Ramsey County officials sue DHS over lack of cooperation in ICE arrest investigation
Authorities in Ramsey County, Minnesota, are accusing the Department of Homeland Security of being noncooperative in the investigation into immigration agents' treatment of a U.S. citizen during an arrest in St. Paul earlier this year.
Ramsey County Attorney John Choi and Sheriff Bob Fletcher announced the civil suit against DHS on Wednesday, seeking "declaratory and injunctive relief to set aside Defendants' unlawful policy of noncooperation and their refusal to comply with the investigative demands of Minnesota authorities."
County officials in April launched an investigation into the arrest of 56-year-old ChongLy Scott Thao, a Hmong American who said Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents broke down his door with a warrant and detained him at gunpoint. Video showed agents bringing Thao out of his house in the January cold in his underwear. Thao said the agents brought him to the "middle of nowhere" before reviewing his identification and bringing him home.
DHS officials claimed Thao lived with two convicted sex offenders whom ICE was targeting: Thao's family and St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her said it was a case of mistaken identity.
Choi and Fletcher said there is still much they don't know about the case, including the agents' identities. Because Choi's office doesn't have access to statements from the agents describing their motive or intent, or what they did during the hour that Thao was in their car, it's difficult to evaluate whether Minnesota law had been broken, he said.
"It's been frustrating because in normal times, we have the cooperation between agencies," Choi said. "Something like this has never really occurred until more recently where the requests, the lawful requests, the official requests of local investigative agencies are being ignored."
"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."
Investigators have been asking DHS for information about the arrest since Feb. 24, according to Hao Nguyen, director of the trial division for the Ramsey County Attorney's Office.
At a March 5 meeting between ICE Section Chief Howard Weisman and a county investigator, Weisman said he was "not authorized to share" information, the suit says. Ramsey County submitted a formal demand for information on March 20, and DHS asked twice for an extension, Nguyen said. The latest extension expired on May 29.
"We all stand before you today hearing nothing. We do not have any information. Those extensions have come and gone," Nguyen said.
"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, so there has to be some accountability," Fletcher said.
On Monday, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said federal investigators are now sharing evidence in connection with three shootings by immigration agents, including the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Local officials had been pushing the feds for months to cooperate in the investigations, and Moriarty and Ellison filed their own suit over the withholding of access. That suit will remain active as local authorities comb through the evidence.
