Minnesota toy shop hit with shock audit by Trump officials after criticizing ICE on TV, owners claim

What will it take to understand we are not the land of the free anymore. Government has been taken over by groups that don’t care about civil rights of the public. What is happening is fascism, an authoritarian take over of the government who have no concern of the rights of the people. They only care about their individual group’s goals. The wealthy want to rule, the white supremacists want a white only country where they judge everyone on how European white they think they are, the Christian nationalist want a theocracy want a country run by their own version of the religion, the maga cult simply wants to be rude crude 1950s thugs and not be called on it. Hugs

https://www.tumblr.com/truth-has-a-liberal-bias/806750011953217536/minnesota-toy-shop-hit-with-shock-audit-by-trump

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/dhs-audit-toy-shop-minnesota-ice-b2905136.html

Toy store says it was hit with an audit notice hours after one of its owners said ICE had ‘terrorized’ Minnesota

Josh Marcus in San Francisco

Thursday 22 January 2026 00:47 GMT

A toy shop in the Twin Cities alleges the Department of Homeland Security launched a sudden audit of the business just hours after one of its owners criticized the Trump administration’s ongoing crackdown in Minneapolis in a TV interview.

“In 27 years as retailers in St Paul, we’ve never been hit with this kind of audit,” Dan Marshall, co-owner of Mischief Toy Store, told the Minnesota StarTribune. “We just have five part-time employees, all Minnesota-born, so it’s kind of a waste of their time to be targeting us.

Marshall says two ICE agents went to the store to hand-deliver an audit notice asking for federal employment forms, payroll records, and the names of past and present employees, just hours after his daughter Abigail Adelsheim-Marshall spoke with ABC News about the ongoing Trump operation and criticized DHS.

In the interview, Adelsheim-Marshall detailed the store’s efforts to hand out free whistles to customers, which community members in cities across the country have adopted as a tactic to warn neighbors about approaching DHS agents and taunt ICE officers.

“Everyone is looking for anything they can do to help their community right now and the whistles are just one small thing they can do,” Adelsheim-Marshall told the broadcaster, estimating the store has given out thousands of the whistles since Thanksgiving.

Owners of the St. Paul, Minnesota, toy store claim DHS launched an audit of their business after they criticized ICE (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

She added that “almost every customer” has had a negative experience with DHS since the crackdown began.

“ICE is doing far more to hurt our community than immigrants ever have,” she continued. “I can’t overstate how much our entire community is being terrorized by ICE right now.”

Dan Marshall said the business has engaged an attorney and the ACLU for assistance.

“Any allegation that DHS inspected Mischief Toy Store in response to the owner’s daughter doing an interview is FALSE,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to The Independent. “This is a flagrant attempt to further demonize our law enforcement officers who are already facing a more than 1300% increase in assaults against them. There is an active HSI [Homeland Security Investigations] investigation involving this business that has nothing to do with this owners’ political views.”

In addition to clashes on the street, the Trump administration’s operation in Minnesota has seen dueling lawsuits and investigations between state officials and the federal government (Reuters)

A raft of investigations and lawsuits have accompanied the White House’s ongoing Minnesota operation.

The crackdown was supercharged last month after a viral video claimed widespread fraud was taking place at federally funded day care centers in Minnesota, and DHS has sent on-the-ground investigators to probe the allegations, some of which are disputed by local officials.

Last week, the Department of Justice sued the state, alleging it was using illegal affirmative action strategies in government hiring, and launched an investigation into state leaders including Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey, over whether they impeded federal agents.

They have denied wrongdoing, and Walz accused Trump of “weaponizing” the justice system against opponents in “a dangerous, authoritarian tactic.”

The state of Minnesota, as well as residents, have launched suits against the administration, claiming the tactics of the crackdown are unconstitutional.