Federal immigration agents forced open a door, pointed guns at a family, and dragged a U.S. citizen out of his Minnesota home in nothing but underwear and sandals—in subfreezing temperatures—without ever presenting a warrant.
ChongLy “Scott” Thao, who has been an American citizen for decades, says ICE agents refused to look at his identification even as he tried to prove he wasn’t the person they were looking for.
WHAT’S GOING ON: According to Thao and videos reviewed by the Associated Press, masked ICE agents bashed open his St. Paul door on Sunday afternoon while his 4-year-old grandson watched and cried.
When Thao asked his daughter-in-law to retrieve his ID, agents told him they didn’t want to see it. Instead, they handcuffed him, wrapped a blanket around his nearly naked body, and paraded him past horrified neighbors who screamed at the dozen-plus gun-toting agents to leave him alone.
Thao says agents then drove him “to the middle of nowhere” and made him get out of the car in the bitter cold to be photographed. He feared they would beat him.
Eventually, after an hour or two, they realized he was a U.S. citizen with no criminal record and brought him back home. They made him show his ID—the same ID they’d earlier refused to look at—and left without apologizing or fixing his broken door.
BUT BUT BUT: The Department of Homeland Security claims this was a “targeted operation” seeking two convicted sex offenders, insisting Thao “lives with these two convicted sex offenders” and “refused to be fingerprinted or facially ID’d.” Thao’s family calls this account “false and misleading.”
They say only Thao, his son, daughter-in-law, and grandson live in the rental home. Neither they nor the property owner appear in Minnesota’s sex offender registry. The nearest registered offender in the zip code lives more than two blocks away.
DHS later released photos of two men it was supposedly seeking, but Thao says he’s never seen them. His son, Chris Thao, says ICE stopped him while driving a car borrowed from his cousin’s boyfriend—whose first name happens to match one of the targets. That’s apparently the connection.
WHY IT MATTERS: This isn’t an isolated incident. ICE’s massive surge into the Twin Cities has already sparked backlash over warrantless arrests, aggressive clashes with protesters, and the fatal shooting of Renee Good, a mother of three.
“ICE is not doing what they say they’re doing,” said St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her, a Hmong American. “They’re not going after hardened criminals. They’re going after anyone and everyone in their path.”
The Thao family finds this treatment particularly galling given their history with the U.S. government. ChongLy Thao’s adopted mother, Choua Thao, was a nurse who treated CIA-backed Hmong soldiers during America’s “Secret War” in Laos from 1961 to 1975. She fled to the U.S. when communists took over because her life was in danger for supporting American operations. She passed away just last month.
BOTTOM LINE: A U.S. citizen whose family literally risked their lives helping the American government now says he’s too scared to sleep in his own home. He’s planning to file a civil rights lawsuit. “What did I do wrong?” Thao asked. “I didn’t do anything.”