Louansee Moua<\/a>, Thao\u2019s sister-in-law, said officers it was frigid and snowing when he was taken from the house. \u201cIt was so heartbreaking seeing him in that image,\u201d Moua said. \u201cYou can\u2019t get it out of your head. He has no clothes, and it\u2019s like 12 degrees and it\u2019s snowing.\u201d<\/p>\nMoua said her brother-in-law went willingly with the officers without knowing why he was being detained. \u201cHe went willingly because he was afraid,\u201d she said, adding that Thao\u2019s demeanor is very generous and laid-back. <\/p>\n
The Department of Homeland Security said officers were investigating two convicted sex offenders at the address and that a U.S. citizen living there refused to be fingerprinted or be facially identified, so he was detained. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe matched the description of the targets. As with any law enforcement agency, it is standard protocol to hold all individuals in a house of an operation for safety of the public and law enforcement,\u201d DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. <\/p>\n
In a statement Monday, Thao’s family said that the agency’s account did not reflect their firsthand knowledge of the events or the living situation at the residence.<\/p>\n
“The only individuals residing at the home are Mr. Thao, his adult son, his daughter-in-law, and his young grandson. The family does not know the individuals referenced in DHS\u2019s statement,” the family said. <\/p>\n
Thao’s family said that officials did not present a warrant or request ID before he was detained. <\/p>\n
“Mr. Thao did not resist and went with agents voluntarily, despite the absence of an explanation for his detention at the time,” the family said in its statement. <\/p>\n
A U.S. District Judge in Minnesota on Friday issued an injunction blocking the Trump administration from some aggressive tactics that she said would \u201cchill\u201d an ordinary citizen from engaging in constitutionally protected protest. The Trump administration is appealing her injunction. <\/p>\n
Thao said his parents brought him from Laos to the United States in 1974 when he was 4 and that he became a U.S. citizen in 1991. During Sunday\u2019s ordeal, he feared being sent back to Laos, where he has no relatives. <\/p>\n
He said he was singing karaoke when there was a loud noise at the door. He and his family hid in a bedroom, where the federal officers found him. Thao said that he was trying to find his ID as officers escorted him out of the house. <\/p>\n
Thao was wearing only boxer shorts and Crocs on his feet when officers denied him the chance to put on more clothes, he said. He used a blanket that his 4-year-old grandson had been sleeping with on the couch to cover his torso. <\/p>\n
After taking his fingerprints and a photograph of him in the car, officers returned him to his home, Thao said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe came here for a purpose, right? … To have a bright future. To have to have a safe place to live,\u201d Chris Thao, his son said. \u201cIf this is going to turn out to be America, what are we doing here. Why are we here?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Minnesota man said that he felt fear, shame and desperation a day after ICE officers broke down…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-417878","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}