Federal prosecutors on Tuesday announced charges against 15 people who are accused of impeding federal agents during the Trump administration’s massive immigration surge in Minnesota earlier this year.
The investigation targeted two “Minneapolis-based antifa groups” whose members were trained in “surveillance, operational planning and rapid mobilization against law enforcement,” Minnesota U.S. Atty. Daniel N. Rosen said at a press conference.
The charges come as the Trump administration has escalated its attacks on “antifa,” an umbrella term for a diffuse movement of militant left-wing activists, which President Trump has described as a domestic terror group.
Rosen said some of those arrested identified as “antifa,” while deploying a range of tactics to disrupt the immigration crackdown, such as “stalking” federal agents and using blocks of ice to slow their convoys. He declined to say whether any federal agents were injured as a result of their actions.
“Whether or not they actually, at the end of the day, cause bodily harm is not the measure of whether or not they committed a serious federal crime,” Rosen told reporters.
Twelve people were arrested Tuesday, two remain at large and one is already in custody, Rosen added. The names and specific charges of those arrested were not immediately available.
The charges come months after the administration’s “Operation Metro Surge” brought thousands of federal agents to the Twin Cities, setting off mass protests and leading to the fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens.
During the surge, convoys of agents in unmarked SUVs traveled through neighborhoods, at times banging down doors, waiting outside schools and demanding residents produce proof of citizenship.
A sprawling network of outraged Minnesotans — primarily organized through anonymous neighborhood messaging threads — quickly formed, with ordinary citizens and activists using whistles and car horns to call attention to the masked, heavily armed agents.
At the time, border czar Tom Homan indicated that federal authorities were probing “the organization and funding of the attacks on ICE.”
“They’ll be held accountable,” he said. “Justice is coming.”
Last September, Trump signed an order classifying antifa as a domestic terror organization and directing federal agencies to “investigate, disrupt, and dismantle” its affiliates and funders.
Democrats and several First Amendment groups have raised issue with the designation. While the federal government may designate foreign terror groups, there is no formal mechanism to apply the same label to domestic groups.
Trump has long invoked the term against a range of political opponents, including peaceful protesters without anarchist-leanings.
Offenhartz writes for the Associated Press.
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