2,000 ICE Agents Descended on Minneapolis. What Legal Rights Do People Have During Immigration Raids?

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In early January 2026, roughly 2,000 federal immigration agents descended on Minneapolis-St. Paul. The Department of Homeland Security called it the “largest immigration operation ever” carried out by the agency. Within days, more than 1,500 people were arrested. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem showed up in person—wearing a tactical vest, participating in arrests, telling a handcuffed man on camera: “You will be held accountable for your crimes.”

ICE vehicles appeared outside apartment buildings, restaurants, construction sites. Workers stood on an unfinished roof in subzero temperatures for hours, trying to avoid agents below. Two were later hospitalized. Restaurants were closed while agents demanded identification from everyone inside, including people born here.

The operation raised an immediate question that matters far beyond Minnesota: What rights do people have when ICE shows up?

Constitutional Protections

The Fourth Amendment applies to everyone in the United States, regardless of status. So does the Fifth Amendment. That means protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. The right to remain silent. Due process.

ICE operates in a gray zone that’s gotten grayer. Enforcement is civil, not criminal. That means ICE can issue its own warrants without a judge’s signature.

Administrative warrants don’t give ICE legal authority to enter your home without your consent.

Only a judicial warrant—signed by a judge—authorizes entry into a private residence. That distinction is the single most important thing to understand if ICE comes to your door. An administrative warrant is a document ICE creates saying they want to detain you. A judicial warrant is a court order that gives them the power to come inside to do it.

Most people don’t know the difference. They see “warrant” and assume they have to open the door.

The 2024 Supreme Court Decision

In a 2024 Supreme Court decision, the Court ruled 6-3 that immigration agents can stop people based on “context”—where they are, what kind of work they appear to be doing, how they speak, what they look like.

Before that decision, ICE needed more specific evidence about that particular person. Now they can focus on locations where they observe concentrations of people who match certain demographic or occupational profiles and initiate enforcement based on those observations alone.

In practice: agents closing restaurant doors and demanding ID from everyone present. Mass stops at construction sites. Positioning themselves outside businesses and apartment buildings. Traffic stops based on the composition and location of vehicle occupants.

If ICE Comes to Your Home

Don’t open the door. Simply opening the door can be interpreted as permission to enter.

Instead, ask through the closed door: Who are you? What agency? Do you have a warrant?

When they say they have a warrant, ask them to slide it under the door or hold it up to a window where you can photograph it. Look at who signed it. If it’s signed by an ICE officer (not a judge), it’s administrative.

Say clearly: “I do not consent to your entry. I do not consent to answer questions. I do not consent to a search.”

Repeat it if they persist. Stay calm. Do not physically resist if they enter anyway—that creates additional criminal charges and puts you in physical danger. But make your lack of consent clear, because that matters later if the case goes to court.

ICE agents are legally allowed to lie to you. They can claim to have information they don’t have. They can misrepresent what will happen if you don’t cooperate. They’re allowed to use psychological pressure to make you feel like you have no choice.

You are not allowed to lie to them. Federal law makes it a crime to provide false statements to federal agents.

The safest response is silence.

If You’re Pulled Over

You have to stop if agents signal you to pull over. But you can keep your window mostly closed, and you don’t have to open your door.

Speaking through a closed window is permitted. Opening it slightly—enough to communicate—is sufficient.

Ask: Why did you pull me over? What agency are you with? Can I see your identification?

As the driver, you must exit the vehicle if they ask you to. Once you’re out, they can conduct a pat-down for weapons. But they cannot search your pockets or the interior of your vehicle without probable cause or a judicial warrant.

You don’t have to consent to a search. Say so: “I do not consent to a search.”

ICE can only keep questioning you if they have specific reasons to suspect you broke the law. They have to be able to provide evidence of that suspicion when asked. After the Supreme Court decision, that standard has become easier for them to meet. But it still exists.

Ask: Am I free to leave?

When they say yes, leave.

Your Right to Remain Silent

Every person in the United States has the right to remain silent when questioned by law enforcement. That includes ICE. It applies regardless of status.

Silence won’t prevent them from detaining or arresting you. But it makes it harder for authorities to establish violations. It protects you from providing information that can be used against you later. It preserves your options.

