DULUTH, Minn. — Federal prosecutors on Monday dropped a criminal case against a Guatemalan man who was accused of ramming an immigration enforcement vehicle outside an Iron Range restaurant earlier this month.

However, the 19-year-old remains in federal custody and still faces administrative proceedings that could result in his deportation from the country.

Jose Miguel Espinoza-Espinoza appeared in U.S. District Court in Duluth on a charge of assaulting a federal officer in the Jan. 16 incident outside Cazadores Mexican Food in Virginia.

But the hearing ended almost as soon as it began. Assistant U.S. Attorney Bradley Endicott moved to dismiss the complaint, informing the court he did not have a federal agent available to testify about the circumstances of the alleged crime.

Magistrate Judge Leo Brisbois summarily granted the request, finding the government failed to meet its burden of establishing probable cause to support the charge.

It is believed to be the first time the Justice Department has backed away from prosecuting a suspect for an alleged assault against federal officers amid the ongoing crackdown in Minnesota, according to the New York Times.

State Sen. Jen McEwen and Rep. Liish Kozlowski, both DFL-Duluth, attended the hearing and sat behind Espinoza, who required a Spanish-language interpreter.

The legislators later conferred with his attorney outside the courtroom, as well as a handful of community members who gathered to support Espinoza.

“It’s important that we bear witness and make sure that folks are getting access to their constitutional rights and legal representation,” Kozlowski said. “We’re here to wrap around this community with care and support for the family members, as well as the people who are being, frankly, snatched up and taken from our communities.”

Agent reportedly injured finger

Court filings say several agents were on the scene from Homeland Security Investigations as well as Enforcement and Removal Operations, both divisions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

They were reportedly conducting surveillance near Cazadores, 1440 S. 12th Ave. W., when they saw Espinoza arrive in a Mazda 6 that had previously been identified by U.S. Border Patrol agents in International Falls as “being suspected of transporting illegal aliens.”

The complaint says three unidentified men got out of the car and entered the restaurant after arriving in the parking lot around 9:30 a.m. Agents wearing body armor marked “HSI” and “police” approached the car as Espinoza remained in the driver’s seat.

The affidavit alleges that an agent tried to open the door to question Espinoza, but he “rapidly accelerated,” causing an injury to the HSI agent’s finger. The Mazda then crashed into the front of a Ford Explorer, which was occupied by an ERO officer, approximately 10 feet away.

Agents told the court that Espinoza resisted arrest, ignoring commands in Spanish to show his hands, before they were able to handcuff him. He reportedly declined any medical care.

The complaint further alleges that he refused to provide his name and country of birth when initially taken to the Virginia Police Department headquarters. However, later at the Border Patrol station in Duluth, he allegedly identified himself and admitted he is a native of Guatemala who is in the United States illegally.

ICE publicized the incident in a Jan. 18 social media post, saying it is “just one of many” that have contributed to a major increase in vehicles being used as a weapon against agents. However, the agency did not, at the time, specify where the incident occurred.

The complaint was filed last week, with Espinoza making an initial appearance via video conference Wednesday. The U.S. Attorney’s Office requested his continued detention, and without a grand jury indictment in place, prosecutors needed to establish probable cause at Monday’s hearing in order to proceed with the case.

In dismissing the complaint, Brisbois noted the action “in no way affects” the administrative immigration process. He remains in the Douglas County Jail on a federal detainer, and ICE has indicated he faces deportation.

Public defender Siri Carlson McDowell declined to comment after the hearing.

Latest ICE action in Northland

The Northland has seen several immigration enforcement actions in the first year of President Donald Trump’s second administration. Roofers were arrested in Duluth last February and April, and eight people were arrested by ICE as part of a drug investigation connected to two Hibbing restaurants in October.

However, the Twin Cities area has been the epicenter of Trump’s crackdown, with “Operation Metro Surge” bringing thousands of agents to the area this month. The shooting deaths of two American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, have set off nationwide protests and now have the federal government on the verge of a shutdown over Homeland Security funding.

Kozlowski and McEwen said they have been inundated with immigration-related calls in recent weeks. Many of the people arrested by ICE are “essentially disappeared,” McEwen said, in a system that is legally a civil process, not law enforcement.

“We are seeing, basically, an armed, right-wing militia occupying our state, trying to carry out that civil duty that is really the only duty that they’re supposed to have,” the senator said. “It’s really horrifying. It’s very scary for our entire community, and it’s traumatizing.”

The legislators said the case underscores the fact that northeastern Minnesota is not immune from the “siege,” and they again drew attention to the fact that Douglas County houses detainees for ICE.

“Latino, Asian, Somali and Native Americans are being racially profiled, and that is leading to this obliteration of rights,” Kozlowski said. “Sen. McEwen and I are standing firm to say ‘hell no.’ Not in our community, not in our state, not anywhere.”

