The Justice Department indicted fifteen people in Minnesota for conspiracy to impede federal officers. The most violent act documented in the ninety-four-page indictment? One defendant knocked a set of notes out of an ICE agent's hand. Everything else was meetings, social media posts, and human blockades.

Federal prosecutors in Minnesota announced charges against fifteen organizers on Tuesday, explicitly invoking a presidential memorandum that targets left-wing protesters as domestic threats. US Attorney Daniel Rosen cited National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 at his press conference alongside Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Michael McCarthy. The memo was issued last September after the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk and mandates a national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks that foment political violence.

The fifteen defendants are accused of conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer, solicitation to commit a crime of violence, interstate stalking, assault on a federal officer, and destruction of government property. Twelve were arrested Tuesday. One was already in custody on other charges. Two remain at large.

Rosen said the defendants belonged to two Minneapolis-based groups: Direct Action Minnesota and Black Cat Workers Collective. Both were described as antifa affiliates that violently opposed the enforcement of federal immigration law during Operation Metro Surge, the Trump administration's deployment of roughly three thousand ICE and federal agents into Minnesota earlier this year.

The Evidence Is A Facebook Post And Some Meetings

David Bier, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, reviewed the indictment and found exactly one documented act of violence against an ICE agent. A defendant named William Morgan approached one officer and knocked the agent's notes out of his hand. That was it.

Bier described the rest of the ninety-four-page document as a cobbled together series of basically unrelated incidents or comments, nearly all of it not criminal with a few minor crimes, effectively all nonviolent acts of civil disobedience. The overt acts cited in the conspiracy charge include attending meetings, posting on Facebook about resistance to ICE, posting flyers advertising direct actions, conducting after-action reviews, forming human blockades at a building used for ICE operations, and impeding ICE vehicles with sandbags and debris.

At the press conference, Rosen played a video of defendant Kyle Wagner saying we're not talking about peaceful protest anymore and urging people to get their guns. He also highlighted a Facebook post from defendant Cameron Kennedy that read We need to become ungovernable.

Organizers expressed that they were highly critical of nonviolent peaceful protest, Rosen told reporters. Oh, Bier replied on social media.

A Judge Called One Of Their Previous Affidavits False

The Justice Department's track record on charges related to Operation Metro Surge has been notably thin. In December and January, federal prosecutors charged thirty-six people, mostly protesters, with assaulting or impeding federal immigration agents. The US Attorney's Office has since dropped eighteen of those cases entirely. Three were dismissed with prejudice, meaning they cannot be refiled. Another eleven cases were effectively dropped through non-prosecution agreements.

At a hearing in April, Magistrate Judge David Schultz called one charging document from that series a false affidavit.

Asked about the pattern during Tuesday's press conference, Rosen declined to elaborate on specific incidents and said repeatedly that evidence would roll out later. You watch how the case plays out, he said. The evidence will prove it all out.

Journalist Ryan Grim of Drop Site News highlighted another section of the indictment, which accused defendant Isaac Auman Sant of conduct that caused, attempted to cause, or would be reasonably expected to cause substantial emotional distress to a person. Actual federal charges in Minnesota for hurting ICE agents' feelings, Grim wrote.

Union Members Are Among The Indicted

The defendants include at least one professor and several union leaders and members. Erik Davis, a religious studies professor at Macalester College, told Judge John Docherty during his first appearance that he was being indicted for holding meetings. Marcia Howard, president of the teacher chapter of the Minneapolis Federation of Educators Local 59, confirmed that trade unionists were among those detained.

I find it telling that they are going after unionists, including educators I know of right now, Howard said. They want us to get to a point that we're scared to say the things we should be able to say.

The AFL-CIO had honored Minnesota's labor movement earlier this month for its organizing against ICE, which included food distribution to members in hiding, rapid response networks, and a mass economic shutdown on January 23 under the banner of No Work, No School, No Shopping. Worker assemblies at the United Labor Centre in Minneapolis were specifically cited in the indictment as evidence of criminal conspiracy.

Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou, president of the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, said tens of thousands of Minnesotans exercised their constitutional rights throughout this past winter. Foundational American freedoms such as the rights to peaceably assemble and advocate for change.

The Pattern Is Intentional

Adam Federman of Type Investigations laid out what he sees as the administration's playbook. Define a loose coalition of activists opposed to the government's immigration policies as Antifa, make the case that Antifa is a terrorist organization, and then prosecute them on conspiracy charges. We're going to see a lot more of this.

The pattern is already visible. In March, the Trump administration won its first legal victory when a federal jury convicted eight people of domestic terrorism because they wore all black to a protest outside ICE's Prairieland Detention Facility in Texas. In Spokane, Washington, three activists were recently convicted of conspiracy charges over an anti-ICE demonstration. Six people charged in Illinois with similar conspiracy charges saw their cases dropped amid claims of prosecutorial misconduct.

Bruce Nestor, an attorney for one of the Minnesota defendants, told Democracy Now! that the conspiracy charge is really an attempt to broaden the net of federal law enforcement and to expand the ability of the federal government to target our movement and to foster repression.

Judge Docherty released the defendants Tuesday with conditions including no protesting on federal property and no contact with each other except through their attorneys. The government had asked for detention.

While Two People Lie Dead In Minneapolis Streets

US Representative Ilhan Omar noted that the federal officers who fatally shot two Minneapolis protesters, Renée Good and Alex Pretti, in January have not been criminally charged. Rosen said during his press conference that the killings were under investigation and charges could be possible.

While the killers of Renée Good and Alex Pretti walk free, the DOJ is busy bringing bogus charges against protesters, Omar said. The administration thinks intimidation will make us back down. They keep learning the same lesson: Minnesotans don't scare easily. We organize for our rights.

Outside the federal courthouse in St Paul, people responded to the charges with their own protest. US Marshals sprayed pepper spray and released aerosol grenades after demonstrators tried to hold open a door.

Rosen closed his press conference with a warning directed at anyone still organizing against immigration enforcement. If you are actively conspiring to impede law enforcement, he said, you ought to go on the assumption that we're watching, and we'll get you.

ice · antifa · first-amendment · minnesota