US citizens arrested by ICE in Minneapolis describe harrowing detention facility conditions

Two Minneapolis residents who have been monitoring immigration officers’ actions during the Trump administration’s latest crackdown say they were detained without charge for several hours in distressing conditions, denied phone calls, and pressured to rat out protest organizers and people living in the country illegally.

The accusations leveled by Brandon Sigüenza and Patty O’Keefe suggest that the Department of Homeland Security is employing similar tactics in Minneapolis and St. Paul as it did during the crackdowns in Los Angeles, Chicago and New Orleans. Federal officers are again using roving patrols, warrantless arrests and aggressive tactics such as spraying chemical irritants, breaking car windows and recording protesters, including Renee Good and her vehicle in the moments before an ICE officer fatally shot her.

According to organizers and an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit, immigration officers have also been surveilling activists who have been observing their activities in the Twin Cities, violating their First Amendment rights. And Sigüenza, who like his friend O’Keefe is a U.S. citizen, said an immigration officer who questioned him Sunday even offered him money or legal protection if he gave up the names of organizers or neighbors who are in the country illegally.

“At one point, the officer said in vague terms that it looks like I’m in trouble, and he could possibly help me out,” Sigüenza said, noting he refused the offer.

DHS, which oversees Immigration and Customs and Enforcement and the Border Patrol, didn’t immediately respond to a Tuesday request for comment.

Aggressive tactics and an arrest

Sigüenza and O’Keefe, who are among an unknown number of Twin Cities residents observing the immigration officers in action, were detained Sunday while following ICE officers who were driving around and making arrests. The officers stopped in front of O’Keefe’s car, fired pepper spray through her windshield vent and smashed her car’s windows even though the doors were unlocked, the two told The Associated Press.

According to O’Keefe, the agents mocked her looks and laughed at her. She said they also brought up the killing of Good, a 37-year-old mother of three who was shot in the head last week by an ICE officer in front of her wife.

O’Keefe said the officer who sprayed their car Sunday threatened them, saying that “obstructing” their work was how Good got killed.

“It was very clear that they were trying to just humiliate me, break me down,” O’Keefe said.

Cash and legal help for information

Sigüenza and O’Keefe said they were arrested and taken in separate unmarked SUVs to the highly restricted federal facility on the edge of Minneapolis that’s serving as the crackdown’s main hub. They were put in adjacent cells reserved for U.S. citizens, one for men and the other for women. Each cell was also being used for other detainees and was no larger than 10 feet by 10 feet (about 9 square meters), with a concrete bench, flat-screen TV, two-way mirror and surveillance camera.

On their way to the cells, they saw other detainees who were screaming and wailing for help, though most were dejectedly staring at the ground, they said. In one instance, they observed a woman who was trying to use a toilet while three male agents watched. The overwhelming majority of detainees were Hispanic men, though some were East African — Minnesota is home to the country’s largest Somali community.

“Just hearing the visceral pain of the people in this center was awful,” O’Keefe said. “And then you juxtapose that with the laughter we heard from the actual agents. … It was very surreal and kind of shocking.”

Sigüenza said one of his cellmates had a cut on his head and the other had an injured toe, but neither was offered medical help. Their requests for water or to go to the bathroom outside their cells were also ignored, he said.

O’Keefe and Sigüenza were able to speak with lawyers, but only Sigüenza allowed to make a phone call — he called his wife.

Sigüenza, who is Hispanic, said DHS investigators took him to another room and offered him money or legal protection for any family members who might be in the country illegally in exchange for giving up the names of protest organizers or neighbors who don’t have legal immigration status. But he said he refused the offer, noting that he doesn’t have any family members without legal status.

Sigüenza and O’Keefe, who have shared their story widely on social media, were let go by evening without charges.

Once they left the facility, they were again hit with chemical agents officers were using on protesters in the area.

“We were not charged with a crime,” said Sigüenza. “We were released and then tear-gassed on our way out.”

Concerns about detention conditions elsewhere

The conditions at immigration detention facilities around the country have been the subject of complaints, including a lawsuit over the one that served as the Chicago-area’s operational hub that resulted in a judge’s oversight visit and an order to improve conditions.

DHS has defended the conditions in its facilities, saying detainees are fed and their medical concerns are addressed. And they’ve trumpeted the success of the immigration crackdowns, saying they’ve led to the arrests of thousands of people who are in the country illegally.

O’Keefe and Sigüenza believe their detention was meant to intimidate them and others critics of the immigration crackdown.

U.S. citizens’ and noncitizens’ rights differ slightly in immigration detention than in criminal detention, according to Lynn Damiano Pearson, an immigration attorney with the National Immigration Law Center. But detainees retain basic rights in both situations, including access to counsel and a phone, food and water, and privacy from the opposite gender when using the restroom.

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Associated Press reporter Sophia Tareen contributed to this report.