From high school students to elected officials, residents in Minnesota are pushing back against the growing deployment of federal immigration officers in their neighborhoods, leading to days of confrontations and protests.

Resident Neph Sudduth stopped to choke back tears as she witnessed immigration officers roaming around her neighborhood, just a few blocks from the site where an ICE officer fatally shot Renee Nicole Good last week, and clashing with protesters.

“They will hurt you for real! They will hurt you for real!” she shouted at anti-ICE demonstrators, urging them to move away from the officers’ vehicles. Just then, an immigration officer rolled down his window, extended his arm and sprayed a protester point-blank in the face with a chemical agent.

Read the full story here.

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) – Loved ones are demanding the immediate release of Garrison Gibson from ICE custody after armed federal agents used a door-breaching battering ram to arrest him inside his Minneapolis home.

Gibson’s legal team has since filed a habeas petition, arguing the arrest violated his constitutional rights because ICE did not have a judicial warrant.

Arrest caught on camera

What we know:

Video captured the arrest of Garrison Gibson inside his north Minneapolis home on Sunday morning.

Armed federal agents used a battering ram to enter the house after his family demanded to see a judicial warrant.

His loved ones documented the unfolding immigration enforcement operation live on Facebook.

Within 24 hours, Gibson’s legal team had filed a habeas petition, asking a federal judge to release him immediately.

“Any American should be terrified by that because that is such an egregious violation of the Fourth Amendment,” Gibson’s immigration attorney, Marc Prokosch, told FOX 9. “That is from our Bill of Rights. To see a battering ram coming to the front door of your house with a 9-year-old inside is just terrifying.”

Living under ICE supervision

Dig deeper:

According to court filings, Gibson is a 38-year-old Liberian citizen, who has a final immigration removal order dating back to 2009.

But he has lived under ICE supervision for more than 15 years with a past drug conviction that has been cleared from his record.

Prokosch says Gibson had just checked in with ICE officials approximately two weeks prior and had another meeting on the calendar at the end of the month.

But now he questions the tactics of federal law enforcement.

“Why this use of force?” asked Prokosch. “Why not just wait for him to come back because he is not like a violent criminal.”

Behind bars in Freeborn County

What’s next:

Attorneys for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have been given a couple more days to file a response to the allegations before the judge ultimately rules on Gibson’s habeas petition.

The department has not responded to the FOX 9 Investigators’ request for comment.

In the meantime, the judge has ordered DHS not to move Gibson. 

His family reports that he is currently being held at the Freeborn County jail in Albert Lea.

The Department of Homeland Security said today it is ending a form of humanitarian relief for Somali nationals living in the United States.

The Trump administration has stripped deportation protections from multiple nationalities in the US that were allowed to temporarily live in the country, arguing that conditions at home no longer justified those protections. The termination of the relief, known as Temporary Protected Status, has prompted legal challenges nationwide and has been blocked by federal judges in some instances.

Tuesday’s announcement comes as protections for Somalis were set to expire on March 17. During the Biden administration, then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas extended the program for the community. The department is required to decide whether to extend or terminate TPS at least 60 days prior to the designation’s expiration.

In November, President Donald Trump indicated that he intended to terminate protections for Somali immigrants residing in the US, claiming, “Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of that great State, and BILLIONS of Dollars are missing. Send them back to where they came from. It’s OVER!”

Somalis, particularly in Minnesota, have faced harassment and threats amid a welfare-fraud scandal that ensnared the community. Nearly 58% of Somalis in Minnesota were born in the US, according to the US Census Bureau. Of the foreign-born Somalis in Minnesota, an overwhelming majority – 87% – are naturalized US citizens.

TPS applies to people who would face extreme hardship if forced to return to homelands devastated by armed conflict or natural disasters, therefore so the protections are limited to people already in the United States.

Past Republican and Democratic administrations have designated the protections, though some Republicans have argued the relief shouldn’t have been extended multiple times.