DHS records detail undercover surveillance of Minneapolis ICE protesters

Undercover federal agents joined Signal chats, attended activist meetings, photographed protest materials and followed Minneapolis residents as part of a Homeland Security investigation into anti-ICE protests, newly disclosed court records show.

The documents, filed Tuesday in federal court by attorneys for one of 15 Minneapolis protesters charged in an alleged conspiracy to impede Immigration and Customs Enforcement, offer new details about a broad surveillance operation known as “Operation Puppet Master.” The case involves defendants locally referred to as the “Minneapolis 15.”

The records describe agents posing as community members while monitoring activists after the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, Minnesota residents who died while attempting to observe Trump administration immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis. The Guardian reported the protest activity escalated after the January killings.

Federal agents repeatedly looked for signs that protest groups intended violence against ICE personnel, according to the filings. The documents indicate they largely did not find such evidence. In one report about a February meeting of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, an undercover agent said the meeting was “well structured and political in nature” and that speakers discussed socialism. Case agents later wrote, “There was no indication that members of the group wanted to use violence towards ICE Agents.”

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told Talking Points Memo that Homeland Security Investigations “does not comment on the existence or status of specific on-going investigations, nor on investigative methods.” The Guardian reported that DHS referred questions to the Justice Department in Minnesota, which declined to comment; TPM said the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota did not immediately return a request for comment.

The filings include transcripts of undercover debriefings, investigative reports and photos taken by agents. Some transcripts appear to have been produced by rough machine transcription or AI, the records note.

One undercover HSI agent attended a February meeting in Minneapolis where hundreds of people voted on movement platform language, according to TPM. The agent said they booed a speaker who suggested restructuring ICE instead of abolishing it, and later described voting for the “most extreme” position on abolishing prisons and federal agencies. “I voted for, for the most extreme, obviously I was voting absolutely get rid of the jails,” the transcript reads.

Agents also attended a Sunrise Movement meeting at a library. One undercover agent described a “chick dressed like Zelda” directing visitors to rooms and said one breakout session was called “de-escalation in action.” The agent later told a debriefer, “They were pretty big on peaceful protest,” adding, “there’s other groups that push it further and they’re not one of them.”

The Guardian reported that another undercover agent used the Signal name “peanutbutterjelly” and screenshotted chats about protest plans, volunteer recruitment, housing for Veterans for Peace members and an “ICE Out of MN” event. The agent also offered to help with fundraising, posters and flyers, and wrote in one chat: “also v interested in the financial organizing piece (I like numbers and data) & marrying that together with propaganda so would love to work on both sides of these groups!!”

Photos described in the records include a makeshift memorial to Pretti, demonstrators in frog costumes, a poster mocking Vice President JD Vance with heavy eye makeup, socialist-themed literature, a protester writing an anti-ICE message in chalk, graffiti reading “KILL ICE,” pizza and snacks, brass musicians protesting ICE, and a “Defend our democracy” flag.

The Guardian also reported that nine agents were deployed one day in February to trail four protesters to “determine a pattern of life and other potential intelligence.” Agents monitored one person at home, followed him as he drove a truck and got coffee, and watched him go to a church while holding “ICE OUT” signs and “shields.”

Attorney Kevin Riach, who represents defendant Isaac Sant, submitted the records as an exhibit. In earlier filings, TPM reported, Riach argued the surveillance showed the prosecution was driven by disagreement with his client’s political beliefs rather than by criminal conduct.