Ecuador’s Foreign Ministry filed a formal note of protest on Tuesday after a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent tried to enter the South American nation’s consulate in Minneapolis before being stopped by a staffer inside the building.
In a statement released following the incident, the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry said an ICE agent “attempted to enter the consulate premises,” but “consulate officials immediately prevented” the officer from getting through the door, “thus ensuring the protection of Ecuadorians who were present at the time and activating emergency protocols.”
The ministry said it “immediately presented a note of protest” to the US Embassy in Quito, Ecuador’s capital, “so that acts of this nature are not repeated in any of Ecuador’s consular offices in the United States.”
Under international treaties, law enforcement officers of host nations are barred from entering foreign embassies and consulates without permission.
One eyewitness to the incident in Minneapolis, a flashpoint in the Trump administration’s violent mass deportation efforts, toldReuters that they saw ICE agents “going after two people in the street, and then those people went into the consulate and the officers tried to go in after them.”
Video footage posted to social media shows a consulate official walking quickly to the building’s entryway and repeatedly telling an ICE agent that he “cannot enter.”
The ICE agent can be heard telling the consulate staffer, “If you touch me, I will grab you.”
“ICE set off an international incident in Minneapolis today because agents tried to go into the Consulate of Ecuador without permission, and then yelled at their staff for trying to keep them out,” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, wrote on social media.
“Note that there is a huge ‘consulate of Ecuador’ sign over the door,” he added, pointing to an image of the building.