A Minnesota man said he felt fear, shame and desperation a day after ICE officers broke down his door with guns drawn, handcuffed him and dragged him into the snow wearing shorts and sandals.
ChongLy Thao, 56, a naturalized U.S. citizen who goes by the name Scott, was returned some time later Sunday without explanation or apology, he said.
“They just took me out there with no clothes on and then just covered with my grandson’s blanket. Yeah, they just took me out there, and I was like, ‘Man, this is, this is embarrassing,” Thao, a Hmong man born in Laos, said from the home Monday while neighbors were at work fixing the broken door.
Videos of the incident showing Thao barely clothed and covered in a blanket spread on social media, further fueling public outrage from some about the tactics being used in President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in the Minneapolis area, where 3,000 agents have been deployed.
Louansee Moua, Thao’s sister-in-law, said it was frigid and snowing when Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers took him from the house. “It was so heartbreaking seeing him in that image,” Moua said. “You can’t get it out of your head. He has no clothes, and it’s, like, 12 degrees and it’s snowing.”
Moua said her brother-in-law went willingly with the officers without knowing why he was being detained. “He went willingly because he was afraid,” she said, adding that Thao’s demeanor is very generous and laid-back.
The Department of Homeland Security said that officers were investigating two convicted sex offenders at the address and that a U.S. citizen living there refused to be fingerprinted or facially identified, so he was detained.
“He matched the description of the targets. 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 said in a statement.
In a statement Monday, Thao’s family said the agency’s account did not reflect their firsthand knowledge of the events or the living situation at the residence.
“The only individuals residing at the home are Mr. Thao, his adult son, his daughter-in-law, and his young grandson. The family does not know the individuals referenced in DHS’s statement,” the family said.
Thao’s family said officials did not present a warrant or request ID before he was detained.
“Mr. Thao did not resist and went with agents voluntarily, despite the absence of an explanation for his detention at the time,” the family said in its statement.
A U.S. district Judge in Minnesota issued an injunction Friday blocking the Trump administration from some aggressive tactics that she said would “chill” an ordinary citizen from engaging in constitutionally protected protest. The Trump administration is appealing her injunction.
Thao said that his parents brought him from Laos to the United States in 1974 when he was 4 and that he became a U.S. citizen in 1991. During Sunday’s ordeal, he said, he feared being sent back to Laos, where he has no relatives.
He said he was singing karaoke when there was a loud noise at the door. He and his family hid in a bedroom, where the federal officers found him. Thao said he was trying to find his ID as officers escorted him out of the house.
Thao was wearing only boxer shorts and Crocs on his feet when officers denied him the chance to put on more clothes, he said. He used a blanket that his 4-year-old grandson had been sleeping with on the couch to cover his torso.
After they took his fingerprints and a photograph of him in the car, officers returned him to his home, Thao said.
Chris Thao, his son, said: “We came here for a purpose, right? … To have a bright future. To have 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?”
@ NBC News
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