St. Paul, MN — A new federal indictment has charged 15 Minnesotans in an eight-count felony conspiracy for their activism during Operation Metro Surge. Filed on June 11 and unsealed on June 16, the grand jury indictment led to 12 arrests across the Twin Cities on Tuesday and protests outside the federal courthouse. Read the searchable indictment here.

Protests continued on Wednesday as two more of the 15 had their initial court hearings. During the hearings, the judge denied many of the government’s motions and did not remand any defendants into custody. The last of the 15 indicted was already in federal custody. Among those indicted are trade unionists and educators.

Using mainly Signal chat messages and social media postings centered around the large protests that “shut down operations at the Federal Whipple Building” on Jan. 23 and March 1, the government alleges that the 15 “members and associates” of Direct Action Minnesota (DAMN) conspired to impede federal officials from their immigration enforcement duties, violating Title 18 U.S. Code § 372.

Seeking to further criminalize legal observing and protesting, the indictment features 269 overt acts related to the alleged conspiracy, which include posting opinions to Facebook, being present at protests, attending meetings where direct actions were spoken upon, and wearing certain clothes.

Listed as the alleged purposes of the conspiracy are:

• Opposing the authority of the United States government;
• Preventing the enforcement of federal immigration law by force, intimidation, and threats;
• Preventing, hindering, or delaying by force the execution of the laws governing the identification, detention, and removal of non-citizens, to include the Immigration and Nationality Act;
• Preventing, impeding, and interfering federal law enforcement from discharging their duties, including enforcement of federal immigration law by force, intimidation, and threats.

The indictment calls many of the defendants “anarchists” and “antifascists,” both descriptors newly named as “terror groups” in the latest White House counterterrorism strategy.

In a press release put out by the Department of Justice (DOJ), DAMN, which was formerly Twin Cities Direct Action (TCDA) according to the indictment, was described as “a Minneapolis-based direct action group with antifa ties.” In Homeland Security’s press release, they note the arrest of “15 anti-ICE rioters in Minnesota, including some affiliated with antifa.”

These charges are a continuation of Trump’s vindictive domestic policies against the left as he directs federal agencies to go after political opponents using NSPM-7 and his executive order designating antifa as a domestic terrorist organization.

This follows the contentious Prairieland case, the Spokane three case, and the politically motivated Righteous 39 case in Minnesota. Aside from the 39, there have also been up to 36 other federal felony cases in the state brought against community members resisting the federal occupation. Unlike the Prairieland and Spokane outcomes of guilty verdicts, half of the 36 Minnesota felonies are reported to have been dropped before trial because of prosecutorial mishandling, false charging or lack of actual evidence. 18 were dropped (three “with prejudice,” which means they cannot be refiled) and 11 more “effectively dropped through nonprosecution agreements,” according to MPR News.

This is also the same executive branch that used AI to alter photos of activist Nekima Levy Armstrong after arresting her in January, and the same DOJ, which claims that the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization, invented and funded racist hate groups to victimize them and has in turn indicted them on wire fraud charges.

The Trump-nominated U.S. Attorney of Minnesota, Daniel Rosen, held a press conference Tuesday morning laying out the basis of the indictment.

“In order to achieve the ends of the conspiracy,” Rosen said, “DAMN was highly organized, holding meetings on a regular basis and engaged in what they call operational security, or OPSEC.”

Among the overt acts listed in the indictment are at least 9 meetings which are suspected to have been infiltrated by either confidential informants or federal agents. Starting with an ’emergency resistance to ICE meeting’ on Jan. 11 and ending with a DAMN meeting on May 26, the list of meetings and locations noted in the indictment are as follows:

• Jan. 11 – “Emergency Meeting on Resistance to ICE Operation” discussing Jan. 23 direct action
• Jan. 27 – After-action meeting at the Democratic Socialists of America office
• Feb. 1 – TCDA meeting (unclear if this was in-person or virtual because no location was given)
• Feb. 12 – TCDA virtual meeting
• Feb. 13 – TCDA “vetted” members only meeting (unclear of the location, but details suggest it was in-person)
• Feb. 15 – Workers Assembly at United Labor Center (attended by hundreds of people)
• Feb. 17 – TCDA meeting on Pleasant Ave. in St. Paul
• May 12 – DAMN meeting in St. Paul
• May 26 – DAMN meeting in St. Paul

Within the indictment, there are 53 instances where “unindicted coconspirators” are mentioned, mostly from Signal chat group messages. It’s unclear if these “unindicted” mentions are of people who they didn’t have enough information or evidence to indict, or if the non-indicted are working with the government, or for some other reason.

