By Ted Hesson, Kristina Cooke and Brad Heath
WASHINGTON, Feb 10 (Reuters) – Becky Ringstrom was heading home after following federal immigration officers in her gray Kia SUV in suburban Minneapolis when she was suddenly stopped by unmarked vehicles. At least half a dozen masked officers jumped in to arrest her, one pounding on her windshield with a metal object as if threatening to use it to break the window.
After her arrest, captured on video verified by Reuters, the 42-year-old mother later said she was taken to the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in downtown Minneapolis, where an officer issued her a citation charging her under a federal law that criminalizes obstructing law enforcement. The official said her name and photo will be added to a government database.
Ringstrom’s arrest became the latest arrest of one of thousands of local activists for violating Title 18, Section 111 of the US Code, a blanket charge for anyone who “attacks, resists, opposes, obstructs, intimidates, or forcibly interferes” with “a federal officer performing official duties.” The statute can be charged as a felony or misdemeanor. As an offence, it carries up to 20 years in prison, but sentences of more than eight years are reserved for people who use “a deadly or dangerous weapon” or cause injury.
A Reuters review of federal court records found that the Trump administration has indicted at least 655 people on the charge in the US since a series of city-focused immigration crackdowns began last summer. That’s more than double the prosecutions for the same period in 2024-25, according to an analysis of publicly available criminal records in Westlaw, a legal research database owned by Thomson Reuters.
Reuters used artificial intelligence in some cases to classify allegations, with a spot check showing 98 percent accuracy. The numbers are nationwide and Reuters was unable to determine how many were connected to immigration enforcement, how many were charged with crimes or resulted in convictions.
The charges are part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to crack down on ICE opponents, whom they describe as rioters who threaten officers and undermine their efforts to arrest immigrants with criminal records.
“Assaulting and obstructing law enforcement is a crime,” said US Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin. She said federal immigration officers “used the minimum amount of force necessary to protect themselves, the public and federal property.”
ICE has been tracking the names of the protesters in an internal database for several months, according to two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the operations.
The government database contains names, photos, suspicious actions, locations and license plates, officials said, adding that the effort was meant to identify patterns that could lead to charges.
DHS said it does not maintain a database of “domestic terrorists” in the U.S. but does track threats. “Of course we monitor and investigate and refer all threats, assaults and obstruction of our officers to the appropriate law enforcement,” McLaughlin said.
One of the officials said ICE was referring several people a day in Minnesota alone to federal prosecutors for potential charges under the same law for interfering with police operations.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the Trump administration is committed to protecting First Amendment freedoms, but that people who obstruct enforcement “will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”
WATCH THE ICE
Ringstrom followed federal immigration officers for about 45 minutes while they sat in a car parked in her neighborhood on Thursday, January 29. When they started moving, she decided to follow him in his SUV, keeping a distance of several lengths behind, she said.
At a roundabout, a Border Patrol agent approached her car and said, “I’m going to give you one last warning,” according to video recorded by Ringstrom on her phone.
The officers went right at a stop sign and she went left, she said. Minutes later, as she started to walk back toward her home, several vehicles with federal officers pulled over and arrested her, she said.
“I know what I’m doing is not wrong,” Ringstrom later said in an interview with Reuters.
Still, she said she was terrified when federal officers approached her car. “There was a moment when I thought I might be Renee Good,” she said, referring to one of two U.S. citizen protesters shot by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis in January.
After her arrest, she was issued a citation, reviewed by Reuters, that said her court date was “TBD” – to be determined.
McLaughlin said Ringstrom “followed law enforcement and tried to prevent them from performing their sworn duties.”
Seth Stoughton, a policing professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law, said the law in the past has mostly been used to charge assaults on officers and specifically states that the alleged crime must be committed “forcibly.”
“Without any physical contact, just following an agent in a car, it’s not clear to me that that’s resisting or obstructing in the first place, and it certainly seems like a stretch to me that it’s forcible,” Stoughton said.
