Eight arrested in Minneapolis as Trump officials issue threats to protesters | Minnesota ICE shooting

Eight people were arrested outside a federal building in Minneapolis on Tuesday, according to the Department of Homeland Security, as the Trump administration doubled down on threats to protesters and city and state officials who might try to impede their mass deportation agenda.

Throughout the afternoon, crowds of people who gathered in protest against the continued presence and violent tactics of federal immigration officers in the city were hit with teargas, pepper balls and flash bangs. Demonstrators have amassed in the city and across the country after the Minneapolis mother Renee Nicole Good was killed by a federal immigration agent.

Online, meanwhile, administration officials issued dire warnings.

“[The] Department of Justice has made clear that if officials cross that line into obstruction, into criminal conspiracy against the United States, or against ICE officers they will face justice,” Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller said on Fox News, after repeating the administration’s claim that ICE officers have federal immunity.

The clashes came as the DHS prepared to deploy more officers to the Minneapolis area, in the midst of what the administration called “its largest operation in DHS history”.

A DHS official told CBS News that there were 800 Customs and Border Protection agents and 2,000 ICE officials in the Minneapolis area as tensions have risen in recent days.

The Pentagon is also poised to dispatch military lawyers to the area to aid in an expected surge in federal persecutions, CNN reported.

Minnesota, Minneapolis, and St Paul have sued the Trump administration seeking an end to the surge, and what local officials have characterized as a “federal invasion” according to the suit filed on Monday.

The lawsuit says the Department of Homeland Security is violating the first amendment and other constitutional protections by focusing on a progressive state that favors Democrats and welcomes immigrants.

“This is, in essence, a federal invasion of the Twin Cities in Minnesota, and it must stop,” Keith Ellison, the state attorney general, said.

Minneapolis’s mayor, Jacob Frey, said: “What we are seeing is thousands – plural – thousands of federal agents coming into our city. And, yeah, they’re having a tremendous impact on day-to-day life.”

The city of Chicago and Illinois separately filed a suit over the DHS’s “organized bombardment”.

Several federal prosecutors resigned in protest, meanwhile, over the justice department’s decision not to hold a civil rights investigation into the killing of Good by a federal immigration agent in Minneapolis.

Hundreds of people continued to protest on Tuesday, despite legal and physical threats from the federal government.

Gas clouds filled a Minneapolis street near where Good was fatally shot in the head by an immigration agent last week. A man scrubbed his eyes with snow and screamed for help while agents in an unmarked Jeep sprayed an orange irritant and drove away.

It’s common for people to boo, taunt and blow orange whistles when they spot heavily armed agents passing through in unmarked vehicles or walking the streets, all part of a grassroots effort to warn the neighborhood and remind the government that they are watching.

“Who doesn’t have a whistle?” a man with a bag of them yelled.

Brita Anderson, who lives nearby and came to support neighborhood friends, said she was “incensed” to see agents in tactical gear and gas masks, and wondered about their purpose.

“It felt like the only reason they’d come here is to harass people,” Anderson said.

In Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, students protesting against the immigration enforcement operation walked out of school, as students in other communities have done this week.

Homeland security claims it has made more than 2,000 arrests in the state since early December and is vowing to not back down. Spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, responding to the lawsuit, accused Minnesota officials of ignoring public safety.

“President Trump’s job is to protect the American people and enforce the law – no matter who your mayor, governor, or state attorney general is,” McLaughlin said.

The Trump administration has repeatedly defended the immigration agent who shot Good, saying he acted in self-defense. But that explanation has been widely panned by Frey, the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, and others based on videos of the confrontation.