A Minnesota toy store whose owners spoke out against Immigration and Customs Enforcement abuses of power is now being targeted by the Department of Homeland Security. The incident is another instance of the Trump administration using the power of the federal government to target speech and dissent.
The Minnesota Star Tribune reported on Tuesday that Mischief Toy Store, located in St. Paul, has been ordered to turn over its employment records to DHS as part of a surprise audit. The company is being told to submit its I-9 forms, which companies use to document the citizenship status of their employees.
A cartoon by Clay Bennett.
Mischief co-owner Dan Marshall told the outlet the company has never been asked for this kind of information and that they only have five part-time employees, who were all born in Minnesota. Marshall said the request was a “waste of their time to be targeting us” and said he and co-owner Abigail Adelsheim-Marshall, his daughter, are being targeted because of an interview she gave to ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
Marshall told the Pioneer Press that the documentation along with the notice of audit requested that the government action not be publicized. Marshall said he “chose to ignore” that request and restocked anti-ICE yard signs that have been a hot seller in recent weeks.
Adelsheim-Marshall appeared on “Good Morning America” last Friday to discuss 3D printed whistles that the store has been handing out for free to the public in response to ICE activity in the state, where an ICE agent killed Renee Good.
“It was really designed to be a nonviolent form of protest and to alert everyone that there is ICE activity going on,” she explained. “Everyone is really looking for anything they can do to help their community right now, and the whistles are just one small thing that they can do.”
Minnesota citizens and labor unions have been out in force in protest of ICE abuses and have remained undaunted in their resistance despite authoritarian rhetoric from Trump and his team.
Mischief Toys previously made headlines last April when the owners joined a lawsuit against the Trump administration in protest of President Donald Trump’s tariff policies, which have raised costs for small businesses and consumers.
The federal action against Mischief echoes the Trump administration’s other attempts to crack down on dissenting speech.
In September, the Federal Communications Commission led an effort to remove comedian Jimmy Kimmel from the airwaves. Kimmel and his show have relentlessly mocked Trump for years and attracted his ire. While Kimmel went off air for a few days, public outcry against the administration, ABC parent Disney, and station groups like the pro-Trump Sinclair media, led to the comedian being reinstated.
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Trump has previously bragged that “we took the freedom of speech away,” and while that statement is false, it unmasked the administration’s opposition to one of the major pillars of American democracy.
The federal push against Mischief Toys is another reminder that Trump is still waging a war on free speech.
