Authorities in Minnesota are investigating the detention by federal immigration officers of a US citizen as a possible kidnapping, burglary and false imprisonment.
The arrest of ChongLy “Scott” Thao, 56, by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in January became symbolic of Operation Metro Surge, the Trump administration’s brutal crackdown in the twin cities of Minneapolis and St Paul.
It came the same month as American anti-ICE protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti were shot and killed by government agents.
Masked ICE officers broke down the door of Thao’s house in St Paul – without a warrant, according to his family – and dragged him into the street in his underwear while he clutched a blanket in sub-freezing conditions.
Thao, a Hmong American and naturalized US citizen, said at the time that agents drove him “to the middle of nowhere” and forced him from the car in frigid weather to photograph him, before realizing their mistake and dropping him back at home almost two hours later.
Videos captured a chaotic scene at Thao’s house on the day of his arrest, including people blowing whistles and horns – and neighbors screaming at more than a dozen armed ICE agents to leave the family alone.
On Monday, local Ramsey county attorney, John Choi, and Bob Fletcher, the sheriff, told reporters at a press conference in St Paul that the homeland security department (DHS) had failed to respond to their request for information about Thao’s arrest and detention. They said a grand jury might be convened in May.
“There are many facts we don’t know yet, but there’s one that we do know – and that is that Mr Thao is and has been an American citizen,” Fletcher said. “There’s not a dispute over that.
“There’s no dispute that he was taken out of his house, forcibly taken out of his home and driven around. Is that good law enforcement, to take an American citizen out of their home and drive them around aimlessly, trying to determine what they can tell them?”
In a statement to the Guardian, a homeland security department spokesperson defended its agents.
“ICE does not ‘kidnap’ people,” the statement said. It continued, in part, that “this is nothing but a political stunt to demonize ICE law enforcement”.
“DHS law enforcement officers were executing a warrant,” the statement also said. “Through surveillance and intelligence information, law enforcement concluded sexual predator targets had ties to the property.
“The US citizen was at [the] house when the warrant was served. The individual refused to be fingerprinted or facially ID’d. As with any law enforcement agency, it is standard protocol to hold all individuals in a house of an operation for safety of the public and law enforcement.”
Thao declined to comment when contacted by the Associated Press on Monday. But he has previously denied ever seeing the two individuals the agents were allegedly seeking and said they did not live with him.
The DHS statement did not address the Ramsey county officials’ claim that it had refused to respond to their letter. Choi, meanwhile, insisted the county was merely trying to establish exactly what happened to determine if crimes were committed that could be prosecuted under state or federal law.
“This is not about any type of predetermined agenda other than to seek the truth and to investigate the facts,” he said. He added that the St Paul police department was investigating another case related to the immigration crackdown for potential violations. He declined to provide details.
Hao Nguyen, director of the trial division in the Ramsey county attorney’s office, said he wrote to the homeland security department, ICE and local federal prosecutors on 20 March with a request for evidence.
“We know there are reports,” he said. “There’s just no way that there aren’t.
“We want also to know who was working that day, who was working that month. Where did they report to? Who did they report to? We also want to understand what recordings might be out there in terms of digital recordings, witness interviews, video recordings.”
Choi said the county set a deadline of 30 April for the DHS and the others contacted to respond, after which it could file a lawsuit or convene a grand jury.
Neighboring Hennepin county, which includes Minneapolis, sued the Trump administration in March to gain access to evidence they say they need to independently investigate three shootings by federal officers in Minneapolis, including the killings of Good and Pretti.
Earlier in April, the city of Minneapolis released footage of a January case involving federal immigration agents that cast doubt on their account of the shootings of two Venezuelans, following the collapse of a legal case against the two men.
The Trump administration has attempted to assert that authorities in Minnesota lack the jurisdiction to investigate federal officers, and that federal agents enjoy protection from prosecution.
Fletcher, the Ramsey county sheriff, said that was not the case.
“There is no such thing as absolute immunity for federal agents,” he said. “There’s qualified immunity for all law enforcement in a lot of different capacities. But seizing a person out of their home who’s an American citizen, they’re not immune from that.”
The developments in Minnesota come as the number of deaths of people in ICE custody climbs towards 50 since Donald Trump took office again in January last year.
Alejandro Cabrera Clemente, 49, a migrant from Mexico, was found unresponsive on 11 April at the Winn correctional center in Louisiana, ABC News reported. His was the 47th death overall in ICE custody during Trump’s second presidency and at least the 15th in 2026.
In March, another Mexican, José Guadalupe Ramos, was found unconscious at the Adelanto ICE detention center in Los Angeles and pronounced dead in hospital.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
