Minnesota and the Twin Cities continue to see ICE agents all across the region stopping vehicles in an attempt to track immigrants, and it is continuing to lead to interactions with activists, protesters, and just plain citizens upset with their presence in the community.
One woman who didn't provide her real name, spoke to WCCO's Adam Carter on Tuesday telling the story about the video she took of a stop on Friday, near Knollwood Mall on Highway 7 in St. Louis Park. For the purposes of anonymity, WCCO agreed to call her "Abigail."
That led to an agent approaching her vehicle and warning her, "have y’all not learned from the past couple of days." He then takes her phone.
Abigail said she did follow the agents and said she wanted to film the interaction, and get the names of anyone who was detained.
"And I asked, learned what? What's the lesson you want us to learn here? Because I knew what he meant, but I wanted him to say it on my video," Abigail explains.
The agent takes her phone out of her hand, visibly on the video (above), then warned Abigail that she would be arrested, he claimed for blocking traffic.
She was grabbed, had her head slammed into her car, handcuffed and arrested.
"From there he pushes me, pushes me towards a truck, an ICE truck parked in the parking lot, of the laundromat next to us," Abigail goes on to say. "And he forces me up against it. He was behind me and said, 'you don't look like you could be more than 18 years old. Is this how you want to die with a f***ing bullet in your skull?' And I responded and said, 'f*** you,' and he grabbed my collar behind my neck, and tightened it against my throat. I felt like I was choking. I said I can't breathe."
Abigail said at that point, observers came over to the scene and she told them to call the police.
"Agents told me that I needed to get on the ground," she adds. "I saw that one had a gun, so I got down. I thought I was gonna get shot. I learned later it was a gun that had rubber bullets, but I didn't know. I thought it was a regular gun. At that point I started to hyperventilate. I started panicking. I thought I was gonna get shot. I couldn't breathe."
Abigail then says another ICE agent came over and said they would let her go, but first asked if she had "learned her lesson."
"And I asked them because I was just so upset, I said, what lesson? That you're a domestic terrorist? And then the agent replied, we were gonna let you go, but now we're not going to. And they were laughing, so that's where I stayed," she said. "I don't know for how long, I was crying. Apparently people that were trying to videotape were shot by rubber bullets, I was told later, but I was sitting on the ground crying. And an ICE agent comes back over and he pulls me up so forcefully that I faint. I pass out. When I come to, I'm laying on the pavement, flat down on the pavement, and I hear ICE agents when I come to laughing and say, 'see, she's faking.'
After fainting again, Abigail said she woke again laying on her side on the pavement, and this time the handcuffs are off.
Confrontations between federal agents and protesters stretched throughout the day and across multiple cities on Monday and now into Tuesday.
"I want the pain our community is feeling to end," said Abigail, who also noted she was keeping a safe distance from the agents who then approached her. That is corroborated by the video she provided. She also says she is part of an online chat community that tracks where ICE is holding operations in order to, she says, document what they're doing.
Tensions continue to flare in Minnesota between ICE and citizens
Agents fired tear gas in Minneapolis as a crowd gathered around immigration officers questioning a man, while to the northwest in St. Cloud hundreds of people protested outside a strip of Somali-run businesses after ICE officers arrived.
Homeland Security says it has made more than 2,000 arrests in the state since early December in what they have called their "largest operation ever" in the Twin Cities.
Dozens of protests or vigils have taken place across the U.S. to honor Renee Good since the 37-year-old mother of three was shot in the head by an ICE officer in Minneapolis.
The Trump administration has repeatedly defended the immigration agent who shot Good, saying she and her vehicle presented a threat. But that explanation has been widely panned by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and others based on videos of the confrontation.