Two American citizens from Minneapolis have provided a disturbing account of their detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, claiming they were held for hours without charge, subjected to distressing conditions, and pressured to become informants against protest organisers.
An Arrest and Aggressive Tactics
Brandon Sigüenza and Patty O’Keefe, friends who had been monitoring ICE activities during the Trump administration's latest immigration crackdown, were detained on Sunday, 13 January 2026. According to their testimony to The Associated Press, they were following ICE officers making arrests when agents stopped O’Keefe's car. Despite the doors being unlocked, officers fired pepper spray through the windscreen vent and smashed the car windows.
The pair allege the agents mocked O’Keefe's appearance and referenced the recent killing of Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother shot by an ICE officer the previous week. O’Keefe stated an officer threatened them, saying "obstructing" their work was how Good got killed. "It was very clear that they were trying to just humiliate me, break me down," O’Keefe said.
Detention and Pressure to Inform
Sigüenza and O’Keefe were taken in separate unmarked SUVs to a highly restricted federal facility on the edge of Minneapolis, serving as the crackdown's main hub. They were placed in adjacent cells reserved for US citizens, each no larger than 10 by 10 feet, sharing space with other detainees.
They described a harrowing scene: detainees screaming for help, a woman forced to use a toilet under the watch of male agents, and a lack of medical care for injured cellmates. "Just hearing the visceral pain of the people in this centre was awful," O’Keefe said, juxtaposing it with the laughter of agents.
Most critically, Sigüenza, who is Hispanic, said DHS investigators took him to another room and offered him money or legal protection for family members in exchange for names of protest organisers or undocumented neighbours. "At one point, the officer said in vague terms that it looks like I’m in trouble, and he could possibly help me out," Sigüenza recounted, adding he refused the offer as he has no undocumented family.
Release and Wider Concerns
After being allowed to speak with lawyers—with only Sigüenza permitted a phone call to his wife—the pair were released by evening without any charges. Their ordeal did not end there; they were hit with chemical agents officers were using on protesters outside the facility.
Their accusations suggest ICE is employing similar aggressive tactics—roving patrols, warrantless arrests, surveillance—in Minneapolis and St. Paul as seen in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New Orleans. An ACLU lawsuit alleges such surveillance violates activists' First Amendment rights.
These events have intensified scrutiny of ICE detention conditions nationwide, following similar lawsuits and a judge's oversight order for a Chicago-area facility. While DHS defends its facilities and touts the crackdown's success in arresting thousands, Sigüenza and O’Keefe believe their detention was a blatant attempt to intimidate critics of the administration's immigration policies.
