Sue Tincher got an alert from a neighborhood Signal group on Tuesday, Dec. 9, that federal immigration agents were knocking on a door about 10 blocks from her home in north Minneapolis.
Tincher, 55, who had just joined the rapid response Signal group, immediately drove to the 2100 block of Oliver Avenue N. to observe the immigration enforcement.
Tincher said she was arrested by federal agents at the scene for allegedly refusing to back up and was in custody for more than five hours before being released midday. While she sat in a cell, Tincher said she mostly thought about the immigrant detainees also in the building who “had no way to contact their families.”
“I had no fear that I wasn’t going to [eventually] get out,” she said. “I felt, ‘Yeah, I can do this for the cause.’ I’m trying to help people who are being kidnapped and imprisoned and sent to other countries.”
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson for the Midwest region did not return a phone call or email seeking comment regarding Tincher’s arrest.
Hours after Tincher’s arrest Tuesday, ICE agents arrested three Somali U.S. citizens in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of south Minneapolis, according to the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. A Minneapolis man who identified himself as Mubashir appeared at a Tuesday evening news conference organized by CAIR-MN, and said he repeatedly told federal officers he was a U.S. citizen but was ignored, and that he was targeted simply because he is Somali.
“This is not a targeted raid against undocumented [people] or people who violated the law, these are just lawful U.S. citizens who are being harassed and detained,” CAIR-MN Executive Director Jaylani Hussein told Sahan Journal.
In a letter sent to U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem Wednesday, Gov. Tim Walz cited both Tincher and Mubashir’s arrests. Walz urged Noem to “immediately review the circumstances surrounding all recent arrests and whether agents possessed a judicial warrant authorizing detention, search, or seizure at the location in question.”
“The forcefulness, lack of communication, and unlawful practices displayed by your agents will not be tolerated in Minnesota,” Walz wrote. “Any federal agents that acted unlawfully should immediately be placed on administrative leave.”
Erika Zurawski, a co-founder of the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC), told Sahan Journal that before Tuesday, she had not heard of any instances of ICE arresting and detaining U.S. citizens in Minnesota. She stressed that bystanders have a legal right to show up at ICE enforcement events.
“The power you have is to observe and document how they behave and treat people,” Zurawski said.
She offered advice: “Don’t run up on them or startle them. Don’t make any fast movements.”
Zurawski also recommends that people who show up have an attorney’s phone number handy in case they are arrested.
“Don’t answer any of ICE’s questions other than asserting you are a U.S. citizen,” she said. “They have no authority over you.”
Neighbors mobilize
Tincher told Sahan Journal she joined the Signal group “because I am very concerned about what’s happening to our community.” Residents across the Twin Cities have been mobilizing on Signal and social media to respond to immigration enforcement activity, blowing whistles and following suspected ICE vehicles.
North Minneapolis resident Sue Tincher was arrested by federal agents on Dec. 9, 2025, when she showed up to observe an immigration action in her neighborhood. Credit: Provided
When Tincher arrived at the scene of Tuesday’s enforcement, she said she saw federal officers entering a home. She was across the street from the home that ICE agents were in.
“An officer told me to get back,” she said. “I didn’t get back.”
Instead, Tincher said she repeatedly asked the officer if he was with ICE.
Other officers came over and “knocked me to the ground,” she said. They then handcuffed her and placed her in a van, eventually driving her and two Latino detainees to the Bishop Henry Whipple Building at Fort Snelling, which houses immigration court.
Shortly after officers arrested Tincher around 6:20 a.m., her husband, Jim, who had stayed home to take care of a water leak, received an alert about the incident from the Signal group. He watched a video of the arrest that was shared with him, which starts as Sue is already on the ground and ends with her being taken to the van as she yells, “Help!”
“Oh my God. It was ridiculous,” Jim Tincher said. “There was no need to slam her to the ground.”
He had no idea where his wife was, and spent the morning calling elected officials for help, including Minneapolis Council Members Jeremiah Ellison and Linea Palmisano, as well as Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. All of their offices were helpful, Jim Tincher said.
Sue Tincher said she sat in a holding cell with shackles on her legs for a little more than five hours. She said ICE agents read her her Miranda rights after she was placed in the cell and requested to interview her, which she declined because a lawyer wasn’t present. She later pushed an intercom button in her cell and asked for an attorney.
Two immigration attorneys Jim Tincher contacted offered to visit the Bishop Henry Whipple Building, where they suspected Sue was being held. They succeeded in releasing her.
Tincher said she sat in the cell alone with her legs shackled until her release shortly after noon. She also said that an officer told her at one point that she would be charged with obstructing a federal agent. Tincher denies that her actions obstructed the raid.
She added that officers cut her wedding ring off of her finger after she entered the building. She said she sustained no serious injury, but added that her hand is still bruised from tight handcuffing.
Both Sue and Jim Tincher said the incident will motivate them to show up at future ICE raids as bystanders.
