ICE pepper-sprayed and detained two citizen legal observers in Minneapolis; one says HSI tried to recruit him as an informant

On the night of January 11-12, 2026, during the federal immigration-enforcement surge in the Twin Cities known as Operation Metro Surge, Brandon Siguenza and Patricia O'Keefe were doing legal-observer work near 16th Avenue S. and E. 42nd Street in south Minneapolis, following an ICE vehicle to document its activity. When agents stopped and surrounded their car a second time, the two put their hands in the air. Agents pepper-sprayed the vehicle's intake vent, smashed its windows, and pulled Siguenza and O'Keefe out, handcuffing them and placing them in separate unmarked SUVs. Both were arrested on a verbal "obstruction" charge that was never formally filed. A Snopes investigation independently geolocated the arrest and corroborated the pepper-spraying and window-smashing using video shot by neighbors from multiple angles, beyond Siguenza's and O'Keefe's own accounts.

The pair, both U.S. citizens, were taken to the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, an ICE staging facility at the decommissioned Fort Snelling military base, and held separately for roughly eight hours without charge. Siguenza says he was interrogated three times: in the first two, agents identifying themselves as Homeland Security Investigations personnel asked about people in his neighborhood without legal status and about protesters who had confronted ICE, and he declined to answer; in a third, he says three HSI agents told him he was "in some trouble" and offered to help bring family members outside the country into the United States, and separately offered him money, in exchange for the names of protest organizers and of undocumented people he knew. Siguenza, who has no relatives seeking entry, says he declined. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin disputed the account in an on-record statement, saying "any claim that DHS is offering money to agitators for information leading to the arrest of illegal aliens is FALSE," and said Siguenza and O'Keefe had themselves committed a felony by "stalking and obstructing ICE law enforcement." Through their cell windows, both detainees say they witnessed crowded holding cells and heard other detainees crying and being denied bathroom access; O'Keefe was never permitted a phone call during her detention.

Both were released without charge around 6 p.m. Agents directed Siguenza to walk into a nearby area where protesters had gathered; tear gas was deployed minutes later and he was struck by a projectile on the thigh, while O'Keefe was struck by a projectile that left a mark on her ankle.