How to legally handle interactions with federal immigration agents

NINA MOINI: I'm Nina Moini. This is Minnesota Now. And as always, we thank you for choosing to spend your time with us. We're spending the show today listening to the voices of different people who have encountered ICE agents over the past week. Right now we'll hear from two South Minneapolis residents who had an encounter with ICE agents after observing the agents from their car.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

PATTY O'KEEFE: My name is Patty O'Keefe. I am a 14-year resident of Minneapolis.

BRANDON SIGUENZA: My name is Brandon Siguenza. I am a Minneapolis resident, US citizen. I've known Patty O'Keefe for many years.

PATTY O'KEEFE: On January 11, myself and Brandon had been alerted to an ICE sighting in our neighborhood and told that they were pepper spraying an observer. And so we headed to the scene because from everything we've heard, that when more people arrive at a location where ICE is, they are less likely to use force and less likely to deploy chemical irritants. We were following ICE as they left the scene, and they proceeded to stop and get out of the car, pepper spray into the vents of my car.

BRANDON SIGUENZA: They came around the car, surrounded us, and at no point were we instructed to exit the vehicle. We just had our hands in the air as they yelled at us. They proceeded to smash the windows. And then the gentleman opened the door, because it was unlocked, after smashing the window, and tore me out. And I was arrested.

[CAR HORNS HONKING, SHOUTING]

PATTY O'KEEFE: When we were behind ICE, and they were coming up and surrounding our car and telling us that we were obstructing them. I mean, we weren't at a live raid. There was no one in front of them. They were not being blocked in by anyone. They could have just gone forward.

BRANDON SIGUENZA: The first thing I told the agent is that I had my passport in my coat pocket as he was handcuffing me. He brought me to an unmarked SUV. He sat me down without buckling me. He ripped the whistle off of my neck, said I'm going to be needing this later.

PATTY O'KEEFE: As soon as I was put into my car, I was with three ICE agents. They immediately started taunting me, mocking me. They took a picture of me. They called me ugly. The driver of the vehicle, the ICE agent that had pepper sprayed into the vents of my car, said, "You guys got to stop obstructing us. That's why that lesbian bitch is dead." Verbatim, speaking about Renee Good, which filled me with absolute rage and shock that you could say that to one of her neighbors. I live eight blocks away from where she was killed.

BRANDON SIGUENZA: I was brought to a federal detention facility for eight hours, and I was never charged with a crime. I saw people in detention, hopeless people, that had their heads in their hands that were staring at the walls. There were cells with eight or more people in them. I was in the US citizens area of Whipple, and eventually two other men were brought with me. During my detention, I was at one point brought into a room with three gentlemen from the Department of Homeland Security Investigations. They asked me for the names of people that are undocumented and the names of protest organizers in exchange for money or in exchange for helping out family members that are undocumented, of which I have none.

And there were two other men in the cell with me, both Hispanic men. One of them was offered the same offer. They offered him also money or legal protection for undocumented people if he would give up the names of undocumented people, or if he would give up the names of protest organizers. I was shocked when I heard this. I didn't know that was something they were doing.

My heart was breaking for all my neighbors, especially because on the way to that room, I saw many, many people, mostly Hispanic people, in cells crying. We heard people yelling, "Let me out." We heard screaming. We heard just wailing, desperate wailing. At one point, I saw a woman who was going to the bathroom crying, that you could see into the bathroom, and you could see her going to the bathroom, and there were three government agents watching her-- observing her, I guess-- using the bathroom and crying.

PATTY O'KEEFE: There was one large holding cell that had probably somewhere between 40 and 50 people in it, and then some smaller cells that had dozens of people each.

BRANDON SIGUENZA: And in the US citizens area, our ankles were shackled, but we had room to lay down on concrete benches. The cells that people without documentation were housed in, they could not lay down if they wanted to.

PATTY O'KEEFE: Who knows how long they'd been there.

