‘An armed paramilitary has invaded our state’: Minnesota senator decries ICE’s ‘violent kidnappings’ statewide

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers have been stopping people “based solely on the color of their skin” and even drew their guns on an off-duty cop, a group of Minnesota police chiefs alleged, according to USA Today.

Minnesota Senator Erin Maye Quade, who represents a suburban district, told “The Gee and Ursula Show” on KIRO Newsradio that ICE isn’t just stirring tensions in Minneapolis; the issue is statewide.

“It is happening all across the state, the suburbs, rural areas, and then the cities. And what’s happening is that we have 3,000 federal agents in Minnesota right now. That is more than the 10 largest police departments in our state have officers combined. So it is an immense force,” Maye Quade said.

“And what they do in communities like mine is they sit, and they idle in their cars near gas stations, doctors’ offices, schools, places of work. They wait for Black, Brown, or Asian people to be taking out their trash, or getting gas, or walking into work — and they just swarm them,” she continued.

In response to local cops being questioned, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told USA Today it found no record of ICE or Border Patrol stopping and questioning a police officer. DHS added that, without a name, it could not verify the claims but would continue to look into them.

‘They just rip people out of the car’: Senator details ICE targeting citizens

Maye Quade detailed how ICE’s presence has put citizens in harm’s way, and reiterated that agents discriminate based on race.

“You could just be driving to work, driving to the library, going to your parents’ house, and they’ll just swarm your car. They cause people to crash, and then they just rip people out of the car, kidnap them, take them,” Maye Quade said. “They’re citizens, lawful permanent residents, people who have legal status of some sort, work permits, social security numbers.

“They’re refugees, asylees — that’s who they’re targeting, and it’s just based on the fact that they are Black, Brown, or Asian, and it happens every day, all the time. You could just be a normal person who is driving somewhere, walking somewhere, going about your daily life, and you will see one of these violent kidnappings,” she continued.

Children are also getting caught in the fray, Maye Quade noted, pointing to six kids who were tear-gassed by agents when their family was driving home from a basketball game — including a six-month-old who had to be taken to the hospital.

“It is so violent, and it is so omnipresent, it’s so hard to describe. I’ve never experienced anything like this. It is an armed paramilitary that has invaded our state, and there’s no part of normal life that you can be assured you won’t encounter them,” she said.

Maye Quade emphasized that the issue is happening statewide and that U.S. citizens are also being targeted.

“I think folks think that if they’re white, or they don’t live near immigrants, or they themselves aren’t immigrants, or they’re U.S. citizens, that this isn’t something that people in Minnesota would encounter, and that is just fundamentally untrue,” she explained.

“People will go out to eat at a restaurant, like getting pizza, and ICE will come in and kidnap all the workers while you’re there. I have a three-year-old, and I can’t even take her to Target. We have Target U.S. citizen employees getting tackled in the vestibule,” she continued.

U.S. citizen forced from Minnesota home, released an hour later

One video, posted by The Associated Press, showed a U.S. citizen being taken out of his Minnesota home in his underwear after ICE agents bashed through his door.

“I was shaking,” ChongLy “Scott” Thao told The Associated Press. “They didn’t show any warrant; they just broke down the door.”

Thao said an hour or two later, agents eventually realized he was a U.S. citizen with no criminal record and brought him back to his house.

Maye Quade underscored that innocent people are being detained.

“I think the idea that there’s some sort of list of specific people that ICE is here to get, that are guilty of crimes, or have done something terrible, and that’s who they’re here for, that is not true. They are looking for kidnappings of opportunity, and you could be near it at any time, because it could just happen anywhere at any time,” she said.

Senator on why she calls it ‘kidnapping’: ‘There’s no other word for it’

Maye Quade added that she uses the word “kidnapping” because U.S. citizens are not subject to ICE authority.

“Every time they grab a U.S. citizen and take them away, they bring them to this federal building, we call it the Whipple Building. They’ll detain them for eight, nine, 10 hours, no access to a lawyer, no phone call. They’ll take their phone, they’ll take their money, and then they’ll just let them go. They’ll walk out the door. There’s no charges. People aren’t being charged with crimes,” she shared.

“And so there’s really no other way to describe somebody being ripped from their car, who is lawfully present in this country, being taken, disappeared away into a building for days, or taken to Texas, which is where a lot of people are being sent, even though they have lawful status. There’s no other word for it, because they’re not arresting people,” she continued.

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to Gee and Ursula on “The Gee and Ursula Show” weekday mornings from 9 am to 12 pm on KIRO Newsradio.