DENVER — Denver has joined a lengthy list of cities across the U.S. in signing on to support Minnesota’s federal lawsuit seeking to have the deployment of federal agents in the Twin Cities declared unconstitutional.
The legal action, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, asks the judge to issue a temporary restraining order to return the cities to their status quo before Operation Metro Surge, a federal effort that has “deployed thousands of masked and armed federal law enforcement officers in Minnesota,” according to the filing. Those agents have mostly been concentrated in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Roughly three dozen cities and more than 40 local government leaders have signed onto the amicus brief formally putting their support behind Minnesota's lawsuit against Trump administration immigration officials.
“President Trump unleashed this reckless and lethal ICE invasion, and now parents are so afraid of being abducted they’re scared to take their kids to the hospital or leave the house without their passports or birth certificates,” Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said in a statement Wednesday. “ICE isn’t keeping us safe from the bad guys. Right now, they are the bad guys - and the longer they remain on our streets without immediate reforms the more people are in danger.”
The filing claims Operation Metro Surge has effectively created “a military occupation of the Twin Cities,” calling it “a concerted campaign against specific state and local governments and their leaders to coerce compliance and capitulation” in violation of the 10th Amendment.
“Operation Metro Surge is by far the most extensive, aggressive, reckless, and chaotic deployment yet,” the filing states.
Operation Metro Surge launched in December and represents the Department of Homeland Security's largest ever immigration enforcement operation, according to DHS. It has resulted in more than 3,000 arrests, according to the department.
Since the deployment, which has sparked ongoing protest across the country, federal agents have killed two Minneapolis residents, 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti and 37-year-old mother Renee Good. Both have ties to Colorado. Good had previously lived in the Colorado Springs area, and Pretti's parents live in Arvada.
Minnesota's lawsuit names top officials from the DHS, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Customs and Border Patrol as defendants.
The brief states that it is not challenging federal authorities' ability "to remove people who do not have lawful status," but that it wants to stop the current tactics, which it says includes mass deployment, racial profiling and excessive use of force, particularly against people observing agents' operations.
“By treating residents like enemy combatants and our neighborhoods like warzones, ICE is hurting the children and families who live in the cities targeted by these violent and coercive surge operations,” the brief states.
Denver City Council President Amanda Sandoval said in a Wednesday statement that what is happening in Minnesota should never happen in America.
"Families, immigrant and otherwise, are living in fear and two American citizens are dead," she said in the statement. "We know this administration isn’t interested in accountability, so it’s time for the courts to show it still cares about the rule of law and prevent this from happening to another city.”
This is a developing story that will be updated.