A demonstration at a Minneapolis hotel where protesters believed federal agents were staying turned heated on Sunday evening, with law enforcement reportedly using chemical irritants to clear the scene after some demonstrators vandalized the building.
Protesters gathered at the Home2 Suites by Hilton near the University of Minnesota, according to the Minnesota Daily, where they believed federal immigration agents were staying after the killing of Alex Pretti. Video from the scene shows protesters making loud noises outside and graffiti on the windows with messages saying things such as “ICE out,” alluding to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal government agency that has been at the forefront of the Trump administration’s ongoing mass deportation campaign.
The New York Post reported the demonstrators also attempted to throw things at people inside the lobby and smash windows. Video shows two federal officers with long guns standing outside the hotel lobby as protesters gather. “Where’s the local PD?” one officer can be heard saying in the video, referring to the police department.
Eventually, law enforcement dispersed the crowd using the irritant colloquially known as teargas.
The Minnesota department of public safety (DPS) said in a statement that the state patrol and department of natural resources (DNR) had been called “to assist Minneapolis police with damage to hotel property”.
“While they collaboratively worked to encircle the group for arrests because the demonstration was not peaceful, federal agents arrived without communication and deployed chemical irritants, clearing the group,” the DPS said in a post. The agency’s post said the state patrol and DNR were “no longer on scene”.
The demonstration came two days after US border patrol personnel killed Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse at a local Veterans Affairs hospital. Trump administration officials have defended the shooting, even though video has shown Pretti was unarmed and restrained when border patrol shot him dead.
An ICE agent, Jonathan Ross, killed another 37-year-old US citizen, Renee Nicole Good, on 7 January in Minneapolis as she tried to drive away from an encounter with him.
Tim Walz, the Democratic Minnesota governor who was Kamala Harris’s running mate when she lost the 2024 presidential election to Trump, has urged the White House to withdraw federal immigration enforcement agents from the city. Agents have been surging there since December.
“President Trump, you can end this today,” Walz said on Sunday. “Pull these folks back. Do humane, focused, effective immigration control – you’ve got the support of all of us to do that.
“Please show some decency. Pull these folks out”.
