The officers and agents the Trump administration has unleashed in Minneapolis and nearby communities have turned to stopping U.S. citizens, apparently at random, demanding identification and grilling them about their citizenship, residents who have recorded these encounters on video say.
The “show me your papers” encounters are showing up on social media and have even prompted podcaster Joe Rogan, a Trump backer in the 2024 campaign, to ask, “Are we really going to be the Gestapo?”
One man, Gage Diego Garcia, said he was held for six hours on Monday in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, after an encounter with officers that he told NBC News began when he was leaning into his friend’s car in an alleyway.
“They came off pretty aggressive and asking for my ID. I refused because I had done nothing wrong,” Garcia said. He said that, as he started to blow a whistle draped around his neck, agents “got angry and grabbed him.”
Video recorded by a friend shows officers pushing Garcia onto the side of a car and pointing a Taser at him. The video does not show what happened before the officers grabbed Garcia. Garcia told NBC News later that officers grabbed him when he was trying to blow his whistle and an officer accused him of committing assault by spitting at him.
“All I needed was your f---ing ID,” a masked officer said. Garcia responds to the officer using expletives. The officer responds, “You’re a f---ing b--- and you are gonna learn the f---ing hard way.”
As officers search his pockets, one finds his firearm, saying, “He has a gun on him! Look at that.” Garcia interjects, saying, “a fully registered firearm ‘cause I’m a U.S. citizen.” Later in the arrest, as the two argue, an officer is heard saying, “You are a f---ing citizen, you shouldn’t have done that.” It’s unclear what the officer was referring to when he said that.
Garcia said that as he was being driven to the Whipple Building in Minneapolis, officers told him in response to his question that he was picked up because he looked like someone who committed a crime. “When I asked what crime, I was told, ‘we’ll figure it out,’” he said.
He also said officers told him, “I could have f---ing smoked you,” and that things “could have gone really south for you like those agents did to Renee Good.” Good was fatally shot last week by an officer who fired through her windshield as she drove forward on a Minneapolis street. She was a U.S. citizen.
The Department of Homeland Security said the media is “peddling a false narrative” and “attempting to demonize” law enforcement, which it says are being attacked and assaulted at significantly higher rates.
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement emailed to NBC News that Garcia fled on foot when he saw the officers, “giving them reasonable suspicion.” She said Garcia became “extremely hostile” and alleged he physically assaulted one officer by spitting on his face. McLaughlin did not specifically address Garcia’s allegations regarding what officers said to him as he was being driven to the Whipple Building.
McLaughlin said the Fourth Amendment allows law enforcement to use “reasonable suspicion” to make arrests,” and that the Supreme Court recently affirmed its authority to do so.
McLaughlin was referring to a September 2025 Supreme Court ruling that allowed immigration officers to continue immigration patrols using race, ethnicity and language as factors in stopping individuals. Opponents have said it allows for racial profiling. McLaughlin said DHS “enforces federal immigration law without fear, favor or prejudice.”
The Fourth Amendment also protects individuals from unlawful search and seizure.
David Schultz, an attorney and legal studies professor at Hamline University in St. Paul, said U.S. citizens do not have to provide identification or prove their citizenship when out walking or standing in a street or in public.
“We have a First Amendment right of association, to be out on the street and we don’t have any requirement to have an ID,” Schultz said.
In one encounter Sunday, a woman was stopped and grilled about her citizenship while walking in her neighborhood. Nimco Omar of Minneapolis said she was confused when, as she started walking after parking her car, she heard commands for her to stop. Suddenly several people she thought were soldiers began running toward her.
“I was like, what’s going on? Did I do something? Is something happening? Is it war?” she told NBC News in an interview in Minneapolis.
She said when she heard someone ask for her citizenship she realized they were immigration officers. Fearing she’d be “kidnapped,” she pulled out her phone to record the encounter.
The video shows a masked officer threatening to put her in a vehicle to ID her if she doesn’t provide identification. Omar calmly responds that she doesn’t need an ID to walk around her city and that she is a U.S. citizen, declining to provide her identification.
The officer continues to insist on identification and says, “We are doing an immigration check. We are doing a citizen check.” He repeatedly asks where she was born and informs her that if she’s lying about being a citizen, she can face federal charges.
Other such encounters were recorded in Minneapolis.
Last weekend, officers walked up to a man pumping gas and asked if he was a U.S. citizen, demanding to see documentation. The man responds, “I don’t have to show you.” As with Omar, the officer in this encounter states that the man can show him ID there or he can take him aside. The man provides what appears to be a license, but the officer continues to ask whether he is naturalized, where he was born and when he was naturalized. In another incident, officers questioned a man at a vehicle charging station.
DHS did not provide information on the citizenship status of the people approached in these encounters.
In her statement, McLaughlin did not provide details about the incidents with Omar, the man pumping gas or the man at the vehicle charging station.
These are not the first such encounters. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., said in December that her son was pulled over and asked about his citizenship. The Department of Homeland Security has said it has no record of the encounter.
The administration has sent about 3,000 officers and agents to Minneapolis, a city of 430,000. Much of the enforcement activity has taken place in south Minneapolis, where a federal officer fatally shot Good.
Schultz advised that U.S. citizens who are stopped should keep their composure, as Omar did. They should ask why they are being stopped and they should ask if they are under arrest. If the officers say no, they should then ask if they are free to leave.
He said he would never turn over ID and “we don’t have any requirement in our society to prove who we are to walk the streets,” he said.
When driving a car and if pulled over for probable cause, showing a driver’s license is required. But he said you are not required to say whether you are a citizen, though some states, not including Minnesota, have laws that allow authorities to question immigration status.
Shaquille Brewster and Kailani Koenig reported from Minneapolis, Colin Sheeley from New York and Suzanne Gamboa from San Antonio.
