Overview
- Video from late Tuesday morning shows a staffer at Ecuador’s Minneapolis consulate stopping an ICE agent at the doorway as the agent warns, “If you touch me, I will grab you,” before leaving.
- Ecuador’s Foreign Ministry said officials activated emergency protocols and delivered a formal note of protest to the U.S. Embassy in Quito requesting that such incidents not recur.
- The Department of Homeland Security said it has no record of ICE or Border Patrol at the consulate at that time and indicated it is checking with other federal agencies on the ground.
- An eyewitness told Reuters that agents pursued two people who ran into the consulate and then tried to follow them inside before being blocked.
- Legal experts point to the Vienna Convention barring entry to consular premises without consent, and the episode has intensified scrutiny of federal enforcement tactics in Minneapolis under Operation Metro Surge.