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Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) is demanding answers from the Trump administration after she discovered that an undercover ICE agent was stationed outside of one of her town hall meetings, raising fears of intimidation by the agency just days before the state’s primary election.
Last Thursday, local law enforcement who were coordinating security for the event in Richfield, Minnesota, noticed that there was a woman parked outside of the building in a suspicious vehicle, as attendees were entering, on Friday. A police officer ran the plates for the vehicle and found out that the records didn’t match the vehicle, and asked her about why she was there.
The woman initially claimed to be a security officer, but Omar’s team said that she was not involved with their security for the event. It was then that she called her supervisor and admitted that she was an agent of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), a law enforcement agency within Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). She left after speaking with her supervisor, Omar says.
The agent claimed that she was there as part of an undercover drug enforcement operation, though local law enforcement said they received no advance notice of such an operation from HSI. Omar raised doubts about this claim, saying that the event was clearly labelled with a “prominent sign” for the meeting and that a reasonable person would assess that it would not be an ideal place for a drug operation.
In a letter to HSI first reported by HuffPost, Omar also raised concerns about the use of ICE agents as an intimidation tactic, especially against the Trump administration’s political opponents and especially after agents’ violent raid of Minneapolis in Operation Metro Surge earlier this year. She demanded that HSI answer questions on the reasoning for the agent’s presence outside of the event and whether or not HSI is stationing agents with relation to her activities in particular.
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The lawmaker also pointed out that she received assurances from Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials when she met with them in March that they were no longer switching license plates on their vehicles, which is against the law. However, this practice appears to be continuing, as evidenced by the incident on Thursday.
“HSI’s actions yesterday evening put an entire community at risk,” Omar wrote.
“It also raises serious and uncomfortable questions about the purpose of HSI’s presence outside of my event,” she went on. “At best, your agent was unable to assess that the parking lot of a community center hosting a Congressional event wasn’t the best place to conduct a drug operation. At worst, it emphasizes many Americans’ growing concern that the Trump administration uses ICE to surveil political opponents and may interfere with our democracy.”
Omar has repeatedly faced racist direct attacks from President Donald Trump, and, amid the ICE raids in January, was assaulted by a Trump supporter with a syringe full of vinegar while she was holding a town hall.
The latest incident occurred just days before Tuesday’s primary election in Minnesota, in which Omar is up for election and is expected to win.
However, civil liberties advocates have raised concerns about the Trump administration’s threats to deploy ICE agents to polling places as a form of intimidation and voter suppression — particularly against immigrants and non-white people who have been targeted in ICE’s raids and mass deportation campaign.
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