asks the court to block US Customs and Border Protection from conducting civil immigration enforcement in the state while seeking to curb tactics such as the use of tear gas, trespassing on private property and the concealing of license plates to mask official operations.

The Minnesota lawsuit seeks to ban US officers from threatening to use physical force or brandishing weapons against people who are not subject to an immigration arrest while also requiring federal officers to wear visible identification, activate body-worn cameras and remove masks that conceal their faces.

DHS criticizes ‘sanctuary’ state

DHS accused Minnesota’s Ellison of prioritizing politics over public safety, saying he was part of a sanctuary state after the Justice Department placed Minnesota on a list of jurisdictions that it says impede enforcement of federal immigration laws.

“For years, these corrupt, activist politicians have refused to protect Minnesotans and are now proposing illegal actions to keep their stranglehold on control and continue stealing from American citizens. We will root out this rampant fraud, we will arrest the criminal illegal aliens hurting Americans with impunity, and we will hold those who aid and abetted this criminality accountable,” Noem said on X.

The Republican administration has deployed federal law enforcement officers into several cities and states largely governed by Democrats in what Trump says is a crackdown on illegal immigration and other crimes including corruption. Democratic leaders in turn have accused Trump of a politically motivated abuse of power.

Fatal shooting

Tension erupted in Minnesota last week when a federal immigration officer shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three who was observing the federal law enforcement action. Noem accused Good of domestic terrorism, saying she was attempting to ram the officer with her vehicle, while critics of the Trump administration have staged a series of protests to denounce the shooting as unjustified.

On Monday, about three dozen ICE agents faced off against a crowd of onlookers who had gathered around a smaller group of ICE officers who were questioning a motorist of Latino descent, Reuters witnessed.

When members of the crowd began tossing snowballs at them, ICE agents responded with tear gas, pepper balls, and chemical spray, but ultimately retreated from the scene as bystanders cheered.

The driver, Christian Molina, told Reuters the encounter began when his car was rear-ended by an ICE vehicle. ICE officers then began interrogating the couple as to their immigration status and called for backup when the surrounding crowd grew more agitated, Molina said.

Months before last week’s shooting, Trump had fixated on Minnesota, repeatedly criticizing its Democratic leaders and large Somali-American community. The president called Somali immigrants “garbage,” railed against a sprawling welfare-fraud scandal in which at least 56 people have pleaded guilty and ridiculed Walz, who ran on the Democratic Party’s ticket in the 2024 presidential election against Trump. – Rappler.com