U.S. judge orders curbs on immigration agents' conduct toward Minnesota protesters

MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) - A federal judge in Minnesota ordered U.S. immigration agents deployed en masse to Minneapolis to curb some of the tactics they have used against observers and protesters of their enforcement actions.

Handing a victory to local activists in Minnesota's most populous city, U.S. District Judge Kate Menendez issued an injunction barring federal agents from retaliating against individuals engaged in peaceful, unobstructive protest activity.

Officers are explicitly prohibited from arresting or detaining peaceful protesters or people engaged in orderly observations, absent reasonable suspicion that the individuals have committed a crime or are interfering with law enforcement.

Federal agents also are banned from using pepper spray, tear gas or other crowd-control munitions against peaceful demonstrators or bystanders observing and recording the immigration enforcement operations, the judge ruled.

The ruling comes nearly two weeks after the Trump administration announced the deployment of 2,000 immigration agents to the Minneapolis area in what the U.S. Department of Homeland Security called its largest such operation in history.

The surge in heavily armed officers from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and Border Patrol has since grown to nearly 3,000, dwarfing the ranks of local police officers in the Twin Cities metropolitan area of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Tensions over the deployment have mounted considerably since an ICE agent fatally shot a 37-year-old mother of three, Renee Good, behind the wheel of her car in January.

At the time, Good was taking part in one of numerous neighborhood patrols organized by local activists to track and monitor ICE activities.