ROCHESTER, Minn. – The Rochester Police Department confirmed that federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were massing in Rochester. This almost surely means that mass raids were in final stages. to round up Latinos in southeast Minnesota or northern Iowa for deportation. Rochester police are neither participating nor enabling any ICE initiative, the department emphasized.
Earlier: Iowa GOP leaders double down on Decorah sheriff
Earlier: Ruling: No to Minnesota jails for ICE raid detainees
What to watch for
In a major raid on Postville, Iowa, in 2008, masked ICE agents in black vehicles swarmed a meat-packing plant unannounced after dark. By design, their storm-trooper tactics instilled panic to facilitate arrests. Many arrests were at private homes. In all 400 people were cuffed and taken away. The terrorist tactics were widely condemned by civil rights organizations. Roughly 100 pf the egainees later were found to have been wrongly arrested. Many such raids under the new Trump presidency, like the Postville raid, have been without search warrants. The single commonality of Trump raids has been the brown skin of detainees, not evidence of violating criminal law.