Jan. 16 (UPI) -- The American Civil Liberties Union filed a class action lawsuit on Thursday, accusing the Trump administration of violating the constitutional rights of Minnesotans who were unlawfully detained by federal immigration officers amid its immigration crackdown in the city.
Since December, thousands of heavily armed and masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Department of Homeland Security agents have been deployed to Minnesota for Operation Metro Surge, which has seen them conduct neighborhood sweeps and arrests of immigrants the administration alleges have criminal convictions.
The operation has the city on edge and residents scared, according to officials, with two federal agent-involved shootings in a week, one that resulted in the death of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three .
The ACLU alleges that tactics used by the federal agents are unconstitutional. In the lawsuit filed Thursday, the civil rights lawyers accuse ICE and DHS officers of stopping people -- primarily those perceived to be of Somali or Latino descent -- to question them about their immigration statues without reasonable suspicion of removability.
They also allege that the federal agents are arresting residents without warrants and without probable cause, resulting in the detention of U.S. citizens.
