Does video show swarm of ICE agents arresting man in Minnesota? What we know

In December 2025, a video (archived) circulated online that claimed to show a large number of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arresting one person in Minnetonka, Minnesota. 

The video showed agents in protective vests, some reading "Police ICE," walking down a set of stairs. In the group, two men walked alongside a third man who appeared to have his hands restrained behind his back.

The political commentator Brian Krassenstein shared the video on his X account and wrote, "Here are 50 agents at Ridgedale Library yesterday to arrest one person." 

Other social media posts on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), Threads (archived), Bluesky (archived) and Reddit (archived) estimated that the video showed anywhere from "dozens" to "over 50" agents.

Bring Me the News, a journalist-owned local news outlet in Minnesota, reported that the video showed ICE carrying out an arrest at the Ridgedale Service Center in Minnetonka on Dec. 29, 2025. Bring Me the News obtained the video through a reporter who shared metadata from the person who recorded the footage with Snopes. This data indicated that person recorded the video at Ridgedale Service Center on Dec. 29. 

Snopes has not spoken directly to the person who recorded the video to confirm the video's metadata or hear their account of events, as they wished to remain anonymous. Snopes does not rely on anonymous sources, and some devices allow users to adjust their metadata. Therefore, based on the available evidence we are not able to rate this claim.

In an emailed statement to Snopes, a spokesperson for Hennepin County, where Minnetonka is located, said "more than a dozen" ICE agents arrested two people at the Ridgedale Service Center the afternoon of Dec. 29. A spokesperson for ICE's St. Paul office said in an emailed statement that its agents arrested two people "at a courthouse in Hennepin County" on Dec. 29. An immigration judge had ordered one of the arrestees removed from the U.S. in 2018, according to ICE.

Snopes counted 27 people in the video who appeared to be ICE agents rather than bystanders or observers. The video did not appear to show a second arrestee, meaning more agents could have been present later. It was unclear why so many agents were seemingly involved in the arrest.

The Minnesota Star Tribune posted a photo (archived) on X that showed the same arrestee from the video wearing a white T-shirt. That photo also showed a coffee shop inside the Rigedale Library, which shares a building with the Ridgedale Service Center, further corroborating where the arrests took place.