Federal agents used pepper spray to push through an angry crowd that blocked their vehicles as they checked identifications in a heavily Somali neighbourhood of Minneapolis on Tuesday, amid the Trump administration’s ongoing crackdown targeting the community.

City Council Member Jamal Osman, a Somali American who represents the neighbourhood, witnessed the confrontation, as did an Associated Press videographer.

Minnesota’s Somali community — the largest in the U.S. — has been on edge the past couple of weeks since President Donald Trump said in a social media post Thanksgiving night that he was terminating Temporary Protected Status for them.

It is not clear how many Somali community members have been arrested, temporarily detained or asked to show documents as part of the crackdown, which has also netted people of other nationalities.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said via email that they made no arrests in the neighbourhood Tuesday, but provided no further details.

Osman said armed ICE agents went to East African restaurants in the neighbourhood Tuesday, closed the doors and demanded people’s IDs.

They found only U.S. citizens and made no arrests, Osman said. "Luckily everyone had their passport, because I’ve been telling them to have their passport with them," Osman said.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents used pepper spray on a group of activists (Associated Press/Mark Vancleave)

After checking the IDs of some people stopped at random on the street and temporarily detaining at least one U.S. citizen, Osman said, the agents went in seven to 10 vehicles to a nearby city-owned senior housing complex. There, he said, a group of mostly white young people he called “heroes” blew whistles to sound the alarm and confronted the agents, who responded with pepper spray.

“Thank God so many people showed up there,” Osman said. “(The agents) couldn’t get out of there because people showed up with their cars and whistles.”

Osman said he saw people suffering from the effects of pepper spray. He also said he spoke with one young Somali American who was dragged to a vehicle, detained and taken to an ICE detention center.

There, officials finally looked at his U.S. passport, fingerprinted him, and released him but told him to find his own way home, about 6 miles (10 kilometers) away in snowy weather.

“I just don’t know what they accomplished today other than the chaos," Osman said.

Trump further stoked tensions last week when he called Somalis “garbage” and said he does not want them in the country. At the same time, federal agents launched the crackdown targeting Minnesota Somalis.

The president’s moves have drawn denunciations from leaders of the Somali community and Democrats including Gov. Tim Walz, amid relative silence from top state Republicans.

Activists confronted a group of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in the largely Somali neighborhood of Cedar-Riverside in Minneapolis (Associated Press/Mark Vancleave)

About 84,000 of the 260,000 Somalis in the country live in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, the overwhelming majority of them U.S. citizens. Almost 58 per cent were born in the U.S., and 87 per cent of those born elsewhere are naturalized citizens.

A new website launched by the Department of Homeland Security lists at least six Somalis arrested in Minnesota in recent weeks. The site says it is “highlighting the worst of worst criminal aliens” arrested by ICE to show how agents are “fulfilling President Trump’s promise and carrying out mass deportations.”

ICE released a statement Friday listing three other arrested Somalis who did not appear on the website, along with people of other nationalities who it said were arrested in Minneapolis as part of Operation Metro Surge. ICE said they had all been convicted of crimes including sexual abuse minors, robbery and domestic assault.

“Governor Tim Walz and Mayor Jacob Frey protected these criminals at the expense of the safety of Americans,” the statement said. “President Trump and Secretary (Kristi) Noem have a clear message for criminal illegal aliens: LEAVE NOW. If you don’t, we will find you, arrest you, and deport you.”