A grandfather has spoken of his terror after ICE agents stormed a family home and hauled him out semi-clothed into the snow at gunpoint in front of his grandkids.
Amid Donald Trump’s escalating immigration crackdown in Minnesota, armed officers burst through the door of ChongLy “Scott” Thao on Sunday, while he was singing karaoke with his relatives.
After hearing the commotion at the front door, Thao and his family retreated to a bedroom, where federal officers eventually discovered them.
The agents then dragged the 56-year-old U.S. citizen, who was wearing only boxer shorts and Crocs, into the snowy street as temperatures hovered around 14 F, as he pleaded with them that he was an American.
Thao, a Hmong American born in Laos, came to the U.S. with his parents at the age of 4 and became a U.S. citizen in 1991. During the ICE raid, Thao told Reuters on Monday, he used the blanket his own 4-year-old grandson had been sleeping under to cover his bare torso.
“I was praying. I was like, God, please help me, I didn’t do anything wrong. Why do they do this to me? Without my clothes on,” Thao told the outlet as his friends fixed the broken door.
With hysterical neighbors filming the scene, Thao was taken to an ICE vehicle, fingerprinted and photographed, then returned home without charges, explanation, or apology, he said.
He described feeling “fear, shame, and desperation” over the incident. A statement from his family called the treatment “unnecessary, degrading, and deeply traumatizing.”
Thao’s experience has shattered the idea that citizenship would shield his family from such scenes. “We came here for a purpose, right? To have a bright future. To have a safe place to live… If this is going to turn out to be America, what are we doing here? Why are we here?” he added.
The Department of Homeland Security insisted agents were at the property looking for two convicted sex offenders with deportation orders, and said a U.S. citizen at the address who “refused to be fingerprinted or facially identified” was detained because he matched their description.
“As with any law enforcement agency, it is standard protocol to hold all individuals in a house of an operation for safety of the public and law enforcement,” DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told Reuters in a statement.
Wanted posters issued by DHS name two Laotian men described as “criminal illegal alien[s]” still at large. Relatives told Reuters that one of the men had lived at the house but moved out, and is the ex-husband of a Thao family member.
The raid unfolded under “Operation Metro Surge,” the Trump administration’s massive enforcement blitz that has sent roughly 3,000 ICE and Border Patrol agents into Minnesota in what officials have billed as the largest immigration operation in U.S. history.
Metro Surge has swelled after ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed 37-year-old U.S. citizen and mother of three Renee Nicole Good during an immigration operation in Minneapolis, an incident that triggered mass protests across the Twin Cities.
Good was shot in her car on Jan. 7 as she attempted to drive away from a protest. The Trump administration claims she tried to run over agents, but multiple local officials have said video of the encounter contradicts that narrative.
Good’s death and the administration’s shifting explanations have fueled a congressional push to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, 54.
After weeks of clashes between officers and demonstrators, U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez issued a sweeping injunction on Friday restricting what federal agents can do to protesters and observers.
Menendez wrote that “conduct includes the drawing and pointing of weapons; the use of pepper spray and other non-lethal munitions; actual and threatened arrest and detainment of protesters and observers; and other intimidation tactics” would “chill” ordinary citizens from exercising constitutionally protected rights.
Her order bars agents from arresting peaceful protesters, using pepper spray or “crowd dispersal tools” as retaliation for speech, or stopping cars without reasonable suspicion that occupants are forcibly interfering with operations. The Trump administration has already lodged an appeal.
The Daily Beast has contacted the Department of Homeland Security for comment and to offer it a chance to apologize to Thao. It did not immediately reply.
