Documents show federal surveillance operation in Minnesota targeted
progressive groups, unions
[August 14, 2026]
By TIM SULLIVAN and JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Federal agents launched a sweeping undercover
surveillance operation earlier this year targeting progressive
organizations, labor unions and other groups protesting the immigration
crackdown then raging through Minneapolis, according to court documents
filed Thursday.
The program, dubbed Operation Puppet Master, was aimed at what officials
called a network of conspirators helping “violent opportunists and
agitators.” The documents were filed in a case involving 15 people
charged by federal prosecutors in June with impeding the crackdown,
accusing them of conspiring against the federal government through a
range of actions, from throwing ice chunks to setting up blockades.
The government documents were released Thursday in connection with a
motion from a defense lawyer in the case, Kevin Riach, who requested
that officials disclose more material collected during the
investigations.
The reality, according to government documents revealed in court
motions, was Department of Homeland Security officers infiltrating
meetings in churches, schools and parks that were often simply
discussions of constitutionally protected protests.
A statement from the department said Homeland Security Investigations
doesn’t comment on the existence or status of on-going investigations or
investigative methods. The statement referred questions to the U.S.
attorney’s office in Minnesota, which didn’t immediately respond to an
after-hours email from The Associated Press.
Puppet Master, and a later operation called Project Whipple Shield, were
a “broad and irrational investigation” driven by politics and not
criminal conduct, Riach said in a motion filed Thursday.
Take, for example, a Jan. 31 meeting in a Minneapolis library, when a
Homeland Security report says an undercover officer identified as “UCA
9833” listened as supporters of a progressive climate group, the Sunrise
Movement, discussed sit-ins, de-escalation tactics and “having a police
liaison and safety marshal present during events.”
“During the Action meeting, it was made clear that the Sunrise Movement
organization focused on ‘peaceful’ protests,” the agent reported.
Dozens of pages of documents describe agents secretly infiltrating
meetings, monitoring activist chat groups and using license plate
numbers to compile names of people who attended gatherings.
A slide created by Homeland Security’s investigative branch titled “The
Conspiracy” shows 18 organizations, from a small Minneapolis bicycle
repair collective to the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor groups
in the U.S.
The government also obtained years of certain financial records for
groups ranging from the Sunrise Movement to major unions, including the
Service Employees International Union and the Communications Workers of
America.
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Federal immigration officers confront protesters outside Bishop
Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, on Thursday, Jan. 15,
2026. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)
“You are requested not to disclose the existence of this summons for
an indefinite period of time,” warned a DHS request to FedWire, a
money transfer system operated by the U.S. Federal Reserve.
“It's very disturbing,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, a professor at the
University of California, Los Angeles School of Law. Over time, it
could deter people from expressing their beliefs, he said.
Many people don’t want to live in a world where expressing their
beliefs gives federal agencies the right to investigate them, he
said.
“It’s that fear of that creeping police state,” he said.
Groups that the government investigated were furious at the news.
“Our union has become the latest target of a corrupt administration
that weaponizes the legal process against law-abiding Americans
exercising our Constitutional rights,” CWA President Claude Cummings
Jr. said in a statement. “We will not be intimidated, and we will
not be silenced.”
The AP News Guild, the union that represents many Associated Press
employees, is part of the CWA.
On Thursday, a coalition of Minneapolis-area civil society groups
defended the protests and criticized the investigations.
The government is “lashing out desperately in hopes of intimidating
people and organizations that have shown the power of communities
acting together," said a statement distributed by Unidos MN, a local
human rights group.
DHS deployed about 3,000 federal officers to the Minneapolis-St.
Paul area for roughly three months starting late last year in what
the department called its “ largest immigration enforcement
operation ever.” It led to thousands of arrests, angry mass protests
and the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens.
Minnesota U.S. Attorney Daniel N. Rosen said the 15 were part of two
groups that he characterized as “antifa,” an umbrella term for a
diffuse movement of militant left-wing activists.
Defense attorney Riach said at the time that his client, Isaac Sant,
had no affiliation with antifa, which he called “a boogeyman
invented by the far-right.”
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Kelleher reported from Honolulu.
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