ICE drawdown? Indications point to steady enforcement activity outside the Twin Cities
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It’s been almost a week since the federal government announced that officials planned to “draw down” the number of federal agents in Minnesota.
While people on the ground are skeptical about the government’s statements, and Homeland Security isn’t releasing any updates on agent numbers or arrests, it does appear from anecdotal reports that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has shifted its activities from the core cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul to the state’s suburbs, exurbs and small towns.
It was on the very day last week that Trump administration “border czar” Tom Homan announced that some federal agents were departing Minnesota that attorney John Hayden’s client was arrested.
The man is a mechanic who was born in Mexico. Hayden said the man may have been put at ease by the announcement that the federal government was winding down its operations. When two women popped the hood on their vehicle and knocked on his door, the man went outside to help. The arrest was captured on video.
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“He's been there for maybe 10 seconds, then the other cars pull up and surround him, and a bunch of agents jump out and tackle him, essentially restraining him, and take him away,” Hayden said. “His six kids are now without their father.”
These sort of tactics by federal agents undermine the federal government’s claims that they’re targeting the “worst of the worst,” Hayden said.
“You're not finding them going out and helping their neighbors with their car troubles,” Hayden said. “This whole campaign of just going out and finding vulnerable people, good people, people who are following rules, it's just another example of blowing the pretext of this whole operation.”
Hayden has filed about a dozen habeas petitions on behalf of clients in the last two weeks. He says he’ll be encouraged to see the numbers of arrests start to slow down, but it unfortunately won’t be because the federal government and ICE are “following the law or starting to listen to courts,” but because they’ve arrested so many people who are trying to follow the process, including clients of his who have shown up for scheduled immigration check-ins.
“The political theater that this administration wanted to put on is going to wind down, but it's still a lot of harm done,” Hayden said. “The damage will be felt for decades to come as the children of these individuals kind of grow up with that distrust for law enforcement, the fear of social services, fear of doing the right thing. It's a tragedy.”
Although advocates say there are fewer volunteers observing ICE activities in outstate Minnesota, there have been a number of high-profile actions, including a car crash involving federal agents in Mankato and the arrest of restaurant workers in Rochester.
State Sen. Doron Clark has been regularly observing ICE agents in his Minneapolis district since the surge started. He said federal agents arrested people on the morning of Homan’s announcement, but that it’s been much quieter than in previous weeks. Volunteers are still patrolling the neighborhoods.
“The Department of Homeland Security and ICE have proven with statement after statement, both to the press, to the public and to judicial judges, that they can't be trusted,” Clark said “We're going to keep holding them to account, to make sure they keep their promise that they are, in fact, leaving — and so that's why folks are still out.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and ICE did not respond to questions about how many federal agents are currently on the ground in Minnesota or their timeline for a “draw down.” The federal agencies only sporadically release information about their activities and do not release the numbers of people they’ve arrested, although recent estimates have put the number in Minnesota at above 4,000. More than 900 Minnesota residents have filed emergency habeas corpus petitions asking judges to either release them or offer them bond.
As ICE moves their activities outside the Metro area, there’s growing concern that some authorities in other parts of the state may cooperate more closely with the agency. Eight Minnesota counties and one city currently have 287(g) agreements with the federal government allowing them to question residents about immigration status and keep people in custody for the federal government.
“What we are seeing today with this push for 287(g) agreements is the systemic implementation of a draconian expansion of a program already condemned due to racial profiling and civil and human rights abuses that have cost taxpayers in the millions of dollars because of lawsuits,” according to the groups’ open letter. “287(g) is a deliberate construction of a nationwide dragnet.”
Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou is president of the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, which has joined with dozens of other labor and community groups to call on elected leaders to ban the 287(g) agreements.
Glaubitz Gabiou said ICE has always been active in outstate Minnesota, especially in regions with high numbers of immigrant workers. Even the so-called “drawdown” in federal forces doesn’t mean the crisis is over, Glaubitz Gabiou said. It may just be that the federal government is shifting tactics, which is why she thinks it’s important to take statewide action on the 287(g) contracts.
“We still have thousands of families now to bring home. We have a decade of economic ruin to figure out and bring back — the workers who've been hiding in their homes are not going to start going to work tomorrow,” she said. “We can celebrate the beauty [of this victory], but our work is not done yet.”
