Judge Curbs ICE Actions Against Minneapolis Protesters
Separately, Justice Department opens investigation into Minnesota’s governor and city’s mayor
Updated Jan. 16, 2026 The Wall Street Journal
A federal judge imposed new limits Friday on how immigration-enforcement officials can interact with demonstrators in Minnesota, including blocking them from pepper-spraying or arresting peaceful protesters who aren’t obstructing their work.
Separately, the Justice Department is investigating whether Minnesota’s governor and the mayor of its largest city conspired to impede federal immigration officers, people familiar with the matter said.
The probe examines statements Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey made amid last week’s killing of a woman by an immigration agent, escalating a weekslong battle between the Trump administration and Minnesota’s Democratic leaders.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were deployed en masse to Minnesota on the heels of a welfare-fraud scandal in which most of the people convicted have been Somali immigrants. ICE’s presence in the state has grown in size since protests erupted and the Department of Homeland Security has said it is the largest operation in the agency’s history.
Friday’s court order, issued by U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez, stems from a lawsuit filed last month by a group of protesters accusing immigration-enforcement officers of violating their constitutional rights to freedom of speech and against unreasonable search and seizure by law enforcement.
Besides barring federal agents from detaining or using crowd-dispersal tools against peaceful protesters, including those that are observing the activities of immigration agents, the order blocks agents from stopping drivers unless they are interfering with immigration enforcement actions. It also blocks agents from retaliating against peaceful protesters and observers.
“Plaintiffs allege they have been subject to a variety of retaliatory behavior by Defendants, including traffic stops, arrests, the indiscriminate use of chemical irritants, and pointing of firearms,” said Menendez, a Biden appointee. “These kinds of conduct are those that undoubtedly give rise to an objective chill of First Amendment rights.”
Minnesota separately sued the Trump administration earlier this week, arguing that ICE’s operations violate the state’s residual sovereignty under the 10th Amendment. A judge has yet to rule on that lawsuit.
An ICE agent’s killing of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis last week has further inflamed tensions, sparking widespread protests. Just hours after the shooting, Frey demanded that ICE “get the f— out” of the city. Walz has called the agents’ deployment “organized brutality against the people of Minnesota by our own federal government.”
The Justice Department didn’t respond to requests for comment. DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said the department “is taking appropriate and constitutional measures to uphold the rule of law and protect our officers.”
Walz’s office said he hadn’t received any notice of the Justice Department investigation, but the governor issued a statement pointing to recent federal investigations launched against political figures who have been critical of President Trump.
“Weaponizing the justice system and threatening political opponents is a dangerous, authoritarian tactic. The only person not being investigated for the shooting of Renee Good is the federal agent who shot her,” Walz said.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey denounced the Trump administration’s use of federal law enforcement after the shooting of Renee Good. ‘We want ICE out of this city,’ he told The Wall Street Journal. Photo: David Hall/WSJ
Frey, in a statement, called the investigation “an obvious attempt to intimidate me for standing up for Minneapolis, our local law enforcement, and our residents against the chaos and danger this administration has brought to our streets.”
Videos of the shooting, which took place on a residential street south of downtown Minneapolis, were shared widely on social media.
DHS said an agent fired in self-defense after Good attempted to run over officers, but state and city officials have disputed that version of events after seeing videos on social media that support witness accounts that Good was attempting to flee the scene rather than harm anyone.
Write to Sadie Gurman at sadie.gurman@wsj.com and John McCormick at mccormick.john@wsj.com
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Appeared in the January 17, 2026, print edition as 'DOJ Investigates Minnesota Governor'.