ICYMI: NYT: “U.S. Investigated Left-Leaning Groups During Minnesota Immigration Crackdown”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, August 13, 2026 

None of the Groups Investigated Have Been Charged With A Crime 

Washington, D.C. – Today, The New York Times published bombshell reporting detailing how the Homeland Security Department launched investigations into left-leaning political investigations four days after federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti. Instead of investigating border patrol agents who killed a person peacefully demonstrating, investigators “used an array of invasive tactics during the first half of this year to gather information on many groups and individuals who were never accused of crimes, crossing the line that has traditionally stood between investigating criminal activity and political dissent.”

“No evidence. No charges. Just an administration using the government to monitor anyone who dares to oppose it. This is retaliation, plain and simple, and it should terrify every American who values their freedoms,” said Cole Leiter, Executive Director of Americans Against Government Censorship.

Read the highlights below:

The New York Times: U.S. Investigated Left-Leaning Groups During Minnesota Immigration Crackdown

Four days after Alex Pretti was fatally shot while filming officers taking part in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota, the Homeland Security Department quietly opened an investigation at its office in St. Paul.

The target was not the Border Patrol agents who had killed Mr. Pretti, a 37-year-old government nurse, in late January. Instead, it was several left-leaning political organizations — labor unions, a climate change group, socialist collectives — that investigators believed had provided help and money to what they described as the “violent opportunists and agitators” on the street, according to newly released government documents.

As part of their inquiry, the documents show, homeland security officials used an array of invasive tactics during the first half of this year to gather information on many groups and individuals who were never accused of crimes, crossing the line that has traditionally stood between investigating criminal activity and political dissent.

In one instance, officials used administrative subpoenas to obtain more than three years of financial records from the Sunrise Movement, an environmental action group, and a labor union, the Communications Workers of America. That time frame went well beyond the civil unrest in Minnesota, which was prompted by the deployment of thousands of immigration agents to the state during the winter.

In another, investigators scrutinized three years’ worth of wire transfers made by the nation’s biggest health care workers union, the Service Employees International Union, in what they referred to as an inquiry into “domestic terrorist financing.”

The documents further detailed an expansive covert surveillance operation in which undercover agents spied on protesters and organizers at meetings held online, as well as in libraries, parks and churches, taking down not only what they said, but also their names and sometimes license plate numbers. The undercover agents also infiltrated group chats on Signal, listening as activists discussed coming demonstrations and their political opinions.

So far, none of the organizations targeted by the homeland security inquiry, conducted with the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota, have faced charges. And yet, as the investigation moved forward, prosecutors showed grand jurors a PowerPoint slide asserting that 18 groups — including the A.F.L.-C.I.O., the country’s largest federation of labor unions — were part of a conspiracy to impede the work of immigration officers in Minnesota.

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The Minnesota surveillance reports in particular documented what largely appeared to be political activity protected by the First Amendment. They showed how undercover agents embedded themselves in a “noise protest” outside a hotel where immigration agents were staying and took down notes at other gatherings as demonstrators brainstormed ideas on how to protest the surge of officers who descended on Minnesota late last year.

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