"Operation Puppet Master" and Other Efforts to Suppress Anti-ICE Dissent

Thanks to a recent filing in a criminal case, information has come to light regarding Department of Homeland Security efforts to investigate left-leaning groups and surveil anti-ICE protesters. Lawyers for a protester who is being prosecuted have filed a motion seeking access to additional discovery materials. A recent article in The New York Times describes what lawyers have already discovered:

Four days after Alex Pretti was fatally shot while filming officers taking part in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota, the Homeland Security Department quietly opened an investigation at its office in St. Paul.

The target was not the Border Patrol agents who had killed Mr. Pretti, a 37-year-old government nurse, in late January. Instead, it was several left-leaning political organizations — labor unions, a climate change group, socialist collectives — that investigators believed had provided help and money to what they described as the “violent opportunists and agitators” on the street, according to newly released government documents.

The article goes on to recount how DHS infiltrated anti-ICE protest meetings and events, and engaged in other surveillance of activists. Federal agents “took down the license plate numbers of people who attended a training session at a church in Roseville, Minn., and used that information to obtain their names. The agents then searched social media for images of the people, compiling an ‘intel work-up’ that included detailed personal information about them.”

DHS dubbed its wide-ranging investigation of left-leaning groups “Operation Puppet Master.” A related project was called “Project Whipple Shield” (Whipple was the name of a building in Minneapolis used by ICE).

According to the Times article:

As part of their inquiry, the documents show, homeland security officials used an array of invasive tactics during the first half of this year to gather information on many groups and individuals who were never accused of crimes, crossing the line that has traditionally stood between investigating criminal activity and political dissent.

In one instance, officials used administrative subpoenas to obtain more than three years of financial records from the Sunrise Movement, an environmental action group, and a labor union, the Communications Workers of America. That time frame went well beyond the civil unrest in Minnesota, which was prompted by the deployment of thousands of immigration agents to the state during the winter.

The defense motion for discovery puts it more sharply, accusing DHS of engaging in a wide-ranging fishing expedition in search of the right’s “White Whale” - a well-funded cabal of groups who have conspired to fund and support unlawful acts of violence by members of ‘Antifa.” According to the defense motion:

This case involves an unprecedented campaign by DHS to spy on Minnesotans. During Operation Metro Surge, undercover agents posing as protesters surveilled community meetings at churches, parks, libraries, schools and union halls. These agents surreptitiously recorded dozens of conversations with ordinary people who were simply exercising their First Amendment right to protest ICE’s lawless rampage in our state. The agents gathered information about Minnesotans from law enforcement databases and internet searches, and created dossiers that are apparently now available agency-wide.

HSI’s abuses did not stop there. HSI secretly obtained financial records for several national labor unions, including SEIU and the Communications Workers of America, and social justice non-profits including the Sunrise Movement and Voices for Racial Justice, all with zero criminal predicate to do so.

The government’s presentation to the grand jury reflected this broad and irrational investigation. With no evidence, the government alleged to the grand jury that the conspiracy in this case extends far beyond the defendants to include the AFL-CIO, the Minneapolis Federation of Educators, the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees, Monarca, Veterans for Peace, and the Grease Pit bicycle repair shop, among others.

The defense brief includes a chart showing the many alleged tentacles or arms of this fantastic conspiracy, which include the aforementioned labor unions, environmental groups, and racial justice organizations. The image, which is on page 6 of the brief, is extraordinary. Essentially, the grand jury appears to have been told that any group that may have provided funding or other support for anti-ICE demonstrations or related activities, whether they were lawful or not, was part of a massive conspiracy to violate federal law and harm immigration agents during “Operation Metro Surge.”

The information highlights a by now familiar Trump 2.0 pattern regarding protest and dissent. The administration wants the public - and grand juries - to believe that there are no lawful and legitimate public protests. Every protest (with the exception of course of the actual violent insurrection on January 6) is a violent riot, every demonstration is a “phony” paid-for event, every left-wing protester is a “domestic terrorist,” and every group that supports protest causes is a criminal co-conspirator. Protesters themselves are characterized as abnormal and demonic. Here’s White House advisor Steven Miller:

It’s not a coincidence that when you look at these violent antifa demonstrations and you see any photograph of those who were assembled – to be blunt, not one of the people that is demonstrating looks like a normal person. Not one looks normal. They’re all deformed in some way – in their appearance, in their dress, in their mannerism. . . . Every one of them, through the course of their life and their decisions, has scarred their body and their appearance in many different ways, to the point in which their outer appearance becomes a manifestation of their inner hatred.

