Sahan Journal19%
Ramsey County officials sue Homeland Security over treatment of St. Paul Hmong man 6%
By Mohamed Ibrahim17%
7/15/2026, 6:09:30 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 9 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Optimism Bias, and Bandwagon, with Appeal to Emotion as the most egregious example at 14.5% saturation with 156 hits. Analysis detected 546 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,078 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 22.2% and a BS Rank of 6% (15,290 of 16,254 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 94.10% of the article peer group.
ChongLy Scott Thao stands in front of his home on St.
Paul’s East Side on Jan. 19, 2026, a day after ICE agents broke in and dragged him out half-naked into the cold.
Thao, a U.S. citizen, was driven around in an ICE vehicle while being questioned for about an hour before his eventual release.
Ramsey County officials are suing the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security to compel the agency to cooperate in a local investigation into how federal agents treated a St.
Paul man when they dragged him out of his house in January while he was half-clothed.
Ramsey County Attorney John Choi and Sheriff Bob Fletcher on Wednesday announced the civil lawsuit, which asks a federal judge to order Homeland Security to cooperate with their investigation, and to provide information about the incident.
They said the federal government has refused to comply with their demands.
“It’s been frustrating, because in normal times we have cooperation between agencies, whether it’s at the state interagency level or whether it’s between state and federal,” Choi told reporters at a news conference.
“Something like this has never really occurred until more recently, where the lawful, official requests of local investigative agencies are being ignored.”
Choi and Fletcher are investigating a Jan. 18 incident during which federal immigration agents dragged ChongLy Scott Thao, a U.S. citizen who was 56 at the time, out of his home on St.
Paul’s East Side into the freezing cold wearing only shorts and sandals.
Choi and Fletcher announced in April that their offices were investigating the incident to decide whether to charge federal agents with kidnapping and false imprisonment.
Thao and his family are in contact with Choi’s office, according to attorney Bobbi Bernstein, whose firm is representing Thao.
Bernstein issued a written statement on behalf of Thao, who is not commenting directly on the matter.
“Scott is fully cooperating with the Ramsey County investigation and hopes that the federal government will expeditiously provide Ramsey County with all materials to which it is entitled under law, so that Ramsey County authorities can fully investigate this event, which has caused a great deal of trauma to Scott and his family,” Bernstein said.
U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a statement in April saying that its agents raided Thao’s home to execute a search warrant while looking for another man, who was later found to be in a state prison at the time.
Thao told Sahan Journal in January that federal agents yelled and banged on his door as he and his family were inside.
They also asked for IDs.
The agents broke through the front door and pointed guns at Thao and his family as they searched the home without a warrant, Thao said.
The agents then handcuffed Thao and paraded him outside into the 10-degree weather, ignoring his requests to put on some clothes.
Thao told Sahan Journal that agents drove him around for an hour, asking him questions about where he was born and his visa status before dropping him off at home.
“I just hoped that they wouldn’t send me back to Laos.
I just wanted to be brought back home safe,” Thao told Sahan Journal soon after the incident.
“No relatives are over there.
Everybody is over here now.”
ICE officials said in April that Thao refused to be facially identified or fingerprinted, prompting agents to hold him “for [the] safety of the public and law enforcement.”
But Fletcher said Wednesday there is “no question” the federal agents involved broke state law that day.
At minimum, it was officer misconduct, and at maximum, it was some form of false imprisonment or kidnapping, he said.
“This isn’t about which agency, it’s about the victim, and the victim here deserves some type of accountability,” Fletcher said.
“Dragging someone out of their house that’s not wanted, doesn’t have any warrants, hasn’t committed a crime, in the winter throwing them in a squad car and driving them around isn’t the America we want to live in, so there has to be some accountability.”
Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Hao Nguyen outlined a timeline of stonewalling by federal authorities that led to the decision to file the lawsuit.
Nguyen, who heads the Ramsey County attorney’s trial and appellate division, said local investigators met with ICE officials in early March, and were told ICE had no authorization to release any information in the case.
Two weeks later, Choi’s office filed a formal request for information from the Department of Homeland Security.
ICE attorneys have requested multiple extensions and ultimately never fulfilled the request, Nguyen said.
“We all stand before you today hearing nothing.
We do not have any information,” Nguyen said.
“Those extensions have come and gone, and that’s led us to this situation where we do formally need to submit a formal lawsuit in accordance with the (Administrative Procedures Act), to get that information.”
Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Hao Nguyen (center) gives an update on July 15, 2026, about the county’s efforts to investigate federal agents who detained ChongLy Scott Thao during operation Metro Surge.
Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher is pictured at left, and Ramsey County Attorney John Choi is pictured at right.
Credit: Aaron Nesheim | Sahan Journal
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty filed a similar lawsuit in late March to compel federal authorities to produce evidence in the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and the shooting and wounding of Julio Sosa-Celis.
Her office and the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office received evidence from federal authorities this week.
The shootings occurred during immigration enforcement efforts in January.
Nguyen said his office followed a similar process, and hopes it will produce a similar result.
“We can’t ignore the fact that cooperation began to occur once a formal lawsuit was commenced,” Nguyen said of the Hennepin County effort.
Fletcher told reporters Wednesday that Ramsey County investigators pulled photos of the agents involved in the Thao incident from bystanders and social media.
But, he said, he’s hoping the lawsuit will compel federal authorities to provide reports written by federal agents involved in the incident.
“There’s a lot of hope out there that homeland security is going to cooperate.
I actually think there’s some motion and some movement,” Fletcher said.
“All we really need is the reports written by their officers.
The reports will elucidate, I’m sure, exactly what happened and why it happened.”
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