Trump tests boundaries of his power as Minnesota pushes back

With 1,500 troops set to deploy to Minnesota, tensions are rising in the state as protests continue against Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. U.S. officials say they target “the worst of the worst,” but critics warn migrants without criminal records and U.S. citizens are also detained.

“It could be anyone,” Sunshine says, as she walks through her neighborhood, St. Paul, one of the so-called Twin Cities, along with Minneapolis. Snow and ice swirl across the tarmac in the freezing wind.

Sunshine is not her real name – she asked to use a pseudonym out of fear of being targeted for her actions.

“I decided, for my own safety, to give them more space,” she says, referring to the unmarked patrol cars out front, driven by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents she tries to follow.

Every day, residents in loosely organized groups move around their neighborhood trying to spot ICE agents and film them, they say, to hold them accountable.

“I, we have the legal right to drive on the streets of our own city and we have the legal right to observe [the ICE agents]but they seem to have forgotten it,” Sunshine said.

The streets of Minneapolis resemble a battle of wills between a Republican president pushing the limits of his power and a Democratic city and state pushing back.

This week, as temperatures plummeted, protests against ICE agents intensified outside the federal building that houses them.

Minnesota officials urged protesters to remain orderly and peaceful, and local officials said the majority of them remained untroubled. But there were occasional clashes, with authorities using tear gas and pepper bullets to disperse crowds.

A U.S. federal judge on Friday issued an order limiting crowd control tactics that ICE agents can use against peaceful protesters in Minneapolis.

Judge Katherine Menendez said federal agents cannot arrest or pepper-spray peaceful protesters, including those who surveil or observe ICE agents.

Trump has vowed to continue his campaign of mass evictions in Minnesota, with thousands of federal agents deployed to the state.

Many of them were sent following the shooting death of a Minneapolis woman, Renée Good, 37, by an ICE agent on January 7.

The circumstances of her death remain controversial, with the Trump administration saying the ICE agent who shot her acted in self-defense, while local authorities say the woman was trying to leave and posed no danger. The FBI is investigating the shooting, but Minnesota officials say they have not had access to the evidence.

Good’s assassination focused the attention of many in this community determined to unseat Trump’s campaign.

In her car, Sunshine sees two unmarked vehicles with dark windows containing ICE agents.

We follow them to a nearby neighborhood, where the two cars continue to drive slowly and repeatedly around the block in circles, in what is apparently a diversionary tactic to keep Sunshine away from a shopping center that immigrants often use.

“That’s the game. But if they do that with me, they don’t put their hands on anyone,” she said.

“So, yeah, it’s gas money and it’s my turn and I’m okay with that.”

The week after Good’s death, there was a second federal officer-involved shooting in Minneapolis.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said an officer shot a man in the leg in Minneapolis after he was attacked with a shovel while trying to arrest a Venezuelan migrant who entered the United States illegally.

After the incident, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the agent was “beaten” and “bruised,” adding that ICE agents were “following protocols that we have used for years” before the Trump administration.

The man’s family disputed the DHS version of events in an interview with The Washington Post, saying he was shot in the doorway and not during a fight in the street.

Minneapolis is the fifth major city targeted by Trump’s immigration crackdown following his campaign promise to carry out the largest deportation of undocumented migrants in history.

The campaign, which remains popular with most Republicans and particularly Trump’s Make America Great Again (Maga) supporters, has sparked a backlash in Democratic-run cities where the operations are taking place.

On Saturday, hundreds of protesters confronted and chased away a small group attempting to organize a pro-ICE and anti-Islam rally.

Counterprotesters converged on the event organized by far-right activist Jake Lang, who was pardoned by Trump after being charged with crimes related to the U.S. Capitol riots on Jan. 6, 2021. Lang had vowed to burn a Quran in front of City Hall, but it is unclear whether he followed through on his plan.

Minnesota is home to the largest community of Somali immigrants in the United States, the majority of whom are U.S. citizens. The president said they should “go back to where they came from” and called the community “trash.” He launched the immigration crackdown in December after some Somali immigrants were convicted of massive fraud on state social programs.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz recently said he would end his re-election bid due to the fraud scandal. But he accused Trump and his allies of seeking to take advantage of the crisis to play politics.

Against this backdrop, Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, a 19th-century law that authorizes the deployment of active-duty military personnel to enforce law in the United States, to quell the city’s resistance to his immigration campaign.

The Justice Department opened a criminal investigation Friday against Democrat Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, accusing them of trying to obstruct federal immigration operations. Walz said the move “weaponizes the justice system against your adversaries.”

In a social media post, Trump called the city’s protesters “traitors, troublemakers and insurrectionists” and accused them of being “in many cases, well-paid professionals.”

In response to this characterization, Sunshine says, “I’m definitely not getting paid.

“I think I do what I do because I love my neighbors and watching them be racially profiled on the streets of our own city.”

She adds: “We must protect each other.”

Federal agents have been accused of racial profiling by observers, which the Trump administration denies.

Near a Mexican restaurant, we stop the car and another observer who calls herself Misko gets out of her car and walks towards Sunshine, visibly distressed.

The two women kiss. Misko struggles to catch her breath as she recounts what just happened.

“Right around the corner. Two of them blocked me, then they came back out. [One agent] had an assault rifle. He was knocking on my window,” she said.

DHS officials did not respond to BBC questions about the incident.

Despite the encounter, Misko later told me that she would not be deterred. As the president also renews his threat to send in troops, Minneapolis feels in the grip of a deepening crisis and no one seems ready to slow it down.