Pledge to protect
Federal raids on Minnesota workplaces are now routine.
Learn to safely refuse them at the door.
Adding Spanish, Somali, Hmong translations.
Let us know what other languages would help you.
The pledge applies to every MN workplace, not just those hiring undocumented workers.
ICE entries happen with bad intel, mistaken addresses, and cover-of-night surprise. Posted signage and trained staff protect everyone in your space - your team, your customers, anyone present at the wrong moment.
The pledge is also a network statement. The more MN workplaces are prepared, the stronger our collective statement of solidarity.
Post at entrances and doors to private areas. Tell federal agents they need a judicial warrant to come in. Give your staff clear grounds to refuse if they don't have one.
Empower workers who can tell a judicial warrant from an administrative one. Who can refuse without escalating. Who can document any overreach.
Decide in advance: Who meets the agents, who calls the lawyer, who watches the door. Figure it out before you're under pressure.
A scheduled paperwork review. ICE checks employer records, not employees directly.
What they need: A Notice of Inspection, served by hand or mail. You have three business days to produce the records.
Your posture: Get a lawyer. Hand over what's listed, nothing more. The audit doesn't authorize entry into private areas or questioning of your staff.
Unannounced workplace entry. Multiple agents, often armed. They want to search and may want to detain.
What they need: A judicial warrant signed by a judge to enter private areas. Look for "U.S. District Court" or a state court at the top.
Your posture: Public areas, they can be in. Private areas, only with a judicial warrant. If the warrant is judicial, accept it but don't consent to anything beyond what it lists.
ICE shows up looking for one specific named person.
What they need: A judicial warrant to enter private areas where the person might be. An administrative warrant (Form I-200 or I-205, signed by ICE officials) does not authorize private-area entry.
Your posture: Don't sort, don't identify, don't escort. The named person may not be on premises today. If ICE has only an administrative warrant, they wait at the public boundary.
Operation Metro Surge brought roughly 3,000 federal officers to the Twin Cities in December 2025. Two U.S. citizens - Renee Good and Alex Pretti - have been killed by ICE agents since then. Countless others have been detained without cause. Certainly without warrants.
ICE arrived without warning at the aluminum finishing facility and arrested seven workers - an eighth was released. Three weeks earlier, the company had sent staff a letter announcing an internal I-9 audit. Whether agents presented a judicial warrant has not been publicly confirmed.
February 26, 2025. Sources: Sahan Journal, Star Tribune
Border Patrol agents pinned two Target workers to the ground in the store's entrance. Both were U.S. citizens - one was 17 years old. They were detained, injured, and released hours later. The encounter was captured on video. Within days, protesters were at Target asking the retailer to commit to being a 4th Amendment workplace.
January 08, 2026. Sources: Bring Me The News, Star Tribune
ICE agents broke down ChongLy "Scott" Thao's apartment door without a warrant, entered with guns drawn, and removed the 56-year-old Hmong-American from his home in his boxers and a blanket. They drove him around for hours before discovering they had the wrong person. Thao is a U.S. citizen with no criminal record. Ramsey County is investigating the incident as a potential kidnapping.
January 18, 2026. Sources: PBS NewsHour, NBC News
Sign the pledge below. We'll reach out with materials and to help with next steps.
Post at your entrances and on doors to private areas. Signage declares that federal agents must show a judicial warrant before entering.
Combined with locked doors and a knock-to-enter pattern, signage can convert a previously public area into a legally private one. A storefront, a waiting room, a lobby - sign plus lock plus the request to knock turns each into a private space requiring a judicial warrant for federal entry.
Walk your staff through what to say, what to refuse, and who to call when federal agents show up.
Decide ahead of time who handles agents, who calls the lawyer, and what comes next.
We know that federal raids don't follow legal protocol. This is your tornado drill for any surprise visits.
Public areas - parking lot, lobby, dining room, waiting area - are open to anyone, including ICE. Being in a public area doesn't give them the authority to stop, question, or arrest anyone there.
Public only means public during open hours. A closed business is private. A federal court threw out a warrantless entry into a medical office in 2004 because the office wasn't open at the time.
Private areas are different. ICE cannot enter without a judicial warrant signed by a judge - one that says "U.S. District Court" or a state court at the top.
Say at the door:
"This is a private area. You cannot enter without a judicial warrant signed by a judge. Do you have a judicial warrant?"
An administrative warrant - on Form I-200 or I-205, signed by ICE officials rather than a judge - does not authorize private-area entry. It may look official. It is not enforceable.
If they show a judicial warrant, ask for a copy and read it. A valid judicial warrant:
You can accept a valid warrant and still decline to consent to the search. It only authorizes what it lists. Anything outside that, object.
Stay calm. Tell your staff to stay calm. Don't run for the exits - running gives ICE legal pretext to argue probable cause.
Watch what they do. If they search areas not on the warrant, voice the objection and note it.
Don't help ICE sort people by status or country of origin. If they show an administrative warrant with an employee's name, you don't have to say whether that person is working today, and you don't have to take agents to them.
Video or photograph the encounter if anyone is willing. Save your surveillance footage.
Workers have the right to stay silent and ask for a lawyer. Workers don't have to hand over IDs or papers. Anything said to ICE can be used against them.
