News/Commentary

ICE accused of marching ‘half-naked elderly people out into the snow’ – and then, the rest of the story…

January 20, 2026 | | Print Article

Demonization of federal immigration enforcement failed a fact check after a keyboard warrior was triggered over “half-naked elderly people” detained in Minnesota.

Like basing arguments off of carefully edited video clips and scurrilous headlines, those peddling outrage amid crackdowns on illegal aliens in the Twin Cities were quick to throw fits over a picture from a Saturday raid. Among them, Jill Filipovic didn’t back down from her outrage even after details were presented about the man’s refusal to submit to identification measures as federal agents were attempting to track down two convicted sex offenders.

Reacting to a Reuters report about a man requesting a Hmong interpreter as he was detained during an immigration raid, emphasizing it occurred “days after an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Nicole Good,” Filipovic had posted over the image of a man draped in a blanket wearing shorts, slip-on shoes and nothing else, “Marching half-naked elderly people out into the snow, your tax dollars at work.”

As her post cleared a million views on X, she had further responded to a Democratic strategist selling the authoritarian angle, who insisted, “For those interested in facts: what actually happened is ICE broke into a home, handcuffed an elderly U.S. citizen with no records, put a gun to his family’s head, dragged him half-naked into the cold — then released him after realizing they f*cked up. ICE is out of control.”

To that she added, “I am entirely fine with deporting immigrants who have been convicted of serious crimes (Obama did a lot of that!). I am not fine with law enforcement entering private homes without showing a warrant and detaining innocent US citizens. This is not hard.”

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Meanwhile, as Chongly Thao, the man seen in the photos, told his side of the story to ABC News, alleging federal agents “drove him ‘to the middle of nowhere’ and made him get out of the car in the frigid weather so they could photograph him,” fearing “they would beat him,” until they “realized that he was a U.S. citizen with no criminal record,” and expressing his intent to file a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, the agency had offered more context on the detainment.

DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin responded to one of the posts about the detainment and wrote, “Yesterday in St. Paul, ICE conducted a targeted operation of 2 convicted sex offenders. One of the criminal targets had convictions for sex with a minor and sexual assault. The other target had convictions for sex assault with penetration in the first degree, domestic violence, and violating a protective order. Both also have convictions for failure to register as sex offenders. They both have final orders of removal from an immigration judge.”

“The US citizen lives with these two convicted sex offenders at the site of the operation. The individual refused to be fingerprinted or facially ID’d. He matched the description of the targets. 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,” she went on. “Both of these sexual predators remain AT LARGE in St. Paul. We will be providing the public with photos and descriptors to help us locate and apprehend these public safety threats.”

Additionally, DHS shared the identities and images of the sex offenders in question, Lue Moua and Kongmeng Vang, prompting Filipovic to respond, as she got dragged for demonizing federal law enforcement the same day they called out agitators for obstructing operations to arrest a child sex offender, by changing the subject, “I hope all sexual predators see justice, can someone remind me if Trump has released the Epstein Files?”

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Kevin Haggerty
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