The political left. like the press, is cast as the enemy of the people. As the defense motion observes:

These wild conspiracy allegations are born from the fantasies of political retribution that animate the Trump Administration. President Trump and senior administration officials routinely speak of the political left in de-humanizing terms – as “deformed,” “scarred,” and “filled with ugliness,” for example. The administration has crystallized these sentiments into policies that encourage and authorize political prosecutions like this one. Most notably, in September 2025, President Trump issued National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (“NSPM-7”), which directs DOJ to prosecute ICE protesters and opponents of the administration. HSI cited NSPM-7 as its authority to open this case

NSPM-7 is a memorandum that declares “Antifa” is a “domestic terrorist” group and urges a “new law enforcement strategy that investigates all participants in these criminal and terroristic conspiracies — including the organized structures, networks, entities, organizations, funding sources, and predicate actions behind them. The memorandum claims, without evidence, that a cabal of leftist groups is inciting violence against government. It identifies “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality” as the ideological foundations for violence against ICE agents and others. Prosecutors are encouraged to investigate and charge supposed co-conspirators who share a set of ideological views.

Political violence is a serious issue. Unfortunately, the administration has done all in its power to paint the matter in the most partisan terms and leverage it into persecution of groups that have criticized or dissented from its policies. The results are predictable: The Department of Justice has overcharged minor offenses, over-hyped conspiracies, and over-claimed with regard to the nature and threat posed by “Antifa.” The only silver lining may be that grand and (most) trial juries have refused to indict and convict in an extraordinary number of these cases. Prosecutors have also dropped charges after it became clear the evidence did not support them. Still, the targets of this retaliatory pattern must secure legal counsel and expend other resources relating to the investigations and charges.

That, indeed, may be part of the point. Here, as in other contexts, the administration seeks to suppress dissent by threatening speakers and groups with criminal and other investigations. Even if there are no resulting criminal charges, the executive has sent a clear message. It has ginned up “dossiers” on its political critics and subpoenaed financial and other records from organizations that are not alleged to have committed any crime. These actions treat even lawful activities like supporting protest movements as part of a criminal enterprise.

The federal government has even expanded this approach to non-ICE-related protests. Grand jury testimony shows that agents surveilled “No Kings” protesters. Of Naturally, the government had its suspicions. A DHS agent testified:

One of the things that is abundantly clear not only in guidance but is just principles as far as this investigation is, no one is ever investigated or looked at or even researched on for First Amendment protected activities. Every single individual that we have investigated there is a criminal predicate to why we’re investigating them, either statements that they have made that are criminal to their actual participation in overt criminal acts.

The grand jury was misled. In fact, mere participation in First Amendment protected activities has been the basis for DHS investigations.

In sum, the DHS investigations and surveillance tactics are part of a pattern of abusing executive power to chill political dissent. When the administration has been ordered to produce evidence supporting its claims that protesters committed crimes against federal agents (rather than the other way around), it has typically failed to deliver; when evidence comes to light that ICE agents used unlawful force against activists, the administration has maintained its counter-factual position that agents feared for their lives; and when it has been asked to substantiate its claim that protesters were “plants” associated with extremist groups, no evidence has been provided.

“Operation Puppet Master” is an apt name for the administration’s assault on left-wing groups, but not for the reason it thinks. The puppet master here is the executive branch, which wants the public to believe vandals damaged the reflecting pool, Alex Pretti and Renee Good were violent extremists, left-wing groups have been secretly funding violent demonstrations, there is no genuine local opposition to the actions of masked and armed federal agents “surging” into neighborhoods to hunt down neighbors, and protesting is a form of terrorism. These lies are being used to justify the targeting of political viewpoints and lawful First Amendment activities.