By Daniel Trotta
Jan 12 (Reuters) – Minnesota and Illinois sued President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday, 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 U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and several U.S. 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 U.S. 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.
DHS ACCUSES ELLISON OF PRIORITIZING POLITICS
DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin 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.
“Sanctuary politicians like Ellison are the EXACT reason that DHS surged to Minnesota in the first place. If he, Tim Walz, or Jacob Frey had just done their sworn duty to protect the people of Minnesota they are supposed to serve to root out fraud and get criminals off the street – if they had worked with us to do it – we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place,” McLaughlin said in a statement, referring to Minnesota’s governor and Minneapolis’ mayor, both Democrats.
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.
The Minnesota lawsuit seeks a ban on U.S. officers threatening to use physical force or brandishing weapons against people who are not subject to an immigration arrest, and other limits on federal law enforcement action including a ban on arresting U.S. citizens and visa holders without probable cause that they have committed a crime. The state also asked the court to order agents to wear visible identification, activate body-worn cameras and remove masks that conceal their faces.
“Thousands of armed and masked DHS agents have stormed the Twin Cities (of Minneapolis and Saint Paul) to conduct militarized raids and carry out dangerous, illegal, and unconstitutional stops and arrests in sensitive public places, including schools and hospitals – all under the guise of lawful immigration enforcement,” the lawsuit says. “When the federal government itself violates legal rights and civic norms on such a broad scale and public panic is high, state and city governments bear the costs.”
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.
(Reporting by Jasper Ward and Jan Wolfe in Washington, Additional reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Scott Malone and Matthew Lewis)
