ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Federal immigration agents forced open a door and detained a U.S. citizen in his Minnesota home at gunpoint without a warrant, then led him out onto the streets in his underwear in subfreezing conditions, according to his family and videos reviewed by The Associated Press.
ChongLy “Scott” Thao told the AP that his daughter-in-law woke him up from a nap Sunday afternoon and said that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were banging at the door of his residence in St. Paul. He told her not to open it. Masked agents then forced their way in and pointed guns at the family, yelling at them, Thao recalled.
“I was shaking,” he said. “They didn’t show any warrant; they just broke down the door.”
Amid a massive surge of federal agents into the Twin Cities, immigration authorities are facing backlash from residents and the local leaders for warrantless arrests, aggressive clashes with protestors, and the fatal shooting of a mother of three, Renee Good.
“ICE is not doing what they say they’re doing,” St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her, a Hmong American, stated about Thao’s arrest. “They’re not going after hardened criminals. They’re going after anyone and everyone in their path. It is unacceptable and un-American.”
Encounter caught on video
Thao, who has been a U.S. citizen for decades, said that as he was being detained, he asked his daughter-in-law to find his identification but the agents told him they didn’t want to see it.
Instead, as his 4-year-old grandson watched and cried, Thao was led out in handcuffs wearing only sandals and underwear with just a blanket wrapped around his shoulders.
Videos captured the scene, which included people blowing whistles and horns and neighbors screaming at the more than a dozen gun-toting agents to leave Thao’s family alone.
Thao said agents drove him “to the middle of nowhere” and made him get out of the car in frigid weather so they could photograph him. He said he feared they would beat him. He was asked for his ID, which agents earlier prevented him from retrieving.
Agents eventually realized that he was a U.S. citizen with no criminal record, Thao claimed, and an hour or two later, they brought him back to his house. There they made him show his ID and then left without apologizing for detaining him or breaking his door, Thao said.
DHS defends operation
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security described the ICE operation at Thao’s home as a “targeted operation” seeking two convicted sex offenders.
“The US citizen lives with these two convicted sex offenders at the site of the operation,” DHS said. “The individual refused to be fingerprinted or facially ID’d. He matched the description of the targets.”
Thao’s family strongly disputes the DHS account and objects to the agency’s attempt to justify their conduct with misleading claims.
Thao told the AP that only he, his son and daughter-in-law, and his grandson live at the rental home. Neither they nor the property’s owner are listed in the Minnesota sex offender registry. The closest sex offender listed as living in the zip code is more than two blocks away.
Family fled Laos after helping US
The family expressed particular distress over ChongLy Thao’s treatment, as his mother fled to the U.S. from Laos in the 1970s due to her support of American operations in the country.
Thao’s mother, Choua Thao, was a nurse for CIA-backed Hmong soldiers during the “Secret War.” Choua Thao, who passed away recently, treated many civilians and U.S. soldiers, supporting American personnel closely.
ChongLy Thao plans to file a civil rights lawsuit against the DHS, expressing that he no longer feels safe in his home. “I don’t feel safe at all,” Thao said. “What did I do wrong? I didn’t do anything.”
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Associated Press writer Michael Biesecker in Washington contributed.
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Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
