Minnesota prosecutors are treating the January detention of a naturalized US citizen by federal immigration agents as a potential criminal matter, examining whether the warrantless removal from his home constituted kidnapping, burglary, and false imprisonment.
ChongLy "Scott" Thao, 56, was pulled from his St Paul residence by masked ICE officers without a warrant, according to his family. Videos from the scene show agents forcing him into the street in subfreezing weather while he wore only underwear and clutched a blanket. Neighbors screamed at more than a dozen armed agents to stop as whistles and horns blared from the gathered crowd.
Thao says agents then drove him to an undisclosed location, forced him out of the vehicle in freezing conditions for photographs, and dropped him back home nearly two hours later. His case became emblematic of Operation Metro Surge, the Trump administration's immigration enforcement push in the Minneapolis-St Paul region that also drew scrutiny after anti-ICE protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed by federal officers in the same month.
Ramsey County Attorney John Choi and Sheriff Bob Fletcher announced Monday that the Department of Homeland Security has refused to respond to their official information requests about the arrest and detention. They indicated a grand jury could be convened in May to determine whether crimes were committed under state or federal law.
"There's no dispute that he was taken out of his house, forcibly taken out of his home and driven around," Fletcher told reporters. "Is that good law enforcement, to take an American citizen out of their home and drive them around aimlessly?"
A DHS spokesperson issued a written defense of the agents' actions, calling the investigation "a political stunt to demonize ICE law enforcement." The agency claimed officers were executing a warrant for sexual predator suspects with ties to the property. It also stated that Thao "refused to be fingerprinted or facially ID'd" and that holding all individuals present during the operation followed standard law enforcement protocol.
Thao previously denied knowing the two individuals ICE claimed to be seeking and said they did not live at his address. The DHS statement did not address why the agency had ignored the county's formal request for documents.
Hao Nguyen, director of the trial division in the Ramsey County Attorney's Office, wrote to DHS, ICE, and federal prosecutors in March requesting evidence including reports, personnel records, and recordings from the operation. The county set a deadline of April 30 for responses, after which officials said they would consider filing a lawsuit or escalating to grand jury proceedings.
The investigation is one of several triggered by the federal crackdown in Minnesota. Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis, sued the Trump administration in March seeking access to evidence needed to independently investigate three shootings by federal officers, including the deaths of Good and Pretti. In April, Minneapolis released video footage from a January incident involving ICE agents that contradicted their account of a shooting involving two Venezuelan nationals, leading to the collapse of a legal case against those men.
The Trump administration has argued that Minnesota authorities lack jurisdiction to investigate federal officers, who it contends enjoy immunity from prosecution. Fletcher rejected that position, stating that qualified immunity does not shield federal agents from accountability when they seize American citizens from their homes.
The Thao case comes as ICE custody deaths mount nationwide. Alejandro Cabrera Clemente, 49, a Mexican national, was found unresponsive at the Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana on April 11, marking the 47th death in ICE custody during Trump's second term and the 15th recorded in 2026. Another Mexican migrant, José Guadalupe Ramos, died in March after being found unconscious at the Adelanto ICE detention center in California.
Author James Rodriguez: "The gap between what DHS claims happened and what neighbors witnessed tells you everything about why local prosecutors felt compelled to open an investigation."
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