What statements have ICE/CBP and local law enforcement made about the Richfield arrests and the condition of the released individuals?

1. What CBP/ICE have said: an arrest for assault, minimal detail

CBP’s public statements about the Richfield incident have been narrowly worded and focused on criminality: a CBP spokesperson told Newsweek that “USBP [United States Border Patrol] arrested a United States Citizen for assault in Richfield, Minnesota,” citing the federal statute that bars “assaulting, resisting, or impeding federal officers,” and the agency posted that “this individual was arrested for assaulting federal law enforcement officers,” but provided no elaboration identifying which detainee was meant or describing the alleged assault ^{[1] [2]}. Multiple outlets report that CBP and ICE did not give fuller operational details when pressed — Bring Me The News explicitly reached out to CBP for comment and for the disposition of the men detained, and ICE did not provide clarifying information in New York Times reporting about broader Minnesota operations ^{[3] [4]}.

2. What local officials, witnesses and family members report: injuries, release and outrage

State Representative Michael Howard and bystanders described a very different sequence: Howard said he spoke to both detained employees and characterized their treatment as violent and symptomatic of an enforcement escalation, and videos and witness accounts show agents pinning workers to the ground and loading them into an SUV; Howard also said both were injured and later released, with one reportedly driven to a nearby parking lot and freed while the other was held for several hours before release ^{[2] [1] [5]}. Family members and local reporting repeated claims that one detained teen shouted “I’m a U.S. citizen” while being restrained, and that relatives were told by agents they “didn’t care” about citizenship status — statements that have fueled community protests and accusations of racial profiling ^{[6] [7]}.

3. Local law enforcement posture and federal-local tensions

Local news outlets noted that federal Border Patrol and CBP personnel carried out the operation at roughly 2 p.m., and local agencies have been publicly circumspect: KARE11 reported agents took two people in handcuffs but was still “working to learn more” about identities and reasons for detention, while broader reporting points to a pattern of friction between federal enforcement in the Twin Cities and local leaders who say they do not assist in civil immigration enforcement ^{[8] [9]}. The head of U.S. Border Patrol, Gregory Bovino, told WCCO that citizens and those with legal status “have no reason to be scared,” an assertion that sits uneasily beside witnesses’ and lawmakers’ accounts of rough arrests and subsequent releases ^[5].

4. Gaps, alternative claims and the limits of available official information

The factual public record shows a sharp contrast: CBP/USBP characterize at least one detention as an arrest for assault on federal personnel but have not released identifying, medical, or charging details for the detainees involved, and ICE has been slow or nonresponsive to requests for fuller accounting in related coverage ^{[1] [3] [4]}. Conversely, local elected officials, family members and on-scene video assert U.S. citizenship, injuries and prompt release for the individuals — claims amplified by advocates and civil-rights groups that are already litigating perceived patterns of suspicionless or warrantless stops in Minnesota ^{[2] [1] [10]}. Several reporters and legal observers have cited witnesses who say detainees were denied phones or held in distressing conditions in other recent detentions in the region; those accounts come from AP and local reporting about different but related Minnesota detentions and underscore why community actors are pressing for transparent federal answers ^{[11] [4]}.