AILSA CHANG, HOST:
It has been a tumultuous and occasionally violent week for anti-ICE protesters in the Twin Cities.
(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)
CHANG: Federal immigration officers have arrested some of these protesters and tackled or tear-gassed others. Last month, the ACLU sued on behalf of protesters and observers. The group says the agents are violating the free speech rights of peaceful demonstrators. Now, the federal government says that it's simply trying to keep unruly crowds from obstructing lawful immigration enforcement. NPR's Martin Kaste joins us now to talk about the fight over free speech during a crackdown. Hi, Martin.
MARTIN KASTE, BYLINE: Hi, Ailsa.
CHANG: OK, so let's start with this ACLU lawsuit. What exactly are Minnesota protesters alleging there?
KASTE: The lead plaintiff in that case, Susan Tincher, gives this story. She says in December, she got an alert about ICE activity in her neighborhood there in Minneapolis. She went there and she asked an officer, are you ICE? And she was told to get back. And the lawsuit says that in just a few seconds, agents pushed her to the ground, cuffed her and took her to a federal building, and she was later released without being charged. So the lawsuit says that's a part of a pattern - agents apparently retaliating against people for exercising their constitutional rights to observe them, to ask questions and take video of these operations.
CHANG: OK. Well, since that happened in December, reports of these kinds of incidents have increased dramatically this year, right?
KASTE: Yeah.
CHANG: Like, especially after an ICE officer shot and killed Renee Macklin Good in Minneapolis last week. Where does this lawsuit stand at the moment?
KASTE: They're trying to get the federal judge, Katherine Menendez, to issue a restraining order this week, if they can, against certain federal tactics. At a hearing yesterday, the attorneys representing the plaintiff said they want an order that would stop actions such as arresting or threatening to arrest people who are lawfully protesting or watching federal agents, as well as pulling over cars that are following them. And the lawyers for the government say that the agents are just taking appropriate actions when facing what they deem to be hostile crowds.
CHANG: Is that illegal, though, following ICE officers around or observing them or recording them?
KASTE: Traditionally, that has not been considered illegal per se. On the question of tailing officers, though, I did talk to Jim Bueermann, who's a former chief of police in California, now the president of a think tank called Future Policing Institute. And he says officers do have a legitimate need to find out if they're being followed.
JIM BUEERMANN: Probably 90% of the time, it's just going to be these monitors who mean them no harm. But there are instances in this country's history of police officers being ambushed. There's going to be somebody someplace, sometime who's probably going to ambush some of these ICE agents or do something violent toward them.
KASTE: But he says that doesn't mean they should arrest people. Bueermann says that, as a police chief, he would tell his officers to talk to the person following them, see if the person is a threat. If he's not, let that person keep following and wait for him to get tired and stop.
CHANG: OK, well, let's talk about the federal government's justification here. They say these agents are simply pushing back against people who are impeding law enforcement. Do they have a point there?
KASTE: Well, civil rights experts think that their - the Trump administration is trying to broaden the definition of what the law about impeding says to include things like following agents or coordinating protests, maybe. And they point to a recent memo from the attorney general's office which categorizes impeding federal officers under a larger strategy for combating domestic terrorism. Now, usually, impeding means materially obstructing - blocking officers physically or concealing a person that they're seeking. And of course, if you break - you break the law if you put your hands on an officer or ignore a lawful order to disperse.
CHANG: Sure.
KASTE: But now we're seeing videos from around the country of ICE officers just telling motorists that they'll be arrested for following them. And if you add that to this memo about domestic terrorism, there's a sense that maybe there's going to be some new situations and some new charges that people might face.
CHANG: That is NPR's Martin Kaste, who covers law enforcement. Thank you so much, Martin.
KASTE: You're welcome.
(SOUNDBITE OF HAZY JAY'S "DREAM ABOUT ME") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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