Two U.S. citizens who said they were observing Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Minneapolis described being detained without charges for several hours at a highly restricted federal facility and pressured to provide information about protest organizers and neighbors they said were in the country illegally.
Brandon Sigüenza and Patty O’Keefe spoke with The Associated Press about what they said happened during Sunday stops by federal agents. They said the incident occurred during what they described as the administration’s latest immigration crackdown operating in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Sigüenza and O’Keefe said federal officers stopped in front of O’Keefe’s car, fired pepper spray through her windshield vent, and smashed her car windows even though the doors were unlocked. O’Keefe said agents mocked her and laughed, and that they brought up the killing of Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three who was shot in the head last week by an ICE officer in front of her wife.
O’Keefe said the officer who sprayed their car threatened them, telling them that “obstructing” their work was how Good got killed. She also said it was “very clear that they were trying to just humiliate me, break me down,” describing what she heard from agents as a mix of cruelty and indifference.
Both accounts described a pattern of pressure during detention. Sigüenza said a federal officer offered him money or legal protection in exchange for information about protest organizers and about neighbors who were in the country without legal status. Sigüenza said the officer indicated in vague terms that he was “in trouble” and could “possibly help,” and he said he refused the offer, saying he did not have family members without legal status.
They said they were arrested while following ICE officers driving around and making arrests. Sigüenza and O’Keefe said they were taken in separate unmarked SUVs to a highly restricted federal facility on the edge of Minneapolis that they described as the crackdown’s main hub.
Inside the facility, they said they were placed in adjacent cells reserved for U.S. citizens—one for men and one for women—and that each cell was no larger than 10 feet by 10 feet (about 9 square meters). They described the cells as having a concrete bench, flat-screen TV, two-way mirror and surveillance camera, and said the space was also being used for other detainees.
Sigüenza and O’Keefe said they saw other detainees who were screaming and wailing for help, while others appeared dejected. O’Keefe and Sigüenza said they observed a woman trying to use a toilet while male agents watched, and they said most detainees they observed were Hispanic men, with some East African detainees as well, in a state where Minnesota has a large Somali community.
They said detainees’ requests were ignored and that medical needs were not addressed. Sigüenza said one cellmate had a cut on his head and another had an injured toe and that neither was offered medical help, and he said requests for water or permission to go to the bathroom outside the cells were ignored.
O’Keefe and Sigüenza said they were able to speak with lawyers, but only Sigüenza was allowed to make a phone call. Sigüenza said he called his wife. They said the offer he described included money or legal protection in exchange for naming people he said might be in the country illegally, but that he refused.
They said they were released by evening without charges. Sigüenza said they were then subjected to chemical agents on the way out, saying, “We were not charged with a crime,” and that “We were released and then tear-gassed on our way out.”
In their accounts, they linked the detention and arrest tactics to broader concerns raised about immigration detention facilities. The Associated Press reported that organizers and an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit allege immigration officers have surveilled activists who have been observing their activities in the Twin Cities, which they say violates First Amendment rights.
The Associated Press reported that DHS, which oversees ICE and the Border Patrol, did not respond immediately to a request for comment. An immigration attorney, Lynn Damiano Pearson of the National Immigration Law Center, told AP that U.S. citizens’ and noncitizens’ rights differ slightly in immigration detention than in criminal detention, but that detainees retain basic rights including access to counsel and a phone, food and water, and privacy from the opposite gender when using the restroom.