ProPublica documents 40+ cases of immigration agents using banned chokeholds and neck restraints; Minnesota Reformer republishes amid Operation Metro Surge

On January 13, 2026, ProPublica reporters Nicole Foy and McKenzie Funk published an investigation documenting more than 40 cases over the prior year in which federal immigration agents used chokeholds, carotid restraints, and related maneuvers that restrict breathing or blood flow — the same tactics that police departments and federal agencies banned after George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis in 2020. In nearly 20 of those cases, agents appeared to use neck restraints that DHS policy prohibits “unless deadly force is authorized”; about two dozen videos show officers kneeling on people’s necks or backs, or holding handcuffed people face-down on the ground. The footage was reviewed by a panel of eight former police officers and use-of-force experts. The investigation was republished by the Minnesota Reformer on January 14, 2026 and carried by MPR News, MinnPost, Southwest Voices, and OPB.

The carotid restraint at the center of the reporting compresses the two carotid arteries that carry roughly 70% of the brain’s blood supply; blocking them can cause rapid loss of consciousness, and the technique can produce strokes, seizures, brain damage, or death. The targets documented across the 40-plus cases include immigrants, U.S. citizens, and protesters. Agents are typically masked and their identities withheld, and the government would not say whether any officer had been disciplined for using the banned tactics.

Note on scope: this is a nationwide ProPublica count over roughly a year, not a tally drawn exclusively from Operation Metro Surge — the Minnesota Reformer republished it and its Minnesota relevance is sharpest there. The Metro Surge connection became explicit in the parallel racial-profiling litigation: lead plaintiff Mubashir Khalif Hussen, a 20-year-old, was tackled and put in a chokehold after running from agents in Minneapolis’s Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, and on March 11, 2026 a federal judge found “compelling and troubling” evidence of racial profiling by federal agents in Minnesota. Structurally, the reporting shows a federal enforcement surge importing precisely the use-of-force tactics that a national reckoning had banned — accountability rolled back inside the very apparatus that operates without visible identity, discipline, or consequence.