DHS spied on Minnesota protest groups, court records allege

Federal immigration investigators sent undercover agents into churches, community meetings and activist trainings, infiltrated Signal chats and obtained financial records from labor unions and left-leaning nonprofits while probing protests against the Trump administration’s immigration surge in Minnesota, newly disclosed court records allege.

The records, filed in federal court by defense attorney Kevin Riach, are part of a criminal case brought by the Justice Department against 15 Minneapolis protesters accused of conspiring to impede immigration officers. Prosecutors have focused on Direct Action Minnesota, a loose coalition of organizers also known as DAMN, and have described the defendants as connected to “Antifa.” Local supporters have referred to them as the “Minneapolis 15.”

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to The Guardian’s inquiries, and the Justice Department declined to comment, the outlet reported.

According to the filings, Homeland Security Investigations, the investigative arm of ICE, launched “Operation Puppet Master” on Jan. 28, four days after federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti. The Guardian reported that organizing against ICE had grown in the region in response to the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

A DHS report described the operation as aimed at an “organized network of conspirators” accused of providing “material support to violent opportunists and agitators” involved in impeding federal law enforcement, rioting, destroying federal property and assaulting federal agents.

Riach alleged that the government used the case as part of a broader campaign targeting ordinary citizens and left-leaning civil society organizations. “I was shocked at the scope and the apparent lack of investigative discipline involved, but not totally surprised,” he told The Guardian.

The records show investigators pursued what they called “domestic terrorist financing.” Riach wrote that HSI “secretly obtained financial records for several national labor unions, including SEIU and the Communications Workers of America, and social justice non-profits including the Sunrise Movement and Voices for Racial Justice, all with zero criminal predicate to do so.”

The documents say agents used administrative subpoenas to seek records from the Federal Reserve and financial platforms including PayPal and Venmo. One report summarized SEIU-related records as including “debits and credits” for annuity payments, strike payments, strike supplies, investments, union dues, medical expenses and pension fund expenses. The same report said “this financial investigation involving protest domestic terrorist financing continues.”

The filings also describe extensive undercover work. Agents attended a Jan. 31 Sunrise Movement “resistance skills training” at the Minneapolis public library. A DHS report said the group discussed recruitment and de-escalation at protests, including use of a “police liaison” and “safety marshal,” and stated: “It was clear that the Sunrise Movement organization focused on ‘peaceful’ protests.”

At the same event, an undercover agent told an attendee he “works in construction and could build items that might assist other groups with more ‘direct-action’ protests,” said “going to jail did not bother him” and provided his phone number, according to the records.

Other reports describe undercover surveillance of a virtual meeting at Hunter College in New York about “ICE brutality” and “responding to state violence,” a meeting at a Minneapolis labor center, a gathering in a public park about protest tactics and Direct Action Minnesota meetings at churches. Agents also documented license plates at one church event, the records show.

In one episode, an undercover agent attended a training at a church gym and joined “boxing/sparring practice” while secretly recording audio. The report said the agent’s concealed recorder “erroneously fell to the floor,” requiring the agent to return and retrieve it.

Riach filed the records while asking the court to compel the government to release more material. In his filing, he accused prosecutors of presenting “wild conspiracy allegations … born from the fantasies of political retribution that animate the Trump Administration” and alleged a “mass spying campaign.”

The indictment spans 94 pages, The Guardian reported, but contains no allegations of injuries to specific ICE officers caused by any defendant and no charges of serious violence. None of the unions or nonprofit organizations identified in the investigative records have been charged with crimes.

Emilia Gonzalez Avalos, executive director of Unidos MN, a Minneapolis social justice nonprofit mentioned in the files, said the investigation appeared designed to chill dissent. “I believe that this is a clear attempt to intimidate us, to punish and politically repress disagreement and difference,” she said.