A federal judge in Minneapolis said in a mid-January order that a vehicle following ICE at “a reasonable distance” did not warrant a traffic stop or arrest, but that order was struck down by an appeals court 10 days later.
The judge’s order, now suspended, did not say what exact distance would be considered safe.
Deborah Fleischaker, a top ICE official under former President Joe Biden, said it was “inappropriate and unconstitutional” to intimidate and arrest people peacefully following immigration officers in their cars.
“Observing ICE activities is not a crime and should not be treated as such,” she said.
McLaughlin said U.S. Border Patrol agents at the scene gave Ringstrom “legal commands and warnings,” but that she continued to obstruct operations, leading to her arrest.
“When agitators willingly become involved and inject themselves into law enforcement operations, they risk arrest as well as endangering their safety and those around them,” McLaughlin said.
VIDEOS IN Shows ice officers pulling guns
While new internal ICE guidance, reported by Reuters in late January, instructed officers not to engage with protesters, the encounters have not stopped.
Two videos in recent weeks, verified by Reuters, showed ICE officers drawing their weapons as they approached vehicles that allegedly followed them.
South of Minneapolis, on Jan. 29, the same day Ringstrom was arrested, federal immigration officers swerved, stopped their vehicle and approached a woman driving behind them with their guns drawn, according to dash-cam footage from her vehicle first reported by Minnesota Public Radio and verified by Reuters.
McLaughlin said ICE officers were trying to arrest a felon when the woman began “stalking and obstructing them,” prompting the officers to try to arrest her.
“The law enforcement officers tried to pull her over using their emergency lights to give her a warning,” McLaughlin said. “Ignoring commands from law enforcement, the agitator refused to stop and began driving recklessly, including running stop signs, nearly colliding with several vehicles, and driving directly into law enforcement in an attempt to ram his vehicle.”
Reuters could not independently verify whether the woman ignored commands or drove recklessly.
In a separate incident on Feb. 3, two ICE officers approached a pursuing car, again with guns drawn, according to a video verified by Reuters and a statement from DHS.
The US Department of Homeland Security said the vehicle “ambushed” and “obstructed” ICE officers.
“The agitators then followed the officers as they left and made hand motions suggesting possession of a firearm,” DHS said.
Reuters could not independently verify the agency’s account. Video reviewed by Reuters showed the vehicles once they stopped.
Under Trump, numerous DHS statements after violent encounters with immigration agents have been inaccurate or incomplete.
ICE AT YOUR DOOR
Some Minnesota residents say they believe they are becoming the subject of a campaign of intimidation.
In a suburb north of St. Paul, on Jan. 22, an ICE officer drove a woman who was following his vehicle back to her home, making it clear he knew her identity and address, a video verified by Reuters, shot by the husband, showed.
The woman’s husband spoke with the ICE officer outside the couple’s home. When the husband questioned the tactic, the officer said, “You raise your voice, I’ll erase your voice,” the video shows.
An ICE officer told Reuters they drove pursuers back to their homes after giving them license plates “to scare them.”
McLaughlin said ICE will review the body camera footage and investigate the incident in St. Paul, but did not comment on using ICE to scare opponents.
In early January, two friends — Brandon Siguenza and Patty O’Keefe — who were chasing an ICE vehicle in Minneapolis said officers pepper-sprayed their car, smashed their car window and detained them for eight hours.
McLaughlin said the officers gave them several warnings “not to impede” the operations, but they “chose to continue to pursue law enforcement and were arrested.”
“The passenger refused to roll down the window and exit the vehicle,” McLaughlin said. “ICE law enforcement followed their training and used the minimum amount of force necessary to make the arrest.”
McLaughlin did not explicitly confirm that the officers broke the car window or used pepper spray.
Siguenza and O’Keefe were not charged.
(Reporting by Ted Hesson and Brad Heath in Washington, and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco. Additional reporting by Maria Tsvetkova, Monica Naime, Vinaya K, Marine Delrue, Tiffany Le, Fernando Robles and Gerardo Gomez. Editing by Craig Timberg, Diane Craft and Michael Learmonth)