[email protected] (Paige Ingram, Peter Rubinstein)
2026-01-17 02:53:00
U.S. District Judge Kate Menendez issued a temporary injunction forbidding immigration agents from detaining or tear-gassing peaceful protesters following the fatal shooting of Renee Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross last week
A federal judge in Minnesota ruled on Friday that immigration officers in the Minneapolis area are not permitted to detain or use tear gas against peaceful protesters, marking the most restrictive order issued to the thousands of masked agents since the killing of Renee Good last week.
U.S. District Judge Kate Menendez issued a temporary injunction limiting the circumstances under which immigration agents can deploy chemical irritants into crowds. Her order also prohibits agents from retaliating against peaceful protesters exercising their First Amendment rights, a practice that is also being challenged in a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and Secretary Kristi Noem by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Since early December, thousands have been monitoring the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol officers enforcing the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. While the Trump administration claimed the operation was intended to address allegations of fraud, some demonstrators have accused the masked, armoured agents of violating their constitutional rights and waging a campaign of violent retaliation.
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The ruling prevents the officers from detaining drivers and passengers in vehicles unless there is reasonable suspicion they are obstructing or interfering with the officers, as reported by The Associated Press.
The ruling stated that safely following agents “at an appropriate distance does not, by itself, create reasonable suspicion to justify a vehicle stop,” Menendez said the agents would not be allowed to arrest people without probable cause or reasonable suspicion the person has committed a crime or was obstructing or interfering with the activities of officers, reports the Mirror US.
Government lawyers maintained that officers have been operating within their legal powers to enforce immigration laws and ensure their own safety. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Wednesday characterised the surge as an attempt to generate “chaos.
“We have ICE agents throughout our city and throughout our state who, along with border control, are creating chaos. This is not the path that we should be on right now in America,” Frey said during the emergency 15-minute news conference on Wednesday night after a man was shot in the city by federal agents.
Gov. Tim Walz joined other left-wing figures in describing it as a “campaign of organized brutality.”
Tensions in the area escalated dramatically last week when ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot Good, a mother and U.S. citizen, several times in the head as she slowly pulled her car away from him. Following Noem’s actions, Trump and Vice President JD Vance swiftly defended Ross and labelled Good a “domestic terrorist” before any investigation had been conducted, prompting thousands to take to the streets in Minneapolis and across the nation demanding accountability, transparency and an end to the violent surge.
In a lawsuit lodged on Thursday, the ACLU accused federal immigration officers in Minnesota of racial profiling and unlawful detentions. Filed on behalf of three Minnesotans, all of whom are U.S. citizens, the lawsuit outlines a range of racially-motivated violations of their constitutional rights and acts of violence perpetrated by masked federal agents.
“Masked federal agents in the thousands are violently stopping and arresting countless Minnesotans based on nothing more than their race and perceived ethnicity irrespective of their citizenship or immigration status, or their personal circumstances,” the 72-page lawsuit said. “At the center of DHS’s campaign are Somali and Latino people, who are being targeted for stops and arrests based on racial profiling motivated by prejudice.”
Following Good’s death, federal officers have been seen in numerous videos using forceful crowd control methods against demonstrators, including the use of tear gas, pepper balls and stun grenades.
This week, The Intercept reported that federal agents have repeatedly invoked Good’s death to intimidate protesters and observers in Minnesota. “In multiple confrontations in the Minneapolis area, agents repeatedly referred to civilians learning their lesson – in an apparent nod to the use of deadly force in Ross’s killing,” The Intercept stated.