Attorneys are nearly unanimous: invoke your right to remain silent and ask for a lawyer.

Say: “I am exercising my right to remain silent. I want to speak to a lawyer.”

Then stop talking. Don’t answer questions. Don’t provide information about where you were born, where you’re from, how you entered the country. Don’t show them documents beyond what’s legally required (like a driver’s license while driving).

Do not sign anything without a lawyer present. ICE may present you with forms that waive your right to a hearing or agree to voluntary departure. Those documents have significant consequences, and you should not make those decisions without counsel.

ICE Authority in Public Spaces

ICE can make arrests in public spaces based solely on probable cause that someone is violating immigration law, without any warrant at all. They can approach people on the street, in shopping malls, at bus stations.

You have fewer privacy rights in public, so ICE has more authority there.

A federal judge in California ruled that Border Patrol agents cannot conduct stops based solely on racial profiling. That’s still the law. But the Supreme Court’s decision has made it much harder to prove that a stop was based solely on race, because agents can now point to contextual factors as justification.

When U.S. Citizens Get Caught Up

ICE has no authority to arrest U.S. citizens for immigration violations. People born here can’t violate the law in that way.

But more than 170 U.S. citizens have been wrongfully detained since January during raids or protests. More than 50, most of them Latino, have been detained after agents questioned their citizenship.

Sometimes it’s a matter of agents not believing someone’s documentation. Sometimes people don’t have their documents with them. Sometimes agents detain everyone in a location and sort it out later.

When ICE detains you as a U.S. citizen, you still have the right to remain silent and the right to a lawyer. Assert both. But also clearly state that you are a U.S. citizen and request that they verify your citizenship status through official databases.

Constitutional Observers

In Minneapolis, the Immigrant Defense Network trained about 100 people as constitutional observers—community members who observe and document ICE enforcement actions.

You have the right to watch and record ICE enforcement in public. Asking for agent identification is permitted. Recording badge numbers, vehicle information, documentation they show to detained individuals is permitted. Video recording the entire interaction is permitted.

What you can’t do: physically interfere with the enforcement action. Stay back. Don’t touch agents or detained individuals. Don’t block their movement.

You don’t have to hand over your recording device when agents ask for it. That’s your property, and they need a warrant to seize it.

This documentation matters because it creates a record that can be used in court cases, in civil rights complaints, in oversight investigations. When agents know they’re being watched and recorded, behavior sometimes changes.

Community organizations have set up alert systems—text networks that spread word when ICE is spotted in neighborhoods. Libraries have posted know-your-rights information in multiple languages. Neighbors position themselves outside workplaces to ensure enforcement doesn’t happen unseen.

Legal Challenges

The ACLU and other civil rights groups are suing, arguing that these enforcement actions violate constitutional protections against unreasonable searches. In Southern California, a lawsuit alleges that federal agents have engaged in racial profiling and disregarded Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure, and have held detainees in deplorable conditions in violation of Fifth Amendment due process rights.

The plaintiffs are seeking class action certification covering all people subject to stops and arrests without any reason or warrant by federal agents.

Fair and Just Prosecution and the Law Enforcement Action Partnership submitted a brief to courts urging them to prohibit immigration enforcement in or around houses of worship. The brief argues that allowing ICE to conduct enforcement in churches, synagogues, schools, and hospitals undermines public safety by disconnecting immigrants from their support networks.

When immigrant communities are afraid, they don’t report crimes to police. Criminals target immigrants because they know immigrants won’t go to police.

The brief describes several examples of how ICE operates: “ICE agents have waited outside courthouses, ultimately arresting people who appear for their court dates while seeking asylum; they have conducted massive workplace raids admittedly based on racial profiling; they have arrested U.S. citizen protesters, which is beyond their authority; and agents have consistently concealed their faces and failed to identify as law enforcement, leading some people to believe they are armed and masked kidnappers.”

Court cases take years. Enforcement is happening now.

The Human Cost

Scholars call this “deportation terror”—the fear that spreads through communities when the government conducts large-scale raids. Immigration historian Rachel Ida Buff explains: deportation terror is when the government uses mass deportations and raids to control immigrant communities.

For undocumented immigrants and even for residents and people born here living in targeted communities, “that amount of pressure is incredible… to live with while just trying to go about their daily lives.”

