A profound constitutional and humanitarian clash has emerged in Minnesota, pitting local law enforcement against the machinery of federal immigration enforcement. The authorities in Ramsey County have filed a civil lawsuit against the United States Department of Homeland Security. The action seeks to force the federal government to cooperate with an active criminal investigation into the conduct of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who targeted a fifty-six-year-old Hmong-American citizen, ChongLy Scott Thao.
The legal action, announced jointly by Ramsey County Attorney John Choi and Sheriff Bob Fletcher, marks an extraordinary breakdown in the traditional framework of interagency cooperation. Local prosecutors are investigating whether the federal officers involved committed state-level crimes, including kidnapping and false imprisonment, during a January raid on Thao’s residence in St Paul.
An Invasion in the Night
The dispute stems from a highly chaotic incident on 18 January. Federal agents arrived at Thao’s home on St Paul’s East Side to execute a search warrant. According to Thao, the agents began banging violently on his front door before breaching the entrance, entering the home with firearms drawn, and detaining his family.
The targeted individual of the search warrant was not present. Indeed, state records later revealed that the person the agents were seeking was already incarcerated in a Minnesota state prison at the time of the raid. Despite the error in identity, federal agents handcuffed Thao and paraded him outside into ten-degree Fahrenheit winter weather.
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He was wearing only shorts and sandals. Video captured by bystanders shows the half-clothed grandfather being forced into a federal vehicle in the freezing cold.
Thao stated that agents drove him around for an hour, repeatedly interrogating him about his place of birth and his visa status. He recalled his terror during the ordeal.
“I just hoped that they wouldn’t send me back to Laos,” Thao said shortly after the incident. “I just wanted to be brought back home safe. No relatives are over there. Everybody is over here now.”
The Wall of Federal Silence
Local investigators have spent months attempting to obtain basic information about the operation, including the names of the participating agents and the official reports filed after the raid. The Department of Homeland Security has consistently refused to comply with these requests.
Hao Nguyen, the director of the trial division for the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office, detailed a pattern of official stonewalling. During a meeting in early March, an ICE section chief informed local investigators that he lacked the authorisation to share any details. Formal written demands for information were subsequently met with repeated requests for extensions, all of which expired without any files being produced.
“We all stand before you today hearing nothing,” Nguyen stated. “We do not have any information. Those extensions have come and gone, and that’s led us to this situation.”
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The lack of access to official statements from the agents regarding their intent or actions has frozen the local prosecution’s ability to evaluate potential charges. John Choi expressed his deep professional frustration with the federal stance.
“Something like this has never really occurred until more recently, where the lawful, official requests of local investigative agencies are being ignored,” Choi said.
Demand for Basic Accountability
The lawsuit, filed under the federal Administrative Procedure Act, seeks a court order to compel the disclosure of all relevant case materials. Sheriff Bob Fletcher argued that the scale of the intrusion demands a clear judicial response.
“I don’t think there’s a question that there was a law broken,” Fletcher said. “At the minimum, this is conduct unbecoming of an officer of the court. At a maximum, it’s some form of false imprisonment or kidnapping.”
Fletcher emphasised that the case goes beyond jurisdictional disputes, focusing instead on the basic rights of an innocent resident. “Dragging someone out of their house that’s not wanted, doesn’t have any warrants, hasn’t committed a crime, in the winter throwing them in a squad car and driving them around isn’t the America we want to live in,” he added.
The legal strategy mirrors a successful push by neighbouring Hennepin County, where Attorney General Keith Ellison and County Attorney Mary Moriarty filed a similar non-cooperation lawsuit regarding a series of fatal shootings involving federal agents. That lawsuit immediately broke the administrative logjam, forcing federal departments to begin releasing key evidence to local prosecutors. Ramsey County officials hope their filing will produce an identical shift, allowing them to finally identify the officers who left a local grandfather shivering in the back of a squad car.
