The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota filed a lawsuit Wednesday in federal court alleging Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have violated the rights of Minnesotans who’ve observed this month’s enforcement actions.

The 63-page lawsuit against ICE includes a long list of alleged encounters between ICE agents and “observers” and asks the court to “halt ICE’s attack” on their constitutional rights protecting free speech and assembly and unreasonable search and seizure.

The lawsuit says ICE agents and other federal officers pepper-sprayed, “violently” subdued, arrested and “even followed observers home to scare them in a tactic lifted straight from the mafia.”

The suit names six plaintiffs: five from Minneapolis, the other from Fridley.

Susan Tincher, a 55-year-old Minneapolis resident, highlighted her Dec. 9 encounter with ICE agents. After waking up to alerts on her phone that ICE arrests were happening in her neighborhood, she drove to the location — 21st Street and Oliver Avenue North — and stood on the sidewalk.

Tincher said that while standing about six feet from a female officer, outside their perimeter and on the sidewalk, she asked, “Are you ICE?” When she was told to get back, things escalated almost immediately, she said.

“Within seconds, officers rushed me, grabbed me and slammed me face first into the snow,” said Tincher, a lead plaintiff in the lawsuit.

Tincher was arrested and brought to the Whipple Building, where federal immigration activities are being headquartered. She said agents cut off some of her clothing and her wedding ring, put her in shackles and left her in a cell for hours. She was released later that day without charges being filed.

“This is not a hobby for me. I was not there for excitement,” she said. “I was not there to provoke. I was not there to play activist. I went because ICE activity was happening before dawn in a residential neighborhood, when most people were asleep, and I believed someone should bear witness.”

The others named in the lawsuit also said they weren’t breaking the law while observing ICE activity.

Alicia Granse, a staff attorney of the ACLU of Minnesota, said they are asking the court to find that the “masked, marauding federal agents” illegally retaliated against protesters and observers, and for a permanent order prohibiting them from engaging in the “unlawful practices in the future.”

Granse added the ACLU plans to file a request for a temporary restraining order “that will protect Minnesotans now.”

“This lawsuit aims to vindicate the rights of Minnesotans who have been victimized by their own government simply for exercising their First Amendment rights, to end the false sense of impunity that fuels the worst of defendants’ misconduct, and to ensure that Minnesotans can assemble, observe, document and criticize the government safely and without the fear of retaliation,” Granse said.

ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

Operation Metro Surge

ICE’s stepped-up enforcement operations in Minnesota — dubbed “Operation Metro Surge” — began on Dec. 1, with reportedly at least 100 federal officers from out of state.

The operation followed widespread national media attention to the Feeding our Future scandal and other fraud schemes tied to state social services programs. Acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson estimated in July that fraud in the state could top $1 billion.

The beginning of the operation, the lawsuit says, was “marked by racist, inflammatory rhetoric from President Trump and other administration officials.”

The Department of Homeland Security said in a news release Friday that ICE agents have arrested more than 400 undocumented immigrants in Minnesota since the operation began.

According to DHS, the operation targets “criminal illegal aliens” with prior convictions for serious crimes such as sexual assault, domestic violence and gang affiliation, as well as individuals with final deportation orders.

Although DHS has not released a complete list of those arrested, the agency has said they’ve included “pedophiles, rapists and violent thugs” who were “allowed to roam Minnesota’s streets thanks to sanctuary policies.”

However, critics such as Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Police Chief Brian O’Hara have said in recent days the enforcement action is specifically focused on the Somali and Latino communities, leading to fear and a drop in foot traffic for immigrant-owned businesses.

While initially focused on Minneapolis and St. Paul, the operation has recently expanded into suburbs such as Burnsville, Brooklyn Park and Chanhassen, according to media reports.

St. Paul raid

The lawsuit says Abdikadir Abdi Noor, a 43-year-old Somali man who’s been a U.S. citizen for two decades, was detained while observing ICE agents arrest three people near Karmel Mall in Minneapolis on Dec. 15.

Noor, of Fridley, was “peacefully encouraging people in the street to remain calm when he was suddenly tackled and arrested by ICE,” the lawsuit says. “They drove him to the Whipple Building in Minneapolis where he was detained and disparaged for his national origin as a Somali American.”

The lawsuit also details several other ICE run-ins with other protesters and observers who are not plaintiffs, including those who had gathered during a raid at Bro-Tex Inc. in St. Paul on Nov. 18. ICE said they arrested 14 people on immigration violations in the raid.

During the protest, ICE agents threw “peaceful” protesters and observers to the ground, shot them with pepper balls and pepper-sprayed them, the lawsuit says.

ICE agents also “rammed” one observer, Moriah O’Malley, with their car as she filmed the raid, knocking her to the ground, according to the lawsuit.

“Luck alone saved O’Malley and the other individual from serious injury as a result of this gratuitous, illegal and unjustified use of force,” the lawsuit says.

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