U.S. citizen children of undocumented immigrants report psychological dread of coming home from school because they’re afraid their parents won’t be there. Community members become reluctant to apply for government benefits like Medicaid because applications require providing information to the federal government—information that could potentially be used for enforcement.

Research shows that when ICE raids increase, fewer people—especially Hispanic women—stay in jobs, particularly in industries like agriculture and construction. When workers fear their workplaces will be targeted, they withdraw from the formal labor market.

Communities have cancelled Hispanic heritage celebrations, Mexican Independence Day events, and other cultural gatherings out of fear that attendees would be targeted. Officials cancelled events because they worried community members would be too afraid to attend.

The Fatal Shooting

On January 7, 2026, an ICE officer shot and killed a 37-year-old woman during the Minneapolis operation.

The government said the woman tried to hit officers with her car.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey reviewed videos of the incident and called the government’s narrative “bullshit.” Police Chief Brian O’Hara described it differently: the woman was “in her vehicle and was blocking the roadway on Portland Avenue” and “a federal law enforcement officer approached her on foot and the vehicle began to drive off” before “at least two shots were fired.”

The discrepancy between official accounts and witness observations raises questions about what happened. It also raises a question: Can an ICE agent be prosecuted under state law for a shooting that occurs during a federal operation?

Constitutional law scholars say states can prosecute federal officers who go beyond what the law allows them to do. Federal officers are protected from state prosecution only when they’re acting legally. Shooting an unarmed person who is fleeing is illegal.

But prosecuting a federal officer for something the Trump administration authorized would be politically very difficult. The federal government would likely punish Minnesota for prosecuting one of its officers.

Rapid Hiring and Training

ICE added approximately 12,000 officers to its workforce in less than a year—roughly doubling its staffing to support the administration’s goal of carrying out 1 million deportations annually.

According to Congressional staff, ICE cut training requirements to hire people faster but hasn’t said which new hires got shorter training periods or how those changes were evaluated internally.

Senator Gary Peters worried that hiring too fast could lead to the same problems as before—hiring people who weren’t properly trained.

When you deploy 2,000 agents to a single city, and a significant portion of them were hired and trained in a matter of months rather than the traditional timeline, the question of whether they know the law becomes a real practical problem.

What You Can Do Right Now

Know your rights. When ICE comes to your home, don’t open the door. Ask for identification and any warrant through the closed door. Look at who signed it. If it’s signed by an ICE officer (not a judge), it’s administrative. State clearly that you do not consent to entry, to answering questions, or to a search.

During a traffic stop, you can keep your window mostly closed. You don’t have to consent to a search. Ask if you’re free to leave.

Invoke your right to remain silent. Ask for a lawyer. Then stop talking.

Don’t sign anything without counsel present.

As a U.S. citizen, clearly state that fact and request verification through official databases.

Document what you observe. When you see ICE enforcement in your community, record it. Note badge numbers, vehicle information, the time and location. Share that information with immigrant rights organizations and aid groups.

Connect with local immigrant rights organizations now, before you might need them. Know who to call if you or someone you know is detained. Save those numbers in your phone and write them down for your family.

Organizations like the Immigrant Defense Network offer training on your rights and how to document ICE enforcement. Attend one when possible.

The Gap Between Rights and Reality

The rights you have on paper and the protections you can use when agents show up are two different things.

You have the right to refuse entry without a judicial warrant. But when agents enter anyway, you can’t physically stop them without facing criminal charges. You have the right to remain silent. But silence won’t prevent detention. You have the right to a lawyer. But you don’t get one immediately, and by the time you do, you may already be in custody.

The system assumes courts can fix rights violations later. But if you get deported, “later” might mean after you’re already gone from the country, separated from your family, lost your job, lost your home.

The Minneapolis operation—2,000 agents, more than 1,500 arrests in a matter of days, a Cabinet secretary participating in arrests, workers hiding on rooftops in subzero temperatures, a fatal shooting with conflicting official accounts—shows what happens when the rules are relaxed and the government is determined to deport people.

Your rights still exist. They’re worth knowing, worth asserting, worth documenting when they’re violated. Community-based protections—alert networks, constitutional observers, know-your-rights training, rapid response support—are filling the gap between what the law says and what protects people.

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