BRANDON SIGUENZA: There was a small window to the cell with an intercom next to it, and I used that intercom to ask for bathroom breaks or to ask for water. What would happen is I would press the button, someone would talk to me, I would say, excuse me, may I please use the bathroom? May I please get some water? They would say someone's on their way. And then 20 minutes would pass. Nothing would happen. So I would intercom again saying the same thing. They would tell me the same thing. After another 20 minutes, I would intercom again and essentially beg them, please, please, I really have to go to the bathroom.

Eventually the intercom stopped-- either stopped working, or they stopped responding to it-- and the only way I was able to go to the bathroom was to bang on the window and beg agents walking by, please, sir, please, sir, may I use the bathroom? May I get some water? I was making plans in my head for what to do next, what to eat. I'd only eaten a granola bar when I was in there. And every time I had that thought, I just reminded myself the other people detained in here, they don't get to make plans for tonight. They don't get to make plans for tomorrow. They don't get to walk through their city or go to their jobs or see their family maybe ever again.

PATTY O'KEEFE: I think the most disturbing thing for me was hearing the wailing, the desperate crying from women-- we heard a child-- from men. And just hearing that visceral pain juxtaposed with hearing small talk and laughter from the agents that were standing outside our cells, asking how their families were, making jokes, and just the level of disconnection that you have to have to be able to have those lighthearted conversations on the backdrop of desperate crying from people who've been torn away from their lives and their families is pretty disturbing for me.

BRANDON SIGUENZA: So I was never charged with a crime. After eight hours, I was just let out of the building. I wasn't given any papers or explanation of what had happened. What worried me was that if this is how they're treating a US citizen who was not charged with a crime, how are they treating people that don't have lawyers being called on their behalf? It seemed to me like government agents were very stressed and overwhelmed, and they weren't really sure how things were supposed to be going.

Multiple points, people are unable to open doors that they were meant to go through. They didn't how to use the phone. When they were giving me my phone call, they weren't sure how to operate the phone. Throughout all my interactions with government agents, I tried to deescalate. I told them that I don't hate them. I suggested to them where to get good winter coats and good winter boots because most of them were from out of town and weren't really sure how to deal with the weather. I just tried to remind them that I'm a person, and that all the people in this facility are people just like them.

PATTY O'KEEFE: It doesn't really seem like they are complying with laws. They've been empowered to do what they want, regardless of whether it's legal or not. I've lived in Minneapolis for 14 years, and I've never felt less safe in my city than I do now with this siege of federal agents. Our whole experience that we had with ICE and through the booking and detention process was they wanted to intimidate us, to probably deter us from continuing to show up for our neighbors, to continue alerting the community when ICE is in their area. But the reason that we're doing this is from a deep place of love and care for our community, for our neighbors, and that's not something that's easily broken. I'm not deterred. I'm going to keep doing what I need to do to stand with my neighbors and protect my community.

BRANDON SIGUENZA: I got to see firsthand the Minnesotans that are in detention right now, that are our neighbors, our coworkers, our family members that are feeling completely helpless. And I want the focus to remain on those people. What happened to me was not right, but what's happening to them is unconscionable.

NINA MOINI: Those were Minneapolis residents Patty O'Keefe and Brandon Siguenza. That piece was produced by Ellen Finn. It is difficult to identify the number of people with and without citizenship who've been arrested or detained by federal immigration agents over the past few weeks. The Department of Homeland Security says there have been at least 2,000 arrests since December 1. It's unclear if that includes the arrests of US citizens, but we've been overwhelmed with reports of ICE agents detaining US citizens and non-citizens alike.

As more and more Minnesotans have encounters with ICE agents, civil rights lawyers and advocates are spreading the word about what can and cannot legally take place between ICE agents and civilians. Ian Bratlie is an attorney with the ACLU of Minnesota. He's here now to explain how to legally handle interactions with federal immigration agents, which is a question we've been receiving a lot. So thank you very much for your time, Ian.

IAN BRATLIE: Yeah, thanks for having me.

NINA MOINI: I don't know if you had a chance to listen. We just heard about an encounter of two observers who had been detained. What was your reaction to that? Tell me more about the legal implications there.