Signal is an open-source encrypted messaging service regularly used by millions of people. In the Prairieland case, federal authorities were able to recover messages from Signal using the phone’s internal notification storage despite the app being removed and potentially disappearing messages set.

There is also an indication from the indictment of the listed overt acts numbered 68, 92, and 158 that at least one person was under video surveillance of some sort.

On top of the conspiracy, two of the 15 were additionally charged with interstate stalking for following feds from Whipple to Wisconsin. Two others were additionally charged with assault on federal officers and another was charged with destruction of government property.

The defendant already in federal custody is Kyle Wagner, who was previously charged with cyberstalking and threatening agents and arrested in early February. He was given additional charges of solicitation to commit a crime of violence and interstate threats.

At least 11 videos posted by Wagner to his Instagram account were listed in the indictment as overt acts to the conspiracy. One of Wagner’s videos, where he called for protesters to practice their Second Amendment rights, was featured during the DOJ presser.

Slipped into the overt acts section is the clothing Wagner was wearing when he was arrested in February. Wagner “wore a sweatshirt that had ‘I’m Antifa!’ on the front,” said the indictment, and that he “possessed multiple Antifa patches at his residence.” The indictment also took space to note that Wagner allegedly said in a message that he felt his purpose was to “give [the feds] a face to hate so they aren’t focused on the real movement behind the scenes. I’m a spectacle — a punch able face and loud mouth — everything they hate…”

During the DOJ’s presser on Tuesday, Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent in Charge Michael McCarthy said that the “arrests are an important milestone but this is not the finish line.”

Rosen then evaded questions from the press asking how many federal officers were injured, since activists were indicted on assault charges, and what their injuries were. Federal officers killed two white Minneapolis residents and shot an immigrant within a 10-day span in January. Only one of the officers involved is facing state charges for the non-fatal shooting.

The Twin Cities metro is still reeling from the collective trauma caused by the federal occupation that galvanized thousands of community members to become legal observers, to defend their neighbors and stand together to resist the violent agents who roamed lawlessly through the streets, protected by local authorities.

A media statement from Communities United Against Police Brutality (CUAPB) notes that “the framing in the indictment is meant to make people who defend our neighbors seem scary or violent when, in fact, it was federal agents who terrorized our community and committed horrific acts of violence, including killing Renee Good and Alex Pretti and shooting Julio Sosa-Celis.”

“The people facing federal charges did nothing wrong. Their actions contributed to our community receiving the Kennedy Center Profiles in Courage award. We stand with them and are already working to ensure they have a vigorous legal and political defense.”

Michelle Gross, President of Communities United Against Police Brutality

As the indicted defendants try to piece back together their homes and lives after being raided, having their electronics taken, and being booked, the reality of legal defense is their next fight. A campaign on chuffed has started raising money for the Legal Defense Fund for MN Anti-ICE Organizers. CUAPB, which has been helping provide legal defense to some of the Righteous 39, also has a legal defense fund.

Read the searchable indictment here.

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During Tuesday’s indictment announcement presser, Daniel Rosen wore a yarmulke. Rosen is the former Minnesota chair of the pro-Israel advocacy group, AIPAC, according to Times of Israel. Rosen was also on the board of Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, which has strongly opposed the ICE campaign in Minnesota.

Greg Bovino, who ran much of Operation Metro Surge, was reported to criticize Rosen’s Orthodox Jewish faith and observances during the operation earlier this year. He “used the term ‘chosen people’ in a mocking way” and “asked, sarcastically, whether Rosen understood that Orthodox Jewish criminals don’t take weekends off.”

Rosen’s office lost six federal prosecutors during the days around that incident. Bovino resigned from federal law enforcement in March. In April, Bovino promoted an openly antisemitic, pro-Hitler writer on social media. On May 30, Bovino was the star speaker at a far-right conference in Portugal, which was pushing for “remigration” or ethnic cleansing in Europe and he described Austrian white nationalist Martin Sellner as a friend. Ten days later, Bovino was on a white nationalist Kevin DeAnna’s podcast and has formed an exploratory committee for a run for president in 2028.

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See Unicorn Riot’s ICE in Minnesota coverage:

Cover image of Daniel Rosen during press conference announcing the indictment on June 16, 2026. Screenshot from video by Clint Combs and edited by Niko Georgiades for Unicorn Riot.

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