United States v. Sant

Federal prosecutors in Minnesota are pursuing criminal charges against Isaac Sant and other defendants connected to opposition to federal immigration enforcement. In August 2026, Sant moved for additional discovery to determine whether the prosecution grew out of viewpoint-based targeting pursuant to National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7).

NSPM-7 directs federal agencies to investigate “domestic terