The states of Minnesota and Illinois, in the United States, have sued this morning the Government of the President of the United States, for the large-scale operation deployed by the immigration authorities, after last week. They understand that it is a “flagrant abuse of power.”
In the Minnesota complaint, along with those known as Twin Cities -Minneapolis and Saint Paul-, charges against the operations carried out by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service () in the state, which “have spread fear among the people who live, work and visit Minneapolis.” There is talk of an “unprecedented increase” in the presence of federal agents in the state, who use “excessive and lethal force, racist arrests without warrants and arbitrary actions.”
“Thousands of masked and armed officers have tormented the Twin Cities by carrying out militarized raids and dangerous, illegal and unconstitutional arrests in public spaces, including schools and hospitals,” the lawsuit states.
As announced by the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, since this operation, called Metro Surge, began last December, authorities have made more than 2,000 arrests.
The plaintiffs believe that this operation is motivated by “the Trump Administration’s desire to punish its political opponents”: “Its actions appear designed to provoke the anger of communities, sow fear and cause emotional distress” in the population.
“Their actions appear designed to provoke anger in communities, sow fear and cause emotional distress.”
The state refers to the shooting by an ICE agent that ended the life of , 37, on January 7 and calls for ICE operations to stop in Minnesota, alleging that it has the “inviolable” sovereign authority to protect “the health and well-being” of its residents.
The mayor of Minneapolis, Democrat Jacob Frey, presented the lawsuit at a press conference and applauded that in the city there are “heroes who defend each other and who support their neighbors.” “One thing I can tell you with certainty is that we are not going to back down (…). We are facing the bullies and, at this moment, what we are asking for is the court’s intervention to reject this unconstitutional conduct,” he said.
Frey also assured that the city’s police officers are responding to “countless calls reporting the kidnapping of people” by agents “in unmarked uniforms who are taking American citizens off the streets.” “Immigration agents are required to respect the law in the exercise of their duties. We believe this is not the case”; says the councilor.
This weekend, more than 1,000 protests were held in the US against the Trump Administration’s immigration policy and over Good’s death. After protests in which dozens of protesters were arrested, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the deployment of hundreds of additional federal agents to Minneapolis.
What the case of Renee Nicole God means
Protests in several American cities have multiplied after the death of Renee Nicole God in Minneapolis. An ICE agent shot her to death in her car last Wednesday. He was 37 years old and had three children. According to US authorities, the officer shot the woman in self-defense, but smartphone footage of the incident casts doubt on that claim.
Various angles of the scene have been revealed over the days, and all of them support the same idea: the easy trigger.
Who is this victim?
- An American national, Good was originally from Colorado Springs and had moved with her partner to Minneapolis from Kansas City a year ago.
- Local authorities claim that she was in the area of the raid as a legal observer of ICE activities; a voluntary position that monitors the actions of anti-immigration police and security forces in protests and raids, according to the BBC. The goal of these observers is to help maintain calm, deter officers from wrongdoing, and ensure that legal rights are respected.
- The Trump Administration, however, has accused her of trying to run over the agent who killed her and has described what happened as an “act of domestic terrorism.”
- According to the aforementioned media, Good studied a master’s degree in creative writing at the Old Dominion University of Norfolk (ODU), in the State of Virginia. In 2020 she won an award from the Academy of American Poets for her poem On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs. He graduated from ODU’s College of Arts and Letters the same year with a bachelor’s degree in English, university president Brian O. Hemphill, who has condemned his death, told The Post. “This is another clear example that fear and violence have become, unfortunately, common in our nation. May Renee’s life be a reminder of what unites us: freedom, love and peace,” he declared.
The scene of his death, recorded on video, lasts 22 seconds. Several ICE agents get out of a van and head towards the vehicle in front of them, Good’s car. One of the uniformed officers tries to open the driver’s door, the car slowly reverses, while he is surrounded by two other agents: one stands in the passenger door and the other in the front. When the vehicle starts, one of the agents, with his weapon ready, shoots at her.
The video, which is circulating on social media, reached Trump, who commented on his social network, Truth: “I just watched the video of the event that took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It’s horrible to watch. The woman who was screaming was obviously a professional agitator, and the woman who was driving the car behaved in a very disorderly manner, obstructing and resisting, and then violently, deliberately and cruelly ran over the ICE agent, who appears to have shot her in self-defense. According to the attached video, it’s hard to believe that he is alive, but now he is recovering in the hospital.
The images captured show a scene that refutes Trump’s story. The car turns in the opposite direction to where the agent who fired the shot was, trying to flee, and he appears completely unharmed.
In September of last year, ICE agents shot and killed Silverio Villegas González, a 38-year-old Mexican, in Chicago, also on the grounds that he “tried to drive his vehicle at them.” A month later, a Honduran man was run over and killed in Virginia after fleeing from immigration agents.