Be specific. It’s advice that writers get all the time. Readers can glaze over at statistics that prove a point or yawn at vague descriptions, but take them inside an experience with vivid details and they’re more likely to stay with you as you make a point or spin a story.

For example, if you wish to discuss the Holocaust that swept through Europe in the 1930s and ‘40s, leaving millions dead in its wake — most of them Jewish — the scope of the Nazi industrialized extermination process can be so overwhelming that one couldn’t be blamed for avoiding the topic, purely for emotional self-preservation.

But listen to a captivating story of how one person found a way to survive the carnage and you could find it grippingly dramatic. Such a tale is the picaresque odyssey of Eddie Jaku, a Jew from Leipzig, Germany, who was an adolescent when the Nazis came to power, yet found his way through the horrors of the Holocaust and lived to the age of 101 before dying earlier this decade.

JC Cutler stars in Six Points Theater’s production of “The Happiest Man on Earth,” a solo show by Mark St. Germain based upon the memoir of Eddie Jaku, who recounts his experiences during the Holocaust and his healing process afterward. The show runs through Feb. 8, 2026 at Six Points Theater in St. Paul. (Sarah Whiting / Six Points Theater)

It’s to our great benefit that Jaku wrote a memoir called “The Happiest Man on Earth,” which became a bestseller upon its 2020 release. We are further blessed that playwright Mark St. Germain created a 65-minute solo show from Jaku’s story that’s receiving a deeply involving production from St. Paul’s Six Points Theater.

Performed by local actor JC Cutler — a veteran of more than 50 Guthrie Theater productions, including several years as Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol” — it’s a masterful piece of storytelling that takes audiences inside the horror and heartbreak endured by the protagonist. But it’s also a thrilling adventure story of escape and an inspiring tale of a durable spirit who refuses to abandon his optimism. And it might be the ideal theatrical experience for anyone feeling beaten down by the trauma currently being visited upon Twin Cities streets.

Unlike the Jewish protagonist in Roman Polanski’s film, “The Pianist” — who successfully hides in Warsaw, Poland, throughout the Nazi occupation and ensuing war — Jaku was a man on the move, often walking for days across multiple European countries to flee the murderous purges. As in such Alfred Hitchcock films as “The 39 Steps,” Jaku is an innocent man forced to use his wits to wriggle out of danger, episodes Cutler makes compellingly suspenseful.

One asset Jaku possesses is being an experienced mechanical engineer. It serves to save his life when the Nazis find him of value and also to facilitate his escapes, as when he partially disassembles the train car he’s riding in toward the Auschwitz death camp, resulting in one of the show’s most heart-quickening tales.

Throughout, Cutler and director Ben McGovern collaborate to create an expertly executed example of the art of storytelling, one ably aided by C. Andrew Mayer’s excellent sound design. Cutler so fully inhabits Jaku that you could forget this is a theater production and believe yourself to be having the rare privilege of seeing history through the eyes of a primary source. He employs such impeccable timing, subtlety and disarming openness that this is likely to stand as one of the Twin Cities’ best performances of 2026.

Rob Hubbard can be reached at wordhub@yahoo.com.

Six Points Theater’s ‘The Happiest Man on Earth’

When: Through Feb. 8

Where: Highland Park Community Center, 1978 Ford Parkway, St. Paul

Tickets: $35-$15, available at 651-647-4315 or sixpointstheater.org

Capsule: A gripping story of survival and unyielding optimism.

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When St. Paul Public Works hired Jericho Huggar away from the city of Minneapolis two years ago to return to work in the neighborhoods where he was raised, no one was counting on him campaigning for a Bagela to follow.

The bright red Bagela — a portable asphalt recycler that whirs, smokes and smells like a contraption out of a Dr. Seuss children’s book — feeds on the kind of bottom-of-the-cereal-box construction debris that usually gives contractors heartache over where to store it. Instead of being carted off to a landfill, that potential hazardous waste is converted into hot pothole fill in a matter of minutes, saving costs on transport and disposal.

It would take some time for Huggar — a superintendent of street maintenance — to reassure others in St. Paul Public Works that buying a used machine from the city of Minneapolis would be a steal at $15,000, about one-tenth or so of its full retail price, and save taxpayer dollars by providing longer-term pothole relief for city streets than the common “cold mix.”

Huggar made the case anyway, and convinced higher-ups to make the purchase, which went through last year. The Bagela was put to work this month for the first time in the capital city. “I’m a taxpayer,” explained Huggar, who grew up in Frogtown.

Joined by St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her and St. Paul Public Works Director Sean Kershaw on Wednesday, Huggar and other Public Works officials showcased their “new-to-us” Bagela in action during a media event at a Public Works facility near Como and Western avenues.

