ICE breaks into St. Paul home at gunpoint and detains Hmong American U.S. citizen ChongLy Thao in his underwear; county probes it as kidnapping

On Sunday, January 18, 2026, masked federal immigration agents bashed open the front door of ChongLy "Scott" Thao, a 56-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen of Hmong descent, at his home in St. Paul, Minnesota. Without a warrant, the agents pointed guns at his family and led Thao outside into below-zero cold wearing only his underwear, Crocs, and a blanket. According to Thao's account to The Associated Press, he was handcuffed in front of his five-year-old grandson and driven around and questioned for an extended period before agents fingerprinted him, confirmed he is a longtime U.S. citizen with no criminal record, and returned him home without apology or explanation.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement, later said its officers had been seeking two convicted sex offenders. Thao told the AP he had never seen the two men and that they did not live with him; one of them, the Minnesota Department of Corrections indicated, was still incarcerated. Neighbors captured video of more than a dozen armed agents at the scene as people blew whistles and horns and screamed at them to leave the family alone. Ramsey County Attorney John Choi and Sheriff Bob Fletcher announced they would investigate the agents' conduct, seeking to determine whether crimes including kidnapping, burglary, or false imprisonment were committed; Fletcher emphasized that there was no dispute Thao is and has long been an American citizen.

This is recorded as one of the most prominent abuses of the federal immigration crackdown in Minnesota known as Operation Metro Surge. A warrantless, gunpoint home raid that seizes a U.S. citizen, exposes him half-clothed in dangerous cold, and detains him on mistaken identity is a denial of due process, an unlawful detention, and an act of violence in immigration enforcement — conduct so far outside lawful authority that local prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into the federal agents responsible.

Updates

2026-07-15 — Ramsey County sued DHS to compel evidence in kidnapping probe [5, 6]

On July 15, 2026, Ramsey County filed suit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in federal court, seeking to compel the agency to turn over evidence — including the identities of the masked agents who removed Thao from his home — for the county's investigation into potential kidnapping, false imprisonment, and burglary. County Attorney John Choi said his office had sent DHS a formal Touhy demand for the records in April; the federal government asked for additional time to respond in May and then went silent. The agents had worn masks and swapped out their license plates, obscuring their identities from local investigators.