The Department of Homeland Security sent undercover agents to infiltrate anti-ICE community meetings, join Signal chats, and obtain the financial records of some of America's largest labor unions — all under an operation they internally named 'Operation Puppet Master.' One of those agents, while surveilling a peaceful protest training at a public library, told an attendee he 'works in construction' and could 'build items' to assist groups with 'direct-action' protests. The agent also mentioned that 'going to jail did not bother him' and handed out his phone number. That agent was working for your government.
What 'Operation Puppet Master' Actually Was
In January of this year, DHS launched a formal inquiry called 'Operation Puppet Master,' according to internal records disclosed this week as part of a federal criminal case. The stated goal was to identify a 'network of conspirators' organizing against ICE in Minnesota. This came directly on the heels of two killings — Renee Good and Alex Pretti — that had caused community organizing against ICE to surge across the Twin Cities.
The Guardian obtained nearly 30 internal DHS investigative reports released as part of the DOJ's criminal case against 15 Minneapolis protesters, who are accused of 'conspiracy' to 'impede' US immigration officers. The records were filed in federal court by an attorney for one of the defendants. DHS did not respond to requests for comment. The DOJ declined to comment.
Who They Were Watching
Here is the list of organizations DHS investigators flagged as potentially connected to this alleged criminal conspiracy: the AFL-CIO. The Service Employees International Union. The Minneapolis Federation of Educators. The Minnesota Association of Professional Employees. The Democratic Socialists of America. Showing Up for Racial Justice. The Sunrise Movement.
None of those organizations have been charged with a crime. Not one. These are mainstream labor unions representing millions of American workers, a climate nonprofit, and civic organizing groups. DHS obtained their wire transfer records anyway, using administrative subpoenas under an inquiry framed as 'domestic terrorist financing.' According to the Guardian, investigators went so far as to ask the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to hand over financial data from the Communications Workers of America, an international union.
The Sunrise Movement — a group whose most aggressive act is usually holding a rally with cardboard signs — had its financial records pulled by federal agents investigating domestic terrorism. Let that sentence just sit there for a second.
The Undercover Agent Who Dropped His Hidden Recorder at a Boxing Class
The specifics in these internal DHS reports are something else entirely. One undercover agent attended a Sunrise Movement 'resistance skills training' at the Minneapolis public library on January 31. Per the Guardian's reporting on the records, the agent's own report acknowledged that the event was clearly focused on 'peaceful protests' — attendees discussed having a 'police liaison' and a 'safety marshal' at demonstrations. This did not stop the agent from telling someone there that he works in construction and could help other groups build things for 'direct-action' protests, and that going to jail 'did not bother him.'
A second agent attended a training event at a church gymnasium and participated in 'boxing/sparring practice' while secretly recording audio of the event. According to the report, the recorder 'erroneously fell to the floor' during the session, forcing the agent to go retrieve it. Government agents were secretly recording a boxing class at a church. The recorder fell out. America.
Agents also surveilled a virtual meeting at Hunter College in New York about 'ICE brutality,' a meeting at a Minneapolis labor center, a gathering in a public park about protest tactics, and a Direct Action Minnesota meeting at a church. At that church event, agents documented the license plate numbers of everyone who showed up.
The Legal Framing Makes This Worse, Not Better
The Trump administration's justification for all of this traces back to an executive order designating 'antifa' a 'domestic terrorist organization' and blaming it for 'riots' against ICE. That executive order, the Guardian reports, appears to have directly guided the DHS investigations that eventually produced the criminal case filed in June against 15 protesters focused on Direct Action Minnesota, a loose coalition of organizers.
Kevin Riach, an attorney for one of the indicted protesters who filed these records in court, told the Guardian: 'I was shocked at the scope and the apparent lack of investigative discipline involved, but not totally surprised.' That last part — 'not totally surprised' — is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Civil rights groups have argued for months that the federal government is using terrorism statutes to criminalize ordinary protest activity. These documents are their argument, made in the government's own handwriting.
Fifteen People Are Being Prosecuted for This
It is easy to get lost in the scope of the surveillance operation and forget that 15 actual people are facing federal criminal charges here. They are accused of conspiring to impede immigration officers. The government built this case by sending undercover agents to their meetings, joining their private chats, photographing their license plates at a church, and pulling the financial records of organizations they were associated with.
The defendants are not accused of violence. They are accused of a 'conspiracy' to 'impede' ICE. That is the charge. And the investigation that produced it apparently considered the AFL-CIO a subject of interest in a domestic terrorism financing inquiry. If that sentence doesn't alarm you, nothing will.
The Dingo Take
You are supposed to believe this is a targeted, disciplined law enforcement operation aimed at genuine threats to public safety. What the documents actually show is an apparatus that looked at labor unions, climate activists, and people attending community meetings at public libraries and decided the appropriate response was to send in undercover agents with hidden recorders and subpoena their bank records. 'Operation Puppet Master' is, unintentionally, a perfect name — because someone pulling strings decided that tens of thousands of ordinary Americans organizing against an immigration crackdown constituted a terrorist network worth dismantling.
The agent who told a library attendee he could build things for protests and that jail didn't scare him — that is called an agent provocateur. It has a name because governments have done it before, specifically to destroy social movements they find politically inconvenient. COINTELPRO had a name too. This administration wrapped the same playbook in a different executive order and called it counter-terrorism.
Fifteen people are being prosecuted. Millions of union members had their organization's wire transfers handed to federal investigators. A guy's hidden recorder fell out of his pocket at a church boxing class. None of the organizations named as connected to the alleged conspiracy have been charged with anything. And the DOJ declined to comment. The story isn't that this happened in the dark. The story is that these records only exist because a defense attorney pried them into a criminal case file — and that without that one motion, none of us would know any of it.
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