Homeland Security investigated Minnesota labor unions as part of ‘terrorist financing’ probe in anti-ICE antifa case: Court documents

Undercover federal agents, posing as anti-deportation activists, spied on prominent labor unions as part of the Department of Homeland Security’s investigation into what prosecutors say was a well-funded and highly organized conspiracy among antifa militants in Minnesota to methodically impede Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations.

Nurses and teachers unions have a documented history of bankrolling leftist candidates and causes, with their financial support lately ballooning in the lead up to the 2026 elections.

According to internal DHS records entered as exhibits in the criminal case, Homeland Security Investigations — the agency’s investigative arm — infiltrated anti-ICE activation meetings at union halls in the Minneapolis area, created dossiers documenting these secretly recorded planning sessions, and investigated at least two national unions’ cash flow for “domestic terrorist financing” ties.

Undercover agents infiltrated union hall meeting to ‘Defeat ICE’

Reconnaissance reports from the investigative case file, titled “Project Whipple Shield,” show that a team of HSI agents snuck into a Feb. 15 recruitment drive against ICE that was held at the United Labor Center in Minneapolis, which serves a common meeting space for the city’s labor movement.

Alongside several local labor solidarity groups, the Democratic Socialists of America’s Twin Cities chapter co-organized the February meeting as a “Workers Assembly to Defeat ICE and Plan the Next Mass Strike” after anti-ICE activists waged a months-long campaign continuously attacking ICE’s base of operations in Minneapolis, the Federal Whipple Building, during Operation Metro Surge.

“Twin Cities workers, unions, community and rapid response groups are invited to collectively decide the next mass action against ICE,” read a digital flyer advertising the event on social media.

The undercover HSI team’s debrief to department supervisors reported that, upon checking in at the registration tables, the federal agents witnessed multiple demands during the meeting to free illegal immigrants from detention and abolish ICE as an institution, as well as all of Homeland Security. “After discussion, a decision was made to concentrate on the abolition of ICE and not DHS,” the report back read.

Audio recordings of the gathering, attended by approximately 200 participants, were attached to the report. The undercover agents recounted meeting organizers also addressing other resolutions important to the labor movement, including joining the Healthcare Workers for Palestine’s National Day of Action against Israel and a proposal from the Revolutionary Communists of America to create a labor-oriented political party called the “Workers Party.”

Per the meeting debrief, other left-wing organizations that sponsored the labor conference included Socialist Alternatives, the Ray Rainbolt Memorial Shooting Club, and the Communications Workers of America’s Minneapolis branch.

Investigators searched for funding sources and organizations involved

The stated purpose of Project Whipple Shield, according to the HSI special agent reports, was to uncover the funding sources behind the anti-ICE antifa ring targeting the Federal Whipple Building and the cell’s organizational structure.

Operational documents show that HSI also opened a separate investigation, “Operation Puppet Master,” four days after the fatal Border Portal shooting of anti-ICE activist Alex Pretti, a nurse and union member of the American Federation of Government Employees. Operation Puppet Master sought to unmask the agitators conspiring to exploit the civil unrest to riot, destroy federal property, and assault personnel protecting these facilities.

HSI’s field office in St. Paul allegedly discovered a network of “violent opportunists,” later identified as Direct Action Minnesota or DAMN, operating both online and in person by either directly participating in the assaults on ICE officers around Whipple or providing support through crowdfunding, planning, and mass mobilization efforts.

In its investigation into “protest domestic terrorist financing,” HSI obtained the financial records of the Service Employees International Union, the country’s second-largest labor union of public service workers.

Through the execution of an administrative subpoena, HSI acquired years’ worth of wire transfers from various financial institutions to and from the SEIU’s bank account in Minneapolis.

A preliminary analysis of the retrieved records only yielded transactions typically involved in union organizing, such as strike-related payments, strike supplies, member dues, and medical expenses, between the SEIU’s national committee and local SEIU unions.

Homeland Security obtained the financial records of SEIU’s transactions from 2023 to 2026. (United States v. Sant)

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