A toy shop in the Twin Cities alleges the Department of Homeland Security launched a sudden audit of the business just hours after one of its owners criticized the Trump administration’s ongoing crackdown in Minneapolis in a TV interview.
“In 27 years as retailers in St Paul, we've never been hit with this kind of audit,” Dan Marshall, co-owner of Mischief Toy Store, told the Minnesota StarTribune. “We just have five part-time employees, all Minnesota-born, so it's kind of a waste of their time to be targeting us.
Marshall says two ICE agents went to the store to hand-deliver an audit notice asking for federal employment forms, payroll records, and the names of past and present employees, just hours after his daughter Abigail Adelsheim-Marshall spoke with ABC News about the ongoing Trump operation and criticized DHS.
In the interview, Adelsheim-Marshall detailed the store’s efforts to hand out free whistles to customers, which community members in cities across the country have adopted as a tactic to warn neighbors about approaching DHS agents and taunt ICE officers.
“Everyone is looking for anything they can do to help their community right now and the whistles are just one small thing they can do,” Adelsheim-Marshall told the broadcaster, estimating the store has given out thousands of the whistles since Thanksgiving.
She added that “almost every customer” has had a negative experience with DHS since the crackdown began.
“ICE is doing far more to hurt our community than immigrants ever have,” she continued. “I can’t overstate how much our entire community is being terrorized by ICE right now.”
Dan Marshall said the business has engaged an attorney and the ACLU for assistance.
“Any allegation that DHS inspected Mischief Toy Store in response to the owner’s daughter doing an interview is FALSE,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to The Independent. “This is a flagrant attempt to further demonize our law enforcement officers who are already facing a more than 1300% increase in assaults against them. There is an active HSI [Homeland Security Investigations] investigation involving this business that has nothing to do with this owners’ political views.”
A raft of investigations and lawsuits have accompanied the White House’s ongoing Minnesota operation.
The crackdown was supercharged last month after a viral video claimed widespread fraud was taking place at federally funded day care centers in Minnesota, and DHS has sent on-the-ground investigators to probe the allegations, some of which are disputed by local officials.
Last week, the Department of Justice sued the state, alleging it was using illegal affirmative action strategies in government hiring, and launched an investigation into state leaders including Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey, over whether they impeded federal agents.
They have denied wrongdoing, and Walz accused Trump of “weaponizing” the justice system against opponents in “a dangerous, authoritarian tactic.”
The state of Minnesota, as well as residents, have launched suits against the administration, claiming the tactics of the crackdown are unconstitutional.
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