By Jonathan Allen and Nate Raymond
Jan 21 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday lifted a lower court's order that had restrained federal immigration agents from deploying teargas or otherwise using force against peaceful protesters in Minnesota, where tensions have mounted during a confrontation between the federal and local governments.
Some protesters against U.S. President Donald Trump's surges in immigration enforcement in the Minneapolis area sued his administration in December, saying their constitutional rights were being infringed.
The Republican president has sent thousands of Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents into the Minneapolis area in recent weeks to conduct deportation roundups, unprecedented in scale. The ICE agents have had numerous violent confrontations with residents, with one agent fatally shooting a U.S. citizen in her car.
Agents have carried rifles through the city's snowy streets, dressed in military-style camouflage, tactical gear and face masks, used tear gas and other chemical irritants against protesters, and drawn outrage for demanding Black, Latino, Native and Asian U.S. citizens show their identification.
They have been met day and night by residents coming out in angry protest, making noise on whistles and musical instruments.
Last Friday, U.S. District Judge Kate Menendez in Minnesota ordered ICE agents deployed en masse to Minneapolis be temporarily restricted in using tear gas and other tactics against non-violent demonstrators and observers while the lawsuit proceeds.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security appealed Menendez's preliminary injunction to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing it hobbled the Trump administration's power "to enforce the Nation's immigration laws."
The St. Louis-based appeals court sided with DHS on Wednesday in a brief unsigned order, temporarily putting on hold the Menendez injunction while it weighs whether to issue a longer-term ruling that would pause it throughout the duration of the Trump administration's appeal.
Judge Menendez is also presiding over a separate but related lawsuit filed this month by the governments of Minnesota and the Midwest state's two biggest cities, Minneapolis and Saint Paul.
The state government asked Menendez to restrain the surge in immigration enforcement, telling the court that the administration is violating residents' rights, including forced entries into homes without a warrant and arresting people, including U.S. citizens, without probable cause.
The Trump administration has said its operations are lawful. Trump has said the surge is necessary to combat fraud and the theft of federal funding for social services, which Trump blames on Somalis in Minnesota. Trump has disdained Minnesota's Somali community, the largest in the U.S., as "garbage."
This month, an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Good, an American citizen who had been observing ICE activities as part of a network that warned immigrants. The agent approached her vehicle, which she had parked across one lane of a Minneapolis road.
Further escalating the fight between the U.S. and Minnesota governments, the Trump administration has launched a criminal investigation of some of his loudest political opponents, including Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, both Democrats.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Justice Department served their offices with grand jury subpoenas, probing whether their opposition to the surge amounts to criminal obstruction of federal law enforcement.
Trump administration officials have accused Walz and Frey of deliberately stoking interference with ICE in "collusion" with anti-government protesters, which the Minnesota officials deny.
Walz and Frey have appealed for calm, while denouncing ICE operations as reckless political theater that puts the public at risk. They say Trump wants the agents to provoke chaos that he can use to justify an even greater show of force.
(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York and Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Donna Bryson, Chris Reese, Chizu Nomiyama and David Gregorio)
