By Ted Hesson, Kristina Cooke and Brad Heath
WASHINGTON, Feb 10 (Reuters) – Becky Ringstrom was heading home after following federal immigration officials in her gray Kia SUV in suburban Minneapolis when she was suddenly boxed in by unmarked vehicles. At least half a dozen undercover agents jumped in to arrest her, one banging her on the windshield with a metal object as if threatening to use it to break the window.
After the arrest, captured on bystander video verified by Reuters, the 42-year-old mother of seven later said she was transported to the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in downtown Minneapolis where an officer handed her a citation charging her under a federal law that criminalizes obstructing law enforcement. The official said her name and photo will be added to a government database.
Ringstrom’s arrest became the latest detention of one of thousands of local activists for violating Title 18, Section 111 of the United States Code, an all-out charge for anyone who “attacks, resists, opposes, impedes, intimidates or forcibly interferes” with a federal official performing official duties. The statute can be charged as a misdemeanor or misdemeanor. As a crime, it carries up to 20 years in prison, but sentences of more than eight years are reserved for people who use a “deadly or dangerous weapon” or cause injury.
A Reuters review of federal court records found that the Trump administration has deported at least 655 people on that charge across the United States since a series of immigration crackdowns focused on the city began last summer. That’s more than double the prosecutions during the same period in 2024-2025, according to a review of publicly available criminal files at Westlaw, a legal research database owned by Thomson Reuters.
Reuters used artificial intelligence in some cases to classify payments, with a spot check showing 98% accuracy. The numbers are nationwide and Reuters could not determine how many were connected to immigration enforcement, how many were charged with crimes, or resulted in convictions.
The charges are part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to crack down on opponents of ICE, who they portray as rioters who threaten officers and undermine their efforts to arrest immigrants with criminal records.
“Assaulting and obstructing law enforcement is a crime,” said US Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin. She said federal immigration officials “used the minimum amount of force necessary to protect themselves, the public, and federal property.”
ICE has been tracking the names of protesters in an internal database for several months, according to two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the operations.
The government database contains names, photos, suspicious actions, locations and license plates, officials said, adding that the effort was intended to find patterns that could lead to charges.
The DHS said it does not maintain a database of US “domestic terrorists,” but does track threats. “Of course we monitor and investigate and refer all threats, assaults and obstruction of our officers to the appropriate law enforcement,” McLaughlin said.
One of the officials said ICE was referring several people a day in Minnesota alone to federal prosecutors for potential charges under the same law for interfering with police operations.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the Trump administration was committed to protecting First Amendment freedoms, but that people who obstruct law enforcement “will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”
OBSERVE ICE
Ringstrom watched federal immigration officials for about 45 minutes as they sat in a car parked in her neighborhood on Thursday, Jan. 29. When they started moving, she decided to follow her SUV, keeping a distance of multiple car lengths behind, she said.
At a roundabout, a Border Patrol agent approached her car and said, “I’m going to warn you one last time,” according to a video that Ringstrom recorded on her phone.
The officers went straight at a stop sign and she went left, she said. Several minutes later as she started to walk back home, multiple vehicles with federal officers pulled up and arrested her, she said.
“I know what I’m doing is not wrong,” Ringstrom said later in an interview with Reuters.
Still, she said she was horrified when federal officers approached her car. “There was a moment where I thought I could be Renee Good,” she said, referring to one of two US citizen protesters fatally shot by federal immigration officials in Minneapolis in January.
After her arrest, a subpoena, reviewed by Reuters, was issued that said the court date was “TBD” – to be determined.
McLaughlin said Ringstrom “obstructed law enforcement and attempted to hinder law enforcement from performing their sworn duties.”
Seth Stoughton, a professor focused on policing at the University of South Carolina School of Law, said the law in the past has been used mostly to charge assaults on officers and specifically state that the alleged crime must be committed “by force.”
“With no physical contact, just following an agent in a car, it’s not clear to me that that’s resistance or an impediment in the first place, and it certainly seems like a stretch to establish that as forced,” Stoughton said.
