“DHS’s crude dragnet ensnares non-citizens, including individuals with immigration status, without warrants or any lawful basis for arrest,” the lawsuit says. “And its discriminatory practices also sweep in numerous US citizens in the process, shackling them and scanning their faces while ignoring documentation of US citizenship.”
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a federal lawsuit accusing the Trump administration and different government agencies of using racial profiling to conduct illegal stops and arrests in Minnesota.
According to The Hill, the lawsuit names defendants including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. Both agencies have a heavy presence in Minnesota, which is currently being targeted by unprecedented immigration-enforcement actions.
“Masked federal agents in the thousands are violently stopping and arresting countless Minnesotans based on nothing more than their race and perceived ethnicity irrespective of their citizenship or immigration status, or their personal circumstances. At the center of DHS’s campaign are Somali and Latino people, who are being targeted for stops and arrests based on racial profiling motivated by prejudice,” the lawsuit alleges.
“DHS’s crude dragnet ensnares non-citizens, including individuals with immigration status, without warrants or any lawful basis for arrest,” the lawsuit says. “And its discriminatory practices also sweep in numerous US citizens in the process, shackling them and scanning their faces while ignoring documentation of US citizenship.”
In court filings, the American Civil Liberties Union described the experience of plaintiff Mubashir Khalif Hussen, who claims to have been detained by immigration agents despite repeatedly telling them that he is a U.S. citizen. Both Hussen and the ACLU say that ICE refused repeated requests to inspect Hussen’s identification.
“At no time did any officer ask me whether I was a citizen or if I had any immigration status,” Hussen said. “They did not ask me for any identifying information, nor did they ask about my ties to the community, how long I had lived in the Twin Cities, my family in Minnesota, or anything else about my circumstances.”
After his initial detention, Hussen was taken to a government services building in Whipple, Minnesota. Only there was Hussen allowed the opportunity to retrieve and share a picture of his U.S. passport. He was ultimately released, but only after being shackled and fingerprinted.
Another plaintiff, 25-year-old Mahamed Eydarus, claims to have been shoveling snow out of a parking space with his mother when they were both surrounded by unidentified, masked federal agents. The agents did not present any identification but demanded that Eydarus prove that he was “not illegal.” During the encounter, the agents allegedly questions why Eydarus and his mother kept speaking in Somali.
“The government can’t stop and arrest people based on the color of their skin, or arrest people with no probable cause,” said Kate Huddleston, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.
“These kinds of police-state tactics are contrary to the basic principles of liberty and equality that remain a bedrock of our legal system and our country,” Huddleston said.
Catherine Ahlin-Halverson, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s Minnesota branch, was similarly critical of the federal government’s new tactics.
“ICE and CBP’s practices are both illegal and morally reprehensible,” she said.
“Federal agents’ conduct—sweeping up Minnesotans through racial profiling and unlawful arrests—is a grave violation of Minnesotans’ most fundamental rights, and it has spread fear among immigrant communities and neighborhoods,” Ahlin-Halverson said in a statement. “No one, including federal agents, is above the law.”
Sources
ACLU accuses federal agencies in Minnesota of racial profiling, illegal stops in new lawsuit
ACLU sues Trump administration over ‘racial profiling and unlawful arrests’ in Minnesota ICE surge
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