Earlier this year, when ICE and Border Patrol agents were wreaking havoc all over Minnesota after President Donald Trump’s Gestapo-like immigration crackdown hit the Twin Cities, we reported on the story of U.S. citizen ChongLy “Scott” Thao, an elderly man who ICE agents handcuffed and led out onto the streets wearing nothing but his underwear in subfreezing temperatures, holding him there in the cold until they were satisfied that he was not an undocumented migrant.
On Monday, local law enforcement officials announced that they were considering whether the federal agents involved in Thao’s detention should face criminal charges, including kidnapping, burglary and false imprisonment, for the events that unfolded on Jan. 18.
From the New York Times:
John J. Choi, the elected prosecutor in Ramsey County, said that his office had formally sought information from the Department of Homeland Security about Mr. Thao’s arrest, including the names of the agents who took him into custody.
It was the latest effort by Minnesota prosecutors to pursue criminal cases stemming from the immigration operation carried out by thousands of agents in Minnesota this winter, although legal experts say that any such prosecutions would face significant legal and practical obstacles.
“We are going to be dogged in our pursuit of the truth,” Mr. Choi told reporters Monday afternoon, adding that his office was considering empaneling a grand jury to review evidence from the case. “We are not going to let this go.”
Yeah — successfully pursuing cases against federal agents for any of their many abuses in Minnesota — including the extrajudicial killings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti — will be a steep uphill battle, especially if the starting point relies on factual information provided by DHS, because all that agency has done since the start of Trump’s mass deportation agenda is smear victims with easily debunked lies and jump to the defense of even the most vile and violent federal agents.
For example, in response to the news of Thao’s cruel detention — during which agents reportedly drove him out to what he described as “the middle of nowhere,” made him get out of the car in his underwear so they could photograph him, and held him in custody out in the cold for roughly an hour — DHS immediately began spinning a narrative that Thao was harboring the actual targets of the operation, who it claimed were “convicted sex offenders,” and that Thao refused to cooperate with the agents.
“The U.S. 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.”
So, was he detained because he “matched the description of the targets,” or because he was “harboring” them? Mind you, DHS shared mugshots of the alleged targets, who were certainly Asian like Thao, but were significantly younger.
It’s also worth pointing out that DHS had these mugshots at the time Thao was detained — which happened after agents forced their way into his home at gunpoint and without a warrant — meaning there should have been no excuses for the alleged mistaken identity.
But again, this is what the DHS does. The agency reflexively blamed Good and Pretti for their own deaths, describing them as violent “domestic terrorists,” who viciously attacked agents, despite viral video footage, in both cases, showing indisputably that they did no such thing.
In February, charges were dropped against two Venezuelan immigrants living in Minneapolis — one of whom was shot in the leg by a federal agent a month earlier — after it was discovered that federal agents were flat-out lying about how the shooting started, claiming they were attacked by multiple assailants armed with a snow shovel and broom handle. DHS, of course, was more than willing to spread an elaborate, fantastical story of a vicious attack on agents that video footage later proved never happened.
And therein lies the issue: justice wouldn’t mean simply holding federal agents criminally accountable; their handlers and enablers, DHS and the Trump administration as a whole, would need to be held to account as well.
Again, it would be a steep uphill battle, y’all, but we shall see.
SEE ALSO:
Nobody Wants This: ICE Is Catching L’s At Every Turn In Minnesota
DOJ Accuses Democratic Leaders In Minnesota Of Obstructing ICE
