Federal agents launched a sweeping undercover surveillance operation earlier this year targeting progressive organisations, labour unions and other groups protesting against the immigration crackdown then raging through Minneapolis, according to court documents filed last Thursday.
The programme, dubbed Operation Puppet Master, was aimed at what officials called a network of conspirators helping ‘violent opportunists and agitators’.
The Department of Homeland Security officers infiltrating meetings in churches, schools and parks that were often simply discussions of constitutionally protected protests.
Puppet Master, and a later operation called Project Whipple Shield, were a ‘broad and irrational investigation’ driven by politics and not criminal conduct, Riach said in a motion filed last Thursday.
There was a 31st January meeting in a Minneapolis library, when a Homeland Security report says an undercover officer identified as ‘UCA 9833’ listened as supporters of a progressive climate group, the Sunrise Movement, discussed sit-ins, de-escalation tactics and ‘having a police liaison and safety marshal present during events’.
The communication workers (CWA) president Claude Cummings Junior alleged in a statement: ‘Our union has become the latest target of a corrupt administration that weaponises the legal process against law-abiding Americans exercising our Constitutional rights.
‘We will not be intimidated, and we will not be silenced.’
The AP News Guild that represents many Associated Press employees, and which has been spied on, is part of the CWA.
Last Thursday, a coalition of Minneapolis-area civil society groups defended the protests and criticised the investigations.
The government is ‘lashing out desperately in hopes of intimidating people and organisations that have shown the power of communities acting together,’ said a statement distributed by Unidos MN, a local human rights group.
DHS deployed about 3,000 federal officers to the Minneapolis-St Paul area for roughly three months starting late last year in what the department called its ‘largest immigration enforcement operation ever’.
It led to thousands of arrests, angry mass protests and the fatal shootings of two workers who were US citizens.
The Trump administration has been accused of ‘bullying and intimidation’ after a labour union leader and critic was put under investigation and suspended from his job at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
Stephen Wheeler, a data scientist at the agency since 2022 and chair of the CFPB union organising committee, was placed on administrative leave effective immediately earlier this month.
The union said it was not provided with any specific violations or given any details of the investigation.
The CFPB – conceived by the Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren to protect consumers after the 2008 financial crisis – has long been a target of Republicans.
The union representing workers at the agency, the National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 335, noted that Wheeler had been a vocal presence at union pickets and had recently spoken about the forced relocation of staff at the agency.
Workers have viewed the relocation and return-to-office mandates at the agency as a means to force resignations, after an appeals court blocked attempted mass firings at the agency by the Trump administration in June 2026.
Another union member and worker, Alexis Goldstein, was also put on administrative leave in February 2025 before she was fired in February 2026, after she confronted staff with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), questioning their credentials in accessing data at the agency and recording their actions.
Goldstein said in a statement after her firing in February alleged: ‘CFPB is illegally retaliating against me for trying to do my job.
‘I acted to protect the sensitive data of Americans and the trade secrets of some of the nation’s largest banks and financial institutions from being accessed by individuals from Doge without CFPB credentials and required training.’
The union filed a grievance over her firing and is awaiting arbitration to begin, which has been delayed, according to the union, by the CFPB, which told the union the delay is due to an agency official who is on leave.
The Trump administration has attempted to dismantle the CFPB since the beginning of Trump’s second term.
- A group of 700 paratransit employees who provide transport for disabled people workers at Transdev Services Inc, represented by Teamsters Local 631 in Las Vegas, were forced to strike in response to their employer’s failure to offer a fair contract.
The Teamsters rejected Transdev’s last, best, and final offer because it did not address concerns about wages, pensions, and working conditions.
The company also threatened to withdraw retroactive pay, a move that would constitute bad-faith regressive bargaining and violate previously signed agreements.
Tommy Blitsch, Secretary-Treasurer of Local 631 said: ‘Transdev has one of the largest paratransit contracts in the country, and the cost of living in Las Vegas is extremely high.
‘We are simply fighting for wages and benefits that are in accordance with the incredibly important work this group does.’
The unit includes drivers, maintenance clerks, utility, fuel and tyre employees, dispatchers, customer service representatives, road supervisors, schedulers, receptionists, data entry clerks, trip editors, payroll staff, and cash counters.
They provide door-to-door paratransit service for people unable to use fixed-route public transit, especially those with reduced mobility.
Surrene Mendoza, a paratransit worker and member of Local 631 said: ‘We are on the picket line because we refuse to accept less than we deserve.
‘Our work keeps the Las Vegas community moving, and we are simply asking for fair pay, better benefits, and the working conditions needed to keep serving our city.’
- Meanwhile, more than 190 Teamsters at IKEA’s distribution centre in Joliet, Illinois a suburb of Chicago have been forced onto the picket line after the furniture giant failed to offer workers a first fair Teamsters’ contract.
The warehouse workers, represented by Teamsters Local 179, are demanding higher wages, improved working conditions, and protections against automation.
‘During the action meeting, it was made clear that the Sunrise Movement organisation focused on “peaceful” protests,’ the agent reported.
Tom Erickson, Director of the Teamsters Warehouse Division said: ‘These workers joined the Teamsters because they knew standing together would give them the power to demand more.
IKEA can spend all the money it wants on fences and security, but none of that will intimidate us.
‘We will fight for as long as it takes to win the contract these workers have earned.’