Asphalt “rocks” dropped into the mouth of the Bagela like coffee beans in a grinder, churning into a relatively fine silt of steaming black fill, as a worker in a mini-skid steer loader scooped up the fallen grounds and deposited them into a heated truck bed.

Within minutes, the Public Works truck was parked just off Rice Street, on a residential street that had been rendered bumpier than corduroy by a series of winter potholes. Her received an impromptu tutorial in how to shovel out fill, drop it into place, tamp it down and then sweep it smooth.

For Her, whose first month in office has been dominated by thousands of federal agents swarming the Twin Cities, taking a moment to sweep pothole fill came almost as welcome relief.

“We can do both,” Her said. “We can address crises as they’re happening, but we have the staff in place so that we can continue to move forward on core city services, so that our residents do not see disruption.”

Given freezing temperatures, the city’s “hot mix” plant hasn’t opened for the season yet, and Public Works is still filling most potholes with “cold mix,” a type of asphalt mixture that has a shorter life expectancy.

Still, the Bagela is expected to make a sizable dent in demand this season by converting at least 13,000 tons of cast-off asphalt debris into hot pothole mix, which can be quickly transported to rutted streets needing a quick makeover.

“This is more durable and more efficient, so we can cover more potholes and get the work done so that it lasts longer,” said Kershaw, called the Bagela a promising addition to the city’s winter toolbox. “We have so many potholes that it’s never enough, but if this is successful, I imagine that we’ll want to get another one.”

Most of the asphalt source material will come from clean-outs of the city’s trucks and asphalt plant, or the dregs of street projects. “We try to find stuff that doesn’t have concrete in it, as clean as possible,” Huggar said.

Given temperatures that have risen and fallen in quick succession, leading to daytime melt and icy freezing overnight, Kershaw said there are plenty of pothole-riddled streets this season, though perhaps not quite as many as during winter 2022-2023, which ranked as one of the five snowiest seasons on record.

“They’re higher this year because the potholes are worse, but I don’t think we’re at ’23 levels yet,” Kershaw said.

While pothole filling isn’t entirely provided on a complaint or “first come, first served” basis, there’s some truth to the idea that the squeaky wheel — those who call in potholes — gets the grease, so to speak.

Public Works crews are doing the best they can to fill potholes citywide based on a grid map, working methodically from quadrant to quadrant, said Kershaw, while also prioritizing streets where especially challenging potholes may represent a danger to drivers.

“We will put those dangerous potholes first,” Kershaw said.

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More than 100 church bells are expected to ring across the Twin Cities on Saturday, calling for togetherness in a time when Minnesotans navigate tension with immigration actions in the state and mourn the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two community members who were killed by federal immigration agents.

“Bells signal our oneness as a people,” organizer Rebecca Jorgenson-Sundquist said. “They remind us of our capacity to be united. They stir our hearts to redouble our commitment to American ideals of freedom and justice for all. We believe that the bells sound messages of hope that one day our community will be whole.”

Jorgenson-Sundquist started City of Bells, an organization whose goal is to “celebrate the many bronze bell installations in the Twin Cities through discovery, education and promotion,” 11 years ago. Typically, the group coordinates churches, state buildings and other bell-bearing entities in ringing their bells in unison on the Fourth of July, Juneteenth and Veterans Day. But at noon Saturday, a day with no particular name, bells will ring during a time where words fail, Jorgenson-Sundquist said.

“With all of the chaos and heartbreak going on, I think all of us are asking ourselves, ‘What can we do? What can we do to make a difference?’ And I thought, ringing the bells is perfect, because to me, when I hear a big bell ringing, it’s like God is saying, ‘Be not afraid. I am with you,’ ” Jorgenson-Sundquist said.

The bells will be heard far and wide, Jorgenson-Sundquist said, as she’s reached out to over 200 churches and buildings with bells to participate in the initiative.

“I think that any bell that is in good working order will be joining us in ringing,” Jorgenson-Sundquist said.

The bells, which ring for all, she said, will provide people with an opportunity to step outside, pause, listen and contemplate. She said there is no political agenda behind the ringing of the bells, but the bells are delivering a message.

“We just really want the bells to be used as a force for good,” Jorgenson-Sundquist said. “We know that everybody’s hearts are aching, no matter what side of the political spectrum we’re on; it’s just an awful thing for our cities to experience, and it takes a long time to recover, and we want to be a part of the recovery.”

Jorgenson-Sundquist said she’s working to see if prominent leaders or politicians in Minnesota would speak and offer an opportunity for community members to gather on Saturday, possibly at the Liberty Bell on the state Capitol grounds in St. Paul. She said any of the leaders or their representatives who signed a letter calling for “immediate de-escalation of tensions” in the state are also invited to join.

Some of the churches expected to ring their bells on Saturday include House of Hope Presbyterian in St. Paul, Central Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, St. Mark’s Cathedral in Minneapolis and Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis.

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