{"id":45531,"date":"2026-08-15T00:50:43","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T19:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=45531"},"modified":"2026-08-15T00:50:43","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T19:50:43","slug":"homeland-security-accused-of-political-spying-on-minnesota-protesters-unions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=45531","title":{"rendered":"Homeland Security accused of political spying on Minnesota protesters, unions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/twt-thumbs.washtimes.com\/media\/image\/2026\/02\/12\/Immigration_Enforcement_Minnesota_57715_s1440x960.jpg?f72536d07237fdd262042ae8f5e6e6de3b865f3c\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The Department of Homeland Security allegedly ran a sweeping, politically motivated surveillance campaign against protesters, unions and nonprofits with no criminal basis, according to a court filing by a lawyer for a defendant charged in the protests.<\/p>\n<p>Undercover agents posing as protesters are being accused of surveilling community meetings at churches, parks, libraries, schools and union halls in what one defense attorney calls an \u201cunprecedented campaign\u201d to \u201cspy on Minnesotans.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The allegations came from a Thursday court filing in a criminal case against 15 people charged in June with conspiring to interfere with federal officers during protests against \u201cOperation Metro Surge.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Roughly 3,000 federal officers were deployed to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area for what the department called its \u201clargest immigration enforcement operation ever,\u201d resulting in thousands of arrests and clashes between protesters and federal agents.<\/p>\n<p>The Department of Homeland Security\u2019s investigative arm, Homeland Security Investigations, opened \u201cOperation Puppet Master\u201d four days after Alex Pretti was fatally shot by federal immigration officers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese agents surreptitiously recorded dozens of conversations with ordinary people who were simply exercising their First Amendment right to protest ICE\u2019s lawless rampage in our state,\u201d wrote defense attorney Kevin Riach, who represents Isaac Sant, one of the 15 defendants.<\/p>\n<p>HSI said that it does not comment on the existence or status of specific ongoing investigations, nor on investigative methods.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside>\n<\/aside>\n<p>It directed inquiries to the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the District of Minnesota, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>The program aimed to identify \u201cviolent opportunists and agitators.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It was \u201copened to document the integration of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Undercover Agents (UCAs) into groups, organizations, or other gatherings identified by intelligence information and other sources as potentially threatening to law enforcement personnel,\u201d according to court records.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators also unleashed a second initiative, \u201cProject Whipple Shield,\u201d to probe \u201cinstances where individuals and organized networks have exploited events to engage in acts of violence, destruction of property, intimidation of federal officers and employees and attempts to impede federal operations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Undercover agents posing as activists surveilled meetings, and one agent allegedly tried to entice a participant into \u201cdirect-action\u201d activity, telling him \u201cgoing to jail did not bother him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At one church meeting, agents captured attendees\u2019 license plates, then compiled an \u201cintel workup\u201d with names, addresses and family and employment data.<\/p>\n<p>HSI Agent Desmond Garcia had told the grand jury that \u201cno one is ever investigated or looked at or even researched on for First Amendment protected activities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Agents \u201csurreptitiously\u201d recorded dozens of conversations with protesters, and separately, gathered information on Minnesotans from law enforcement databases and internet searches to build dossiers that the filing says are now available agency-wide.<\/p>\n<p>HSI presented the grand jury a graph titled \u201cThe Conspiracy,\u201d which included groups like the AFL-CIO \u2014 the largest coalition of labor groups in the U.S \u2014 the Minneapolis Federation of Educators and even a bicycle repair shop.<\/p>\n<p>It also obtained financial records from Service Employees International Union, the Communications Workers of America, Voices for Racial Justice and the Sunrise Movement. In the summons seeking Communications Workers of America records, HSI instructed the responding financial institution, \u201cYou are requested not to disclose the existence of this summons for an indefinite period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The motion ties the case to President Trump\u2019s National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, which it says \u201cdirects DOJ to prosecute ICE protesters and opponents of the administration.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>                        <a name=\"pagebreak\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Mr. Riach asked the court to order prosecutors to turn over additional material, including undisclosed surveillance reports, data from agents\u2019 phones and laptops and internal communications regarding the two operations.<\/p>\n<section class=\"author-contact-section\">\n<\/section><\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Department of Homeland Security allegedly ran a sweeping, politically motivated surveillance campaign against protesters, unions and nonprofits with no criminal basis, according to a court filing by a lawyer for a defendant charged in the protests. Undercover agents posing as protesters are being accused of surveilling community meetings at churches, parks, libraries, schools and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/twt-thumbs.washtimes.com\/media\/image\/2026\/02\/12\/Immigration_Enforcement_Minnesota_57715_c0-125-3000-1875_s1200x700.jpg?5df86175492ddcdc04d9d2b6261257b2d49617ee","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-hub"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}