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MINNEAPOLIS — <\/span>For days, Luis Ramirez had an uneasy feeling about the men dressed as utility workers he\u2019d seen outside his family\u2019s Mexican restaurant in suburban Minneapolis.<\/p>\n They wore high-visibility vests and spotless white hard hats, he noticed, even while parked in their vehicle. His search for the Wisconsin-based electrician advertised on the car\u2019s doors returned no results.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, when their Nissan returned to the lot outside his restaurant, Ramirez, 31, filmed his confrontation<\/a> with the two men, who hide their faces as he approaches and appear to be wearing heavy tactical gear beneath their yellow vests.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is what our taxpayer money goes to: renting these vehicles with fake tags to come sit here and watch my business,\u201d Ramirez shouts in the video.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to inquiries about whether the men were federal immigration officers. But encounters like Ramirez’s have become increasingly common. <\/p>\n As the sweeping immigration crackdown<\/a> in Minnesota continues, legal observers and officials say they have received a growing number of reports of federal agents impersonating construction workers, delivery drivers and in some cases anti-ICE activists. <\/p>\n Not all of those incidents have been verified, but they have heightened fears in a state already on edge<\/a>, adding to legal groups’ concerns about the Trump administration\u2019s dramatic reshaping of immigration enforcement tactics<\/a> nationwide. <\/p>\n \u201cIf you have people afraid that the electrical worker outside their house might be ICE, you\u2019re inviting public distrust and confusion on a much more dangerous level,\u201d said Naureen Shah, the director of immigration advocacy at the American Civil Liberties Union. \u201cThis is what you do if you\u2019re trying to control a populace, not trying to do routine, professional law enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n In the past, immigration authorities have sometimes used disguises and other deceptions, which they call ruses,<\/a> to gain entry into homes without a warrant. <\/p>\n The tactics became more common during President Donald Trump\u2019s first term, attorneys said, prompting an ACLU lawsuit accusing immigration agents of violating the U.S. Constitution by posing as local law enforcement during home raids. A recent settlement<\/a> restricted the practice in Los Angeles. But ICE deceptions remain legal elsewhere in the country.<\/p>\n Still, the undercover operations reported in Minnesota would appear to be a \u201cmore extreme degree than we\u2019ve seen in the past,\u201d said Shah, in part because they seem to be happening in plain sight. <\/p>\n Where past ruses were aimed at deceiving immigration targets, the current tactics may also be a response to the Minnesota’s sprawling networks of citizen observers<\/a> that have sought to call attention to federal agents before they make arrests.<\/p>\n At the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, the city\u2019s central hub of ICE activity, activists told The Associated Press they had seen agents leaving in vehicles with stuffed animals on their dashboards or Mexican flag decals on their bumpers. Pickups with lumber or tools in their beds were also frequently spotted. <\/p>\n In recent weeks, federal agents have repeatedly shown up to construction sites dressed as workers, according to Jose Alvillar, a lead organizer for the local immigrant rights group, Unidos MN.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve seen an increase in the cowboy tactics,\u201d he said, though he noted the raids had not resulted in arrests. \u201cConstruction workers are good at identifying who is a real construction worker and who is dressing up as one.\u201d<\/p>\n Since the start of the operation in Minnesota, local officials, including Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, have said ICE agents had been seen swapping license plates or using bogus ones, a violation of state law<\/a>.<\/p>\n Candice Metrailer, an antiques dealer in south Minneapolis, believes she witnessed such an attempt firsthand. <\/p>\n On Jan. 13, she received a call from a man who identified himself as a collector, asking if her store sold license plates. She said it did. A few minutes later, two men in street clothes entered the shop and began looking through her collection of vintage plates. <\/p>\n \u201cOne of them says, \u2018Hey, do you have any recent ones?\u2019\u201d Metrailer recalled. \u201cImmediately, an alarm bell went off in my head.\u201d<\/p>\n Metrailer stepped outside while the men continued browsing. A few doors down from the shop, she saw an idling Ford Explorer with blacked out windows. She memorized its license plate, then quickly plugged it into a crowdsourced database used by local activists to track vehicles linked to immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n The database shows an identical Ford with the same plates had been photographed leaving the Whipple building seven times and reported at the scene of an immigration arrest weeks earlier. <\/p>\n When one of the men approached the register holding a white Minnesota plate, Metrailer said she told him that the store had a new policy against selling the items.<\/p>\n Metrailer said she had reported the incident to Minnesota\u2019s attorney general. A spokesperson for DHS did not respond to a request for comment. <\/p>\n Supporters of the immigration crackdown say the volunteer army of ICE-tracking activists in Minneapolis has forced federal agents to adopt new methods of avoiding detection. <\/p>\n \u201cOf course agents are adapting their tactics so that they\u2019re a step ahead,\u201d said Scott Mechkowski, former deputy director of ICE enforcement and operations in New York City. \u201cWe\u2019ve never seen this level of obstruction and interference.\u201d<\/p>\n In nearly three decades in immigration enforcement, Mechkowski said he also hadn\u2019t seen ICE agent disguising themselves as uniformed workers in the course of making arrests. <\/p>\n Earlier this summer, a spokesperson for DHS confirmed<\/a> a man wearing a high-visibility construction vest was an ICE agent conducting surveillance. In Oregon, a natural gas company published guidance<\/a> last month on how customers could identify their employees after reports of federal impersonators. <\/p>\n In the days since his encounter, Ramirez, the restaurant worker, said he has been on high alert for undercover agents. He recently stopped a locksmith who he feared might be a federal agent, before quickly realizing he was a local resident. <\/p>\n \u201cEverybody is on edge about these guys, man,\u201d Ramirez said. \u201cIt feels like they\u2019re everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n