Federal judge tells ICE to cool it

by J. Patrick Coolican, Minnesota Reformer
January 16, 2026

A federal judge gave a significant victory to Minnesota protesters and observers of federal officers Friday, granting a preliminary injunction preventing the officers from retaliating against demonstrators.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Kate Menendez prevents the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement from arresting or detaining people who are engaging in peaceful and unobstructive protest including observing Operation Metro Surge, which is the feds’ name for the incursion of 3,000 immigration officers and agents here. The Reformer talked to a protester who was detained for hours on Sunday and never charged.

The federal agents can no longer use pepper spray or other nonlethal munitions against people engaged in peaceful protest. They cannot stop or detain drivers where there is no “reasonable, articulable suspicion” that they are interfering.

ICE observers are frequently following cars they suspect are being driven by federal officers, tracking them, entering vehicle descriptions into a database and discouraging them from making immigrant arrests. The judge declared this legal and a protected activity: “The act of safely following (federal agents) at an appropriate distance does not, by itself, create reasonable suspicion to justify a vehicle stop.”

The ruling comes out of a December lawsuit filed by six plaintiffs, represented by the ACLU.

The six named plaintiffs were all observing ICE last year as the agency ramped up raids in Minnesota, especially in the state’s large Somali community.

Susan Tincher, one of the named plaintiffs, pulled up to the scene of a reported ICE raid in north Minneapolis on Dec. 9 and exited her car. According to the lawsuit, she stood on the sidewalk six feet away from the nearest officer and asked the agents on the scene if they were ICE. The officers moved towards her, ordered her to “get back,” then pulled her to the ground. Officers handcuffed Tincher while she was face-down in the snow, according to video of the event reviewed by the Reformer. 

“I was genuinely afraid I was being kidnapped,” Tincher said at a press conference last year.

The agents took Tincher to the Whipple Federal Building at Fort Snelling; shackled her legs; cut off her wedding ring, bra and boot laces; and held her in a cell for five hours before releasing her.