St. Paul mayor, police chief defend officers after protesters clash with ICE agents during raid

A federal raid at a St. Paul home Tuesday set off a volatile standoff between protesters and law enforcement, drawing sharp criticism from state and local leaders even as the city’s mayor and police chief defended officers’ presence and stressed they were not carrying out immigration enforcement. Federal agents took one person into custody during the operation.

The chaotic scene erupted as a crowd rushed to the operation at a home in the 600 block of Rose Avenue E., where law enforcement sprayed the protesters with chemical irritants and targeted them with smoke canisters and less-lethal munitions. Police Chief Axel Henry said his department had reports of rocks and sticks being thrown at agents. At least one protester was seen hurling a rock into the smoke-filled air.

At a Tuesday evening news conference, Mayor Melvin Carter confirmed that Homeland Security Investigations and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contacted St. Paul police for assistance “because they had attempted to execute a warrant against an individual who they were targeting and seeking to detain, and that person fled from them and somehow ended up at the address on Rose … that we were all out at today.”

The raid came one week after ICE and other law enforcement descended on paper distributor Bro-Tex Inc. in an industrial area near the Midway neighborhood while a search warrant was being executed, and protesters soon converged. ICE “arrested 14 illegal aliens on immigration violations,” the agency said.

A grassroots immigrant rights organization said it got word out about Tuesday’s raid, an alert that it said led to roughly 200 people showing up at the scene.

The St. Paul-based Immigration Defense Network (IDN) said in a statement Tuesday afternoon that “federal authorities ultimately took one individual into custody, and IDN partners are now working closely with the family to support them through the trauma.”

In a video statement released by St. Paul police a few hours after the raid, Henry said the Department of Homeland Security reported an incident during an attempted arrest Tuesday when at least one vehicle possibly occupied by an agent was struck.

He said he then sent in additional officers “to make the scene safe for both those who were there to protest those events and for the agents themselves.”

Police and federal agents left the scene shortly before 1 p.m.

The chief maintained his department did not violate the city’s separation ordinance, which says police may cooperate with federal authorities but cannot enforce immigration laws.

Henry said he understands “our public is greatly frustrated by these issues. But be clear, St. Paul police officers are not doing immigration enforcement, but we do have a responsibility to make sure that laws aren’t broken in our city.”

A police spokeswoman told the Minnesota Star Tribune her department made no arrests.

Holden Smith said he saw federal agents take a handcuffed man out of the home, put him in an SUV and drive off.

Smith said he also saw another man outside who “charged the federal agents, and they detained him during the entire duration of the event.” That man also was driven off with agents in an SUV.

The Minnesota Star Tribune left messages with ICE to determine the nature of the operation. There has been no response as of Tuesday evening.

“We are monitoring the situation in St. Paul and working to understand what unfolded,” Gov. Tim Walz said in a statement on X. “We received no heads up from federal authorities on this operation. While we are always willing to work together on public safety, that is clearly not what this chaotic situation was about.”

Several people were sprayed with a chemical irritant, which created a fog hanging between police and the protesters. Demonstrators screamed and chanted at the agents and St. Paul officers, who were dressed in riot gear.

At first, “I saw a handful of Homeland Security agents, with HSI on their vests and masked,” Paquette said.

He said three agents were inside the home’s three-season porch, and other agents were in the yard as St. Paul police established a perimeter.

Paquette said he used his megaphone and his Spanish-speaking skills to tell the people in the home “their rights. Keep the door closed. Don’t talk to anyone.”

As the yelling and chanting from protesters persisted, Paquette said he saw “two protesters thrown to the ground and arrested.” He added that he saw a third person arrested about the same time.

“I saw one protester was injured in the front [of the house] when he was body-slammed to the pavement” by a federal agent, Paquette said. St. Paul Fire Department medics put him on a stretcher and drove him from the scene, Paquette said.

Paquette said one officer activated a smoke canister that hit him in the face. Moments later, Paquette recalled, an officer hit him with a shot of chemical irritant “directly into my eyes. I was incapacitated for 10 to 15 minutes.”

Two St. Paul residents said they were struck by rubber bullets as they joined neighbors outside the home.

Domanic Durham was hit in the wrist; his friend, Lucas Moren, was struck in the chest. They told the Star Tribune they came outside after seeing a neighbor livestream the incident on Facebook.

“We were just trying to make them leave at this point,” Durham said. “They got what they wanted.”

Durham also described officers raising their weapons toward the crowd before another officer intervened.

Sam Schmitt, who lives nearby, said they rushed outside after hearing neighbors call people to Rose Avenue.

“I raced down and jumped onto the front line,” Schmitt said. “We’ve been pushing them down this road and the complex.”

Schmitt said several residents at the front of the crowd were pushing back objects being thrown toward them as officers advanced. They said police were “shooting rubber bullets at us from their vehicles,” striking at least two people.

Carter credited city officers and paramedics for helping people who needed immediate medical care as the scene escalated. But he said he was alarmed by what he witnessed from some federal agents, describing them as having “intentionally stirred the violence and intentionally created as chaotic a scene as they possibly could before they left.”

Carter said federal agencies are well aware that St. Paul opposes how these operations are conducted — arriving masked, declining to identify themselves or show warrants and failing to communicate with local authorities.