A federal judge in Minneapolis said in a mid-January order that a vehicle following ICE at a “reasonable distance” does not warrant a traffic stop or arrest, but that order was stayed by an appeals court 10 days later.
The judge’s order now stands without saying what exact distance would be considered safe.
Deborah Fleischaker, ICE’s top official under former President Joe Biden, said it was “improper and unconstitutional” to intimidate and arrest peaceful people who follow immigration officials in their cars.
“Observation of ICE activities is not a crime and should not be treated as such,” she said.
McLaughlin said US Border Patrol agents on the scene gave Ringstrom “legal commands and warnings” but that she continued to obstruct operations, which led to her arrest.
“When agitators voluntarily involve themselves and inject themselves into law enforcement operations, they are risking arrest as well as endangering the safety of themselves and those around them,” said McLaughlin.
VIDEOS SHOW OFFICER ICE DRAWING WEAPONS
While new internal ICE guidance, reported by Reuters in late January, instructed officers not to engage with protesters, the meetings did not stop.
Two videos in recent weeks verified by Reuters showed ICE officers drawing their weapons as they approached vehicles that were allegedly following them.
In south Minneapolis on Jan. 29, the same day Ringstrom was arrested, federal immigration officials swerved, stopped their vehicle and approached a woman driving behind them with guns drawn, according to dashcam footage from her vehicle first reported by Minnesota Public Radio and verified by Reuters.
McLaughlin said ICE officers were trying to arrest a criminal when the woman began “groping and obstructing” prompting officers to try to arrest her.
“Law enforcement officers tried to pull her over using their emergency lights to alert her,” McLaughlin said. “Ignoring the commands of law enforcement, the agitator refused to pull over and began to drive recklessly including running stop signs, almost colliding with many vehicles, and driving directly into law enforcement in an attempt to confuse their vehicle.”
Reuters could not independently verify whether the woman ignored commands or drove recklessly.
In a separate incident on Feb. 3, two ICE officers approached a pursuing car, again with guns drawn, according to video verified by Reuters and a DHS statement.
The US Department of Homeland Security said the vehicle was “stalking” and “obstructing” ICE officers.
“The agitators then followed the officers as they left and made hand motions suggesting they had a firearm,” DHS said.
Reuters could not independently verify the agency’s account. The video reviewed by Reuters showed the vehicles once they stopped.
Under Trump, many DHS statements after violent encounters with immigration agents have been inaccurate or incomplete.
SNOW AT YOUR FRONT DOOR
Some Minnesota residents say they believe they are becoming the subject of an intimidation campaign.
In a suburb north of St. Paul on Jan. 22, an ICE officer led a woman who was following his vehicle back to her home, making it clear he knew her identity and address, a Reuters-verified video filmed by the man showed.
The woman’s husband spoke with the ICE officer outside the couple’s home. When the man questioned the tactic, the officer said, “You raise your voice, I’ll erase your voice,” the video showed.
One ICE official told Reuters they drove the pursuers back to their homes after running their license plates “to cut them off.”
McLaughlin said ICE will review the body camera footage and investigate the incident in St. Paul, but did not comment on ICE using the tactic to intimidate opponents.
Earlier in January, two friends – Brandon Siguenza and Patty O’Keefe – who were following an ICE vehicle in Minneapolis said officers fired pepper spray into their car, broke their car window and detained them for eight hours.
McLaughlin said the officers gave them multiple warnings “to stop disrupting” the operations, but that they “chose to continue confronting law enforcement and were arrested.”
“The passenger refused to roll through the window and exit the vehicle,” McLaughlin said. “ICE law enforcement followed their training and used the minimum amount of force necessary to make the arrest.”
McLaughlin did not explicitly confirm that the officers broke the car window or used pepper spray.
Siguenza and O’Keefe were not charged.
(Reporting by Ted Hesson and Brad Heath in Washington, and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco. Additional reporting by Maria Tsvetkova, Monica Naime, Vinaya K, Marine Delrue, Tiffany Le, Fernando Robles and Gerardo Gomez. Editing by Craig Timberg, Diane Craft and Michael Learmonth)