IAN BRATLIE: Yeah. No, it sounded like actually a common fact pattern that we're hearing, unfortunately. The lawyer part of me, I thought, was that from the very beginning, it was very likely an illegal stop by ICE, an illegal arrest of both individuals. The comments made to Patty calling her ugly and making comments about Renee Gold, while not necessarily part of the lawyer part, but it did seem to strike me as an example of the misogyny of law enforcement that we're seeing from ICE, the worst-case scenarios that we expected and that we seem to be getting.

NINA MOINI: We've seen a few instances over the past week of ICE pepper spraying or pushing, hitting people who are nearby filming the agents, people who are close to them. And a lot of people want to know, at what point is someone too close to an agent when they're recording? What can agents legally use force in those instances or when?

IAN BRATLIE: Yeah. And all that is somewhat fact specific. But the general rule is ICE cannot use any force unless it is reasonably necessary to conduct whatever they're doing. So if someone is 5 feet away and videotaping them, it's probably not preventing them from doing the arrest that they are filming or examples like that. So it is kind of fact specific, which isn't the greatest answer. People don't want to hear that. But videotaping ICE is protected activity. They cannot use force simply because they don't like that you are videotaping them. They're not allowed to do that. They can ask you to move back a little bit. But unless you are actively interfering, you don't even have to move back. But again, Where is that line? can be a very difficult, factual question.

NINA MOINI: What should people do if ICE pulls them over, and they are a citizen or have paperwork that shows they legally live in the United States?

IAN BRATLIE: Well, so again, ICE doesn't have any inherent authority over US citizens. So if ICE is pulling you over, about the only-- the excuse we hear is that somebody might be in violation of 8 USC 111. That's kind of what they throw out.

NINA MOINI: And what's that?

IAN BRATLIE: 18 US Code 111. And that's assaults, resists, impedes federal agents. But that requires forceful actions on a person's account. So we've seen a lot of video where ICE agents are screaming that you're following us, you're interfering with our investigation. That's not true. But we've seen that in a lot of video. So realistically, what should happen when-- ICE should not pull over a US citizen, period. Obviously, we're seeing that happen.

If somebody's pulled over, they should ask why are we pulled over? And ICE probably won't actually answer. But if they're saying something about a violation of 18 US Code 111, unless there's more than First Amendment activity, which would include blowing whistles and following and honking your horn, it's simply not enough. And ICE should not be doing that. But obviously, as your last story showed, they are still violating people's rights anyways.

NINA MOINI: Is the ACLU collecting information about illegal incidents? Like I mentioned, we have so many reports and so many videos that show not entire situations most of the time because that is nearly impossible.

IAN BRATLIE: Exactly.

NINA MOINI: What are you doing with all of these reports you're getting? It sounds like people don't where to go and are pretty unlikely to take individual legal action or even have enough evidence to be able to really do that. So what's the ACLU trying to do about that?

IAN BRATLIE: So the ACLU, our website has intake forms for individuals who have been either racially profiled or observers who have been violated by immigration authorities. So please come to our website and fill out those forms if this has happened to you. We had oral arguments in a case this morning in front of Judge Menendez on behalf of protesters. Hopefully we'll get a decision on that by the end of the day tomorrow. And that might make some things more clear. But until then, we don't know if that will clear up. And obviously there are potential future litigation efforts as well.

NINA MOINI: But you're saying people can go to the ACLU website and make reports when they feel like something unjust or there was a violation of their rights. So that's one thing people can do. We have only about a minute left, and I do hope you'll come back at some point, Ian. But have your trainings changed at all for observers, just in light of all of these different videos and instances that we're seeing?

IAN BRATLIE: I think the biggest one is that maybe we were a little surprised on how willing ICE is to violate rights. It used to be pretty obvious, if ICE tells you to back up a few feet, go ahead and back up a few feet, but they're not going to tell you to leave the scene. They're not going to do what they did to Renee Gold. They're not going to pepper spray a crowd that is lawfully there. Well, it turns out well, yeah they will. So I think some of how we want to deal with this going forward changes. We have a set rule on what they're allowed to do, but sometimes they break those rules.

NINA MOINI: All right. I'm sure more people can find information at your website on that as well. Thank you very much, Ian.

IAN BRATLIE: Thanks for having me.

NINA MOINI: That was ACLU of Minnesota Attorney Ian Bradley.