Federal agents conducted an extensive undercover surveillance operation against progressive organizations, labor unions and other groups protesting an immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, according to government records disclosed in federal court on Thursday. The Associated Press reported early Friday that Homeland Security officers entered meetings in churches, schools, parks and a library, monitored activist chats and used vehicle license plates to identify people attending gatherings. The disclosure raises new questions about the boundary between criminal investigation and constitutionally protected political activity.
The records emerged in a case involving 15 people whom federal prosecutors charged in June with impeding the immigration operation. Authorities accused them of conspiring against the federal government through conduct ranging from throwing ice chunks to building blockades. Officials called the initial investigation Operation Puppet Master and described its target as a network aiding violent agitators; a later effort carried the name Project Whipple Shield. Defense lawyer Kevin Riach filed a motion Thursday seeking more of the material and characterized the investigations as broad, irrational and politically driven.
Documents cited by the AP show that an undercover officer attended a January 31 Sunrise Movement meeting at a Minneapolis library where participants discussed sit-ins, de-escalation, a police liaison and safety marshals. The officer's own report recorded that the climate group focused on peaceful protest. Other pages describe agents secretly attending meetings, watching group chats and tracing registration information from vehicles near events. Riach argued that much of the monitored conduct involved ordinary organizing rather than evidence of a crime.
The surveillance extended beyond attendance at meetings. A Homeland Security presentation placed 18 organizations on a diagram, ranging from a local bicycle repair collective to the AFL-CIO, the largest U.S. labor federation. Investigators also obtained years of some financial records connected to the Sunrise Movement, the Service Employees International Union and the Communications Workers of America. One DHS request asked the Federal Reserve's FedWire system not to reveal the summons for an indefinite period, according to the records reviewed by the AP.
DHS told the AP that Homeland Security Investigations does not comment on active inquiries or investigative methods and referred further questions to the U.S. attorney's office in Minnesota, which did not immediately respond. Communications Workers of America President Claude Cummings Jr. said the union viewed the inquiry as misuse of the legal process against people exercising constitutional rights and would not be intimidated. A coalition of Minneapolis civil society groups, in a statement distributed by Unidos MN, likewise accused the government of trying to discourage organized community action.
The investigation followed a roughly three-month deployment of about 3,000 federal officers to the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area beginning late last year, described by DHS as its largest immigration enforcement operation. It produced thousands of arrests, mass protests and the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens, the AP reported. Minnesota U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen has described the 15 defendants as belonging to two antifa groups, while Riach denies that his client Isaac Sant had such an affiliation. The court's handling of the disclosure request and any further release of records will determine how fully the operation's legal basis, scope and use of the collected information are examined.
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