For the past six weeks, federal agents have been trawling the icy streets of the Twin Cities, drawing protests small and large, and arresting thousands of immigrants as part of the Trump administration’s latest deportation surge.
The most consistent demonstrations, however, haven’t taken place in downtown Minneapolis or in the capital, St. Paul, but miles away at the B.H. Whipple Federal Building, a Brutalist structure that sits between a highway and an airport.
Whipple is now the home base for thousands of immigration agents. It is the first stop for those caught in the immigration sweeps throughout Minneapolis-St. Paul,and where, through freezing weather and occasional tear gas, protesters have kept watch, chanting and blowing whistles, as masked agents drive in and out.
The 57-year-old building has long been the center of federal affairs in the Twin Cities area, with hundreds of workers in government offices that include Veterans Affairs, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Department of Homeland Security. There is also an immigration court.
The transformation of this physical manifestation of federal bureaucracy into a rallying point for protesters, and a detention center for citizens and undocumented immigrants alike, has been startling in its speed and scope. Those who have been detained at Whipple describe crowded conditions, huddled families and lots of tears.
People held there, including those released without charges, have described seeing detained immigrants having to go to the bathroom with little privacy and being held in rooms with no beds, so tightly packed that it seemed impossible for them to lie down.
The Department of Homeland Security said in an unsigned statement that any claims about poor conditions were false, and that detainees are given “proper meals, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with their family members and lawyers.”
On the Inside, Distress
One of those detained was Gage Garcia, 23, a gas station auditor who was arrested in a suburb north of Minneapolis last week after he refused to give agents his I.D. and then blew a whistle in one’s face. Mr. Garcia, who said he was a U.S. citizen, said agents drove him around in an unmarked car for about 30 minutes before taking him to Whipple, where he was shackled and held in a small cell with other citizens for several hours.
Inside Whipple, Mr. Garcia said, agents were separating citizens and immigrants believed to be in the country illegally. He said agents had walked him down corridors and by a series of other cells on the first floor. Through one-way windows on the cell doors, he said, he saw detainees, including children, who were visibly upset.
“The people can’t see me, but I’m looking at everybody while I’m walking past, and everyone’s crying, people are curled up in a ball, they’re distraught,” he said.
Mr. Garcia described what he called a chaotic operation inside the building, where detainees were offered only bread and ham and no water, repeatedly asked the same questions by different agents and sometimes had requests to use the bathroom ignored.
Immigration lawyers have said they have found it difficult to get updates on their clients who are held at Whipple, which is meant only to be a short-term detention facility. Some lawyers said they suspected that people were being quickly flown out of the state — often to Texas — with the goal of keeping lawyers in Minnesota from being able to challenge detentions in court.
Marc Prokosch, an immigration lawyer, said he had found it increasingly difficult to get information on his clients. In one instance, he said, his firm was told that a man it was representing was still being detained at Whipple, but when the firm filed a petition to challenge his detention, the government said he had actually been moved to Texas a day earlier.
Inside the building’s immigration court, longtime observers have also noticed a rise in the number of immigrants who are missing their court dates, most likely because they fear arrest as they exit their proceedings. Such arrests have become increasingly common here and elsewhere during President Trump’s second term.
Madeline Lohman, the advocacy and outreach director for the Advocates for Human Rights, whose members have long observed immigration court proceedings at Whipple, said some proceedings were wrongly closed to observers in recent weeks.
And while many detainees appear to be quickly shipped out of state, others are reporting that they are being held at the Whipple Building for more than 24 hours, something Ms. Lohman said the building was not equipped for.
“They’re willing to expose people to really horrific detention conditions,” she said of federal officials.
This past week, a man who immigrated to the U.S. in April 2023 and had filed for asylum was appearing via video feed from a detention center, where he was taken after a failed attempt at crossing the Northern border. His lawyer said that the man had held several jobs, most recently with Amazon, but had panicked during the December surge in immigration enforcement and had tried to flee to Canada rather than be sent elsewhere.
The judge hearing the case decided that the man was a significant flight risk, given his attempt to leave the country, and ordered that he continue to be detained without the opportunity for bond.
On the Outside, Protests
Outside, immigration agents mingle with one another in a large parking lot filled with unmarked S.U.V.s as protesters jeer them from across the street.
At times, the protesters have tried to block the immigration agents from leaving the building, but more often they yell at the agents, telling them that their jobs are morally wrong and questioning why they are covering their faces.
In several instances, there have been more serious clashes between federal agents and protesters, with agents deploying tear gas and tackling demonstrators.
One man, Brandon Sigüenza, 32, said he was hit with tear gas on both ends of his detention at Whipple — once when agents sprayed into his car before arresting him — and then again when he was let go from the building hours later and had to walk through tear gas that agents were firing toward protesters.
Even as temperatures have dropped into the single digits this week, a dedicated group of protesters has been at the building every day, many in snow pants and some handing out snacks, handwarmers and coffee. One man wearing a gas mask has taken to shoveling ice off the sidewalk where protesters stand, opposite the entrance to the building’s parking lot.
Amy Wolter, a special-education teacher in the region, was one of many protesters who shouted at agents as they drove out of the building on one recent day. “My students have more empathy than you,” she said as they pulled away.
“I just feel like it’s my duty to be here and raise my voice,” she said, adding that she has been telling immigration agents that “it’s never too late to be a better human” by quitting the force.
Whipple’s ‘Fair and Just’ Legacy
All of the negative attention on the building and what is taking place there has been upsetting for Liza Interlandi Stewart, the great-great-great-granddaughter of Bishop Henry Benjamin Whipple, for whom the building is named.
Ms. Stewart, 65, a landscaper who lives in Laguna Beach, Calif., said she had always been proud to be a descendant of Bishop Whipple, the first episcopal bishop of Minnesota, and had once spent time researching him further on a trip to the Twin Cities. Bishop Whipple, who was born in 1822, was known for his missionary work and advocacy for Native Americans in the 1800s, and he was said to have been called “Straight Tongue” by some for his honesty.
It is hard to know what a man who died in 1901 would have thought of today’s events, but Ms. Stewart said she believed her ancestor would be disappointed about what immigration agents were doing in the building named for him.
“His belief was to be fair and just,” she said. “Walking up to somebody just because of the color of their skin and asking for their papers would just infuriate him.”
Julie Bosman and Sonia A. Rao contributed reporting. Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs reports for The Times on national stories across the United States with a focus on criminal justice.
The post The Out-of-the-Way Building at the Center of Minnesota’s Immigration Drama appeared first on New York Times.
