In a Minneapolis federal court where 16 protesters were charged on Wednesday with assaulting immigration agents, Judge Dulce J. Foster said she was “deeply disturbed” that Attorney General Pam Bondi had published photographs of some of the defendants on social media.
Judge Foster said images of people who are presumed innocent should not be shared. “This conduct is not something that the court condones,” she said.
Ms. Bondi, who said on social media that she was in Minneapolis on Monday, posted photographs of 11 of the defendants shortly before Wednesday’s hearing, calling them “rioters.”
The defendants “have been resisting and impeding our federal law enforcement agents,” she wrote on X. “We expect more arrests to come.”
“Nothing will stop President Trump and this Department of Justice from enforcing the law,” she added.
In court on Wednesday, prosecutors asked Judge Foster to order the defendants not to contact the federal agents whom they are accused of assaulting. The judge refused, because prosecutors have not revealed the identity of those agents.
Lisa Lopez, a lawyer who represents several of the defendants, said Ms. Bondi’s post was “very dangerous.” Sharing the photographs, she said, could bring harm to her clients.
“They don’t get the same courtesy,” Ms. Lopez said, “as masked agents.”
About 50 people, including the defendants’ family and friends, watched the proceedings. As each defendant went before the judge, some of them sat close together, gently patting one another on the back.
One of the women who was arrested had a seizure on Wednesday morning, and was hospitalized.
After the hearings, Mohamed Ahmed, 55, the father of Nasra Ahmed, who is accused of assaulting a federal agent, said his daughter had sustained a concussion during her encounter and had to go to a hospital for treatment.
“I’m grateful she’s still alive,” Mr. Ahmed said.
“To watch your daughter intimidated and harassed is very sad, very emotional,” he added. “She’s scared.”
Chelsia Rose Marcius is a criminal justice reporter for The Times, covering the New York Police Department.
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