Two Minneapolis residents who have been monitoring the actions of immigration officials during the Trump administration’s latest crackdown say they were detained for hours without charges, held in harsh conditions, denied phone calls and forced to expose protest organizers and people living in the country illegally.
The accusations brought by Brandon Siguenza and Patty O’Keefe suggest that DHS used tactics in Minneapolis and St. Paul similar to those used in crackdowns in Los Angeles, Chicago and New Orleans. Federal officers again used roving patrols, warrantless arrests and aggressive tactics such as spraying chemical irritants, breaking car windows and recording protesters before ICE officers shot and killed Renee Good and her vehicle.
Immigration officials also have been surveilling activists who have been observing their events in the Twin Cities, violating their First Amendment rights, according to a lawsuit by organizers and the American Civil Liberties Union. Siguenza, who like his friend O’Keefe is a U.S. citizen, said one of the immigration officials who questioned him on Sunday even offered him money or legal protection if he turned over the names of organizers or neighbors who were staying illegally.
“At one point, the officer vaguely stated that I seemed to be in trouble and that he might be able to help me,” Siguenza said, noting that he declined the offer.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigration, Customs, Law Enforcement and Border Patrol, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Aggressive tactics and arrests
Siguenza and O’Keefe were among an unspecified number of Twin Cities residents observing the actions of immigration officials who were detained Sunday while following ICE officers who were driving around to make arrests. Two people told The Associated Press that police pulled up in front of O’Keefe’s car, fired pepper spray through her windshield vents and smashed her windows even though the doors were unlocked.
According to O’Keefe, agents laughed at her appearance and laughed at her. She said they also brought up the killing of Goode, a 37-year-old mother of three who was shot in the head by ICE officers in front of her wife last week.
O’Keefe said the police who sprayed their car Sunday threatened them, saying “impeding” their work was why Goode was killed.
“Obviously, they just wanted to humiliate me and break me down,” O’Keefe said.
Cash and legal help for information
Siguenza and O’Keefe said they were arrested and taken separately in unmarked SUVs to a heavily restricted federal facility on the edge of Minneapolis that is the main center of the crackdown. They were housed in adjacent cells reserved for U.S. citizens, one for men and the other for women. Each cell, also used to house other detainees, is no larger than 10 feet by 10 feet (about 9 square meters) and equipped with concrete benches, flat-screen televisions, two-way mirrors and surveillance cameras.
On the way to their cells, they said they saw other detainees screaming and calling for help, but most were staring at the ground in frustration. At one point, they observed a woman trying to use the restroom while three male agents looked on. The vast majority of detainees are Hispanic men, but some are East African — Minnesota is home to the country’s largest Somali community.
“Just hearing the visceral pain that people in this center are feeling is horrific,” O’Keefe said. “And then you put that together with the laughter that we heard from the actual agents … it’s very surreal and kind of shocking.”
Siguenza said one of his inmates suffered a head injury and another suffered a toe injury, but neither received medical help. Their requests for water or to use the bathroom outside their cells were also ignored, he said.
O’Keefe and Siguenza were able to speak with attorneys, but only Siguenza was allowed to make a phone call — and he called his wife.
Siguenza, who is Hispanic, said Homeland Security investigators took him to another room and offered him money or legal protection for any family members who might be in the country illegally in exchange for the names of protest organizers or neighbors who did not have legal immigration status. But he said he declined the offer, noting that he did not have any family members without legal status.
Siguenza and O’Keefe shared their stories widely on social media and were released without charge in the evening.
After they left the facility, they were again attacked with chemical agents used by police on protesters in the area.
“We have not been charged with a crime,” Siguenza said. “We were released and then tear-gassed on the way out.”
Concerns about detention conditions elsewhere
There have been complaints about conditions at immigration detention facilities across the country, including a lawsuit against one at the Chicago Regional Operations Center that led to a judge conducting surveillance inspections and ordering improvements to conditions.
The Department of Homeland Security has defended conditions at its facilities, saying detainees are fed and their medical problems are addressed. They also tout the success of their immigration crackdown, saying they have led to the arrests of thousands of people living illegally.
O’Keefe and Siguenza believe their detention is an attempt to intimidate them and other critics of the immigration crackdown.
Lynn Damiano Pearson, an immigration attorney with the National Immigration Law Center, said the rights of U.S. citizens and noncitizens in immigration detention differ slightly from those in criminal detention. But in both cases, detainees retain basic rights, including access to lawyers and telephone calls, food and water, and privacy from members of the opposite sex when using bathrooms.
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Associated Press writer Sofia Tallin contributed to this report.