Choices that put you in legal jeopardy:
Document immediately, while it's fresh. How many agents. What they wore. What they carried. Whether anyone was kept from leaving. Whether anyone was mistreated.
Notify the union if your workers have one. If anyone was arrested, ask the agents where they're being taken - that information helps families and lawyers locate them.
Stand by your workers. Offer leave while they sort authorization. Pay wages and benefits promptly. Provide separation pay if they can't return. Contribute to a legal defense fund. Give references for future jobs.
Connect with MN's immigration response network.
MN organizations that handle this type of case include Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota and Advocates for Human Rights.
Get signage, staff training, and a response plan you can adapt.
Protect your staff. Stand with your community.
No. The pledge is a public commitment, not a contract.
You can adapt or step back as your situation changes. The legal weight comes from what you do at your workplace - posting signs, training staff, refusing entry without a judicial warrant - not from the signing itself.
Nothing. The signage, training scripts, and response plan template are free.
Legal referrals are free. Translation into your staff's languages is free. Your time and effort are the only investments.
We can't promise it won't. ICE's targeting criteria aren't public.
What we can say: posting signage and asserting constitutional rights is legal. Federal courts have repeatedly upheld that workplaces and homes are protected against warrantless entry. The risk of being unprepared is concrete. The risk of preparing is hypothetical.
Yes. Places of worship lost their sensitive-location protections under a January 2025 executive order.
Federal agents may now enter areas of your building unless those areas are clearly marked as private. The pledge gives faith communities the same protective signage and trained staff that any workplace can post. Worship halls, classrooms, offices, and gathering spaces all qualify.
Yes. Schools and childcare facilities lost sensitive-location protections under the same January 2025 executive order that affected faith communities.
The pledge covers main entrances, classroom doors, and any private staff or family areas. Training your staff on the difference between a judicial warrant and an administrative one is especially important because the conversation at the door determines what happens next.
The pledge covers the building's shared entrances and common areas.
Individual vendors can take it separately for their own spaces, with their own signage and staff materials. We'll work with whoever makes decisions for the co-op to scope what fits your structure.
Especially yes. Studios, offices, design firms, and other workplaces without walk-in traffic often have the strongest case.
They get less public attention if something happens. The rights don't change because there's no storefront. Prep work matters more in spaces where fewer people would witness a federal visit.
One pledge from your organization covers all your locations.
If you'd like the public directory listing to include all locations, please list them for us.
No. The pledge and the public listing are separate.
You can take the pledge privately to protect your staff and customers without appearing in the directory. Most founders join the directory because the visibility is part of the work - the more workplaces show up on the map, the louder the solidarity. The choice is yours.
Only what you opt in to.
Internal contact information stays internal. Public-listing opt-in shares your business name, neighborhood, and type. Translation, training, and organizing requests stay inside the network.
You'll get a confirmation email, and an organizer will reach out within a week.
We'll answer questions, talk through training options, and pair you with translators if your staff needs them.
It's a one-hour staff briefing.
Covers three things: how to recognize the difference between a judicial and an administrative warrant, how to handle the door if a federal agent arrives, and who in your workplace makes which calls. We provide the training notes and a script. You deliver it on a schedule that works for your team, or we can come do it with you.
The pledge formalizes what you're already doing and ties it into a public statement.
Your existing private property signage probably already qualifies. The 4th Amendment Workplace signage adds a small quarter-sheet sign that the public can recognize as a pledge-taker. Appearing in the directory connects your existing practice to the rest of the network.
Training materials are currently available in English.
Spanish, Somali, and Hmong are our Wave 1 translation priorities. Karen, Oromo, Amharic, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Thai are planned for Wave 2 as capacity allows. Tell us what languages you need on the form and we'll prioritize. ILRC's Red Cards are already available in 56 languages and may cover what you need in the meantime.
Federal law requires I-9 paperwork at hiring.
That confirms work authorization, not immigration status. ICE can request to audit your I-9 records, and they need three days' notice by law. ICE asking workers about status during a workplace visit is a different thing. Your staff don't have to participate. The 4AW protocol covers how you respond when ICE shows up. Hiring paperwork is its own lane.
Post on interior doors that you control.
The legal predicate works the same way: the sign declares the area private, and judicial warrants are required to enter. Any door, window, or wall inside your space is a place to post.
The framework still applies.
The signage declares your premises private. Your training is for yourself. The response plan is for you to follow. Even a one-person shop has rights. Even a one-person shop benefits from knowing the warrant distinction when an agent shows up.
Contact an immigration attorney before anything else. Notify your workers, and your union if there is one.
You have three business days to produce the I-9 forms. Don't turn them over early. You have the right to consult an attorney before answering questions or signing anything ICE hands you. Workers may have coworkers present when audit findings are discussed.
If ICE flags some employees as not authorized after the review, you'll get ten days to provide valid work authorization. If you can't, you'll be instructed to end their employment. Tell affected workers about the audit so they can talk to an immigration attorney. Ask ICE for more time if that conversation needs it.
Any questions we should add? Let us know!
Your staff has rights. Your workplace can support these rights, though it doesn't grant them.
Send your staff the employee-facing guide to help them navigate - learn to identify non-judicial warrants, know what to say at the door, what to do if a coworker is detained.