DHS spied on ICE protest groups in Minnesota surge

Demonstrators gather at the street where 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good was shot and killed

(Image credit: Charly Triballeau / AFP / Getty Images)

What happened

The Department of Homeland Security secretly surveilled and infiltrated labor unions and progressive groups during ICE’s surge in Minnesota, beginning four days after an immigration agent killed protester Alex Pretti in January, according to newly released government documents filed Thursday. The filing, from a defense attorney for one of 15 indicted protesters, documents “an array of invasive tactics” used to gather information on “many groups and individuals who were never accused of crimes,” The New York Times said, evidently “crossing the line that has traditionally stood between investigating criminal activity and political dissent.”

DHS opened two investigations, according to the filing. “Operation Puppet Master” involved “extensive use of undercover informants” to “probe gatherings at churches,” union halls and other places, Talking Points Memo said, while “Operation Whipple Shield” was a “sweeping campaign to obtain financial records from people and groups organizing against” the ICE surge. The “surveillance reports in particular documented what largely appeared to be political activity protected by the First Amendment,” the Times said.

“So far, none of the organizations targeted” in the operations “have faced charges,” the Times said. But “prosecutors showed grand jurors a PowerPoint slide asserting that 18 groups — including the AFL-CIO, the country’s largest federation of labor unions — were part of a conspiracy to impede the work of immigration officers,” and the subpoenaed financial records went “well beyond the civil unrest in Minnesota.”