Dueling protests begin in Minneapolis as city remains on edge

Two protest groups clashed Saturday in downtown Minneapolis, one organized by a conservative influencer and the other by an anti-Trump coalition.

Influencer Jake Lang, who organized the fraud protest march in Minnesota, gathered several dozen demonstrators at Minneapolis City Hall, where he announced he would burn a Quran. He is also expected to lead a march in a Minneapolis neighborhood with a large Somali population.

Counterprotesters led by the People’s Action Coalition Against Trump staged the second demonstration in opposition to Mr. Lang’s efforts, with demonstrators holding signs reading “ICE Out of Minnesota” and playing music from the Disney musical “Frozen.”

A counter-protester threw a snowball at Mr. Lang.

Minneapolis police officers and Hennepin County sheriff’s deputies gathered in large numbers in downtown Minneapolis to monitor the protests, which drew fewer than 200 participants as of midday.

The protests ended a tumultuous 10 days in Minneapolis after an immigration agent fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Good on January 7. Since then, thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have fanned out around the Twin Cities, arresting people for immigration violations, questioning U.S. citizens and deploying tear gas and pepper balls in residential neighborhoods.

Mr. Lang’s anti-fraud rally targets a wide-ranging investigation into Minnesota’s social services programs. So far, most of those charged in this project have been of Somali origin. A preliminary assessment suggests that billions of taxpayer dollars spent since 2018 on programs intended to help low-income people were likely stolen, federal prosecutors said.

A federal judge on Friday restricted immigration agents’ actions toward protesters in the state, ordering agents not to retaliate against people “engaging in peaceful, non-obstructive protest activities” and to refrain from using pepper spray or other “crowd dispersal tools” in retaliation for protected speech.

The judge also said officers cannot arrest or detain protesters in vehicles that do not “obstruct or forcibly interfere” with officers.

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