Trump admin conducted major surveillance operation in Minnesota during protest crackdown, new filings show – Democracy Docket

By Natalie Hausmann, Jacob Knutson
August 13, 2026
The Trump administration carried out a sprawling months-long surveillance operation in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota as it sought to crack down on resistance to its aggressive immigration raids across the state, defense attorneys alleged in an alarming court filing Thursday.
Relying on investigatory documents from the federal government, the attorneys said undercover Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents spent last winter and into the spring gathering information on dozens of Minnesotans and surveilled community meetings, including some held at places of worship.
The filings and documents were included in proceedings in the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) criminal case against 15 people it alleged conspired to impede law enforcement agents during “Operation Metro Surge,” the administration’s immigration raids in and around Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Details of the surveillance operation raise significant civil rights concerns: The federal government’s investigation — which began four days after Border Patrol agents fatally shot 37-year-old nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis — spread well beyond the 15 defendants.
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DHS also continued its spying campaign months after the Trump administration ended its immigration surge in the Twin Cities area in February. And investigators misidentified one of the defendants through their reliance on artificial intelligence software.
The department’s willingness to play fast and loose with civil rights — and the mistakes it made in the process — are additionally concerning because DHS is also involved in the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict and undermine the 2026 midterm elections. 
Internally, DHS claimed the Minnesota surveillance campaign, called “Operation Puppet Master,” was meant to investigate the presence of “violent opportunists” and a “network of conspirators” who were taking advantage of unrest to commit violence and destroy property. 
However, federal agents observed and collected information on Minnesotans engaging in conduct protected by the First Amendment in parks, libraries, schools, union halls and through encrypted group chat messages.
“This case involves an unprecedented campaign by DHS to spy on Minnesotans,” the lawyers said. “These agents surreptitiously recorded dozens of conversations with ordinary people who were simply exercising their First Amendment right to protest ICE’s lawless rampage in our state.”
Documents filed by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the main investigative arm of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, showed that federal agents conducted multiple undercover operations to surveil meetings at churches, including some in other parts of the country.
In an operation in April, an agent went undercover into Zion Lutheran Church in Ann Arbor, Michigan — which is over 600 miles from the Twin Cities — to observe a presentation given by people who resisted the Trump administration’s immigration raids in Minnesota.
The document outlining the Ann Arbor operation did not indicate that any of the defendants charged by the DOJ participated in the presentation. The agent additionally collected information on members of the church, as well as one woman who said she was part of a mission team who helped build hospitals in Uganda.
In another operation in April, federal agents posing as construction workers collected the license plate information of at least 20 vehicles parked outside St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church in St. Paul. At the same time, an undercover agent sat in on a meeting inside the church attended by some of the defendants.
Alongside collecting vehicle information near a place of worship, agents also collected audio and visual recordings of events inside churches.
One of HSI’s internal documents indicates an agent recorded audio while attending a beginner boxing session hosted by an “anti-racist, queer friendly” martial arts group in the gym area of the University Baptist Church in Minneapolis on May 28 — over 100 days after Operation Metro Surge concluded.
“Due to the physicality of the event, [the agent’s] concealed body-worn audio recorder erroneously fell to the floor of the gymnasium near the end of the training,” the report reads.
As reported first by the New York Times Thursday, the documents indicate Homeland Security officials also used invasive tactics to obtain detailed financial information on several national left-leaning political organizations, including labor unions and climate groups.
Investigators claimed the information was needed to determine whether well-known organizations like the Sunrise Movement and the Communications Workers of America provided help and money to the defendants. However, none of the organizations targeted have faced charges.
In addition to churches and left-leaning political groups, HSI paid particular attention to organizing related to the No Kings protest held in late March and centered around the Twin Cities.
In one instance in early February, DHS infiltrated a local planning meeting held at a library for the Minneapolis No Kings event. Led by the local chapter of the 50501 Movement, one of the organizers of the nationwide day of protest, the meeting was attended by around 60 participants. HSI’s internal report on the meeting included the names, ages, races and additional personal details of many participants.
One person “informed the audience that volunteers have participated in medical support, organizing a bridge protest, and other non-violent protests,” the report states.
No Kings protests across the nation were widely advertised as nonviolent, with local community members in March telling Democracy Docket about peaceful grassroots efforts for weekly protests on freeway overpass bridges in Minneapolis and beyond.
HSI also used software called Clearview AI in an attempt to identify Isaac Sant, one of the defendants in the conspiracy case. Instead, the software misidentified Sant, linking his name to pictures from social media and news sites of multiple different people, his lawyer said. Sant’s attorney is seeking the release of all the documentation linked to tracking defendants that may be generated by AI software.
The AI-generated report shows the defendant’s name and face linked to images of protests dating back to 2018, including an image labeled as a protest in response to Trump’s first presidential inauguration.
Some of the other defendants were also surveilled while engaging in First Amendment activities unrelated to Operation Metro Surge. Federal agents trailed at least three of them from their homes to the No Kings march held in Minneapolis on March 28. The agents only stopped following the defendants because they lost track of them in the large crowd.
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