Updated April 13, 2026, 6:07 p.m. ET
Minnesota officials have launched an investigation after Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detained an American citizen in his underwear, looking into it as a potential kidnapping, burglary and false imprisonment case.
In a joint April 13 news conference, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi and Sheriff Bob Fletcher announced their agencies are pursuing additional information from the Department of Homeland Security connected to the Jan. 18 detention of ChongLy “Scott” Thao, a Hmong-American man.
Ramsey County’s largest city is Saint Paul, the state capital.
Choi told reporters the man was “forcibly removed from his home,” and local officials believe “there was no legitimate or legal reason for the federal agents to enter that home,” therefore violating Thao’s constitutional rights.
The prosecutor said Thao was handcuffed and removed from his home without consent, dressed only in shorts and Crocs in sub-freezing weather. He was driven around and questioned while in custody for approximately one hour before being returned home, officials reported.
“(We) are all working as a team to investigate all of the allegations that have come forward,” Choi told reporters, adding the agencies were probing allegations of “felonious conduct by federal law enforcement officials” as a part of people swept up in “Operation Metro Surge” in the state.
“But there are still more facts that we need,” he said.
Arrest at gunpoint ‘without explanation’
When interviewed by Reuters after the incident, Thao said ICE officers arrested him at gunpoint and later returned him home “without explanation or an apology.”
“I was praying. I was like, ‘God, please help me, I didn’t do anything wrong.’ Why do they do this to me? Without my clothes on,” Thao, who was born in Laos but is a naturalized U.S. citizen, told Reuters from his home.
Images of Thao barely clothed and wrapped in a blanket circulated online after the arrest, fueling concern that ICE officers were acting outside the legal scope of their power as part of President Donald Trump‘s immigration enforcement.
USA TODAY has reached out to the prosecutor’s office and the sheriff’s office for comment.
When asked about the investigation, DHS in a statement to USA TODAY said “law enforcement officers were executing a warrant” at the time of the incident.
“Through surveillance and intelligence information, law enforcement concluded sexual predator targets had ties to the property,” DHS alleged. “The US citizen was at house when the warrant was served. The individual refused to be fingerprinted or facially ID’d. As with any law enforcement agency, it is standard protocol to hold all individuals in a house of an operation for safety of the public and law enforcement.”
Anyone who witnessed the incident or has information about the case is asked to contact the prosecutor’s office or the sheriff’s department.
Contributing: Reuters
Natalie Neysa Alund is a senior reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@usatoday.com and follow her on X @nataliealund.
