Read our article Combat and Resist ICE Terror here.
Hundreds of protesters clashed with US Marshals outside a federal courthouse in St. Paul, Minnesota on June 16, demanding that the charges be dropped for 15 people indicted for organizing against ICE. Despite US Marshals attempting to disperse the crowd with tear gas and pepper spray, protesters continued demonstrating.
Hours before the protest, federal prosecutors in Minnesota announced charges against 15 people in a 94-page indictment alleging they conspired to “violently oppose immigration and law enforcement” during and after ICE’s Operation Metro Surge, which brought in thousands of federal agents who occupied Minneapolis and St. Paul in late 2025 as part of ICE’s deportation terror campaign. Operation Metro Surge was defeated by the people of Minneapolis, whose victory forced ICE to conduct a strategic retreat, reorganize their leadership, and abandon their shock-and-awe tactics.
The defendants, all from the Twin Cities area, face felony charges including conspiracy to impede or injure federal officers, solicitation to commit a crime of violence, interstate threats, interstate stalking, assault on a federal officer, and destruction of government property. Prosecutors tied those charged to Direct Action Minnesota (DAMN), which the Justice Department has labeled a “Minneapolis-based antifa group” and now calls a “domestic terrorist organization.”
The indictment alleges participants coordinated protests through encrypted communications, organized blockades, tracked federal agents, and carried out direct actions intended to disrupt immigration enforcement. It cites worker assemblies, social media activity, and other organizing as evidence of a conspiracy that frames anti-ICE activism as a criminal enterprise.
At the June 16 press conference, US Attorney Daniel Rosen was asked by reporters whether any federal agent had actually been injured. He declined to answer, saying that whether the conduct “actually…cause[d] bodily harm is not the measure” of whether a crime occurred.
The case follows the playbook laid out by the Trump administration’s National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, which directs federal agencies to repress activist networks labeled as “antifa” by grouping disconnected forms of political association into a single conspiracy narrative that maximizes repression. Of note, the Department of Justice press release on the June 16 indictments portrays one of the defendants’ criticisms of pacifism on social media as part of the federal narrative against the accused.
Among the indicted are Minnesota trade unionists active in worker assemblies, which the indictment itself cites as evidence of the conspiracy. CWA Local 7250 President Kieran Knutson said trade unionists active in the assemblies are among those arrested. Marcia Howard, president of the teacher chapter of Minneapolis Federation of Educators Local 59, criticized the Justice Department’s targeting of activists, saying, “I find it telling that they are going after unionists, including educators I know of right now, that they are going after workers. I’m really pissed off.”
Image: A US Marshal sprays a protester with a chemical irritant in St. Paul, MN. Credit: Screenshot from video by @dymanhshow on Instagram.
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