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Minnesota and its Twin Cities, Minneapolis and St Paul, have launched legal action against the United States President Donald Trump administration to stop a hardline immigration enforcement crackdown.<\/p>\n
Local officials have called the government operation a \u201cfederal invasion\u201d, which also led to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent fatally shooting a Minneapolis mother of three, Renee Nicole Good.<\/p>\n list of 2 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n The lawsuit was filed on Monday alongside a request for a temporary restraining order, as reports emerged that an additional 1,000 Border Patrol officers are being dispatched to join the 2,000 immigration agents already operating across the state.<\/p>\n The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has characterised the deployment as its largest enforcement operation in history.<\/p>\n State Attorney General Keith Ellison accused federal authorities of constitutional violations during a news conference announcing the legal challenge.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is, in essence, a federal invasion of the Twin Cities and Minnesota, and it must stop,\u201d he said. \u201cThese poorly trained, aggressive and armed agents of the federal state have terrorised Minnesota with widespread unlawful conduct.\u201d<\/p>\n The lawsuit alleges that DHS has deployed excessive and lethal force, conducted warrantless arrests, and targeted courts, churches, and schools.<\/p>\n Ellison said local police have been forced to respond to 20 instances of what he described as the apparent abduction of Minneapolis residents by ICE agents.<\/p>\n The enforcement surge has prompted mass protests following the shooting death of Good on January 7.<\/p>\n The 37-year-old mother of three was killed by ICE agent Jonathan Ross during a brief encounter while she sat behind the wheel of her vehicle. The incident has thrust Minneapolis into the international spotlight, with conflicting interpretations of the 40-second confrontation dividing officials and activists.<\/p>\n Trump administration officials have been accused of blatantly lying about the shooting events and appear to be clearly contradicted by video analysis.<\/p>\n Social media has been flooded in recent weeks with dozens of videos showing federal agents interrogating members of the Somali community and demanding proof of citizenship, amplifying fears among residents.<\/p>\n Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said the operation has been carried out \u201cindiscriminately\u201d and showed a lack of knowledge of the status of the city\u2019s population.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the initial impetus to come to Minnesota, was go to Minnesota, arrest and deport a bunch of Somali people,\u201d Frey said at a news conference last week.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then they get here and they realize that the Somali people who would be arrested or deported are all legal. They\u2019re all US citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n Speaking on Monday, Frey outlined the devastating effect on daily life across the Twin Cities.<\/p>\n \u201cThe damage that we are suffering right now \u2026 it\u2019s schools shutting down, it\u2019s businesses closing, it\u2019s people being afraid to go out and get groceries and therefore are going hungry,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is intentionally putting us in a very difficult position that is not pro-business and is not pro-safety.<\/p>\n \u201cIf this were about fraud, then you\u2019d see an invasion perhaps of accountants. But that\u2019s not what you see. What you see is people being indiscriminately taken off our streets,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n St Paul Mayor Kaohly Her, a Hmong American immigrant, revealed she now carries her passport and identification documents everywhere. \u201cBecause I don\u2019t know when I\u2019m going to be detained,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are being attacked as American citizens right now.\u201d<\/p>\n On Monday evening, hundreds assembled at a strip mall parking area in St Cloud, northwest of Minneapolis, after word spread that more than two dozen ICE officers had gathered near Somali-owned businesses.<\/p>\n Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar described the situation as \u201ca dangerous time\u201d and called the government\u2019s actions \u201cunconscionable\u201d.<\/p>\n Ellison said Minnesota\u2019s non-citizen immigrant population stands at just 1.5 percent, half the national average and lower than Utah, Texas, and Florida, suggesting the state has been targeted for political reasons.<\/p>\n \u201cDonald Trump doesn\u2019t seem to like our state very much,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, a legal advocacy organisation for migrants, said the federal operation that began more than a month ago was happening under what it termed \u201cthe racist pretense of fraud investigations targeting the Somali community\u201d.<\/p>\n DHS has defended the operation, with Secretary Kristi Noem telling Fox News on Sunday that additional officers would ensure agents \u201cdo so safely\u201d amid ongoing protests.<\/p>\n More than 2,000 arrests have been made since December.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Minnesota and its Twin Cities, Minneapolis and St Paul, have launched legal action against the United States President Donald Trump administration to stop a hardline immigration enforcement crackdown. Local officials have called the government operation a \u201cfederal invasion\u201d, which also led to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent fatally shooting a Minneapolis mother of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-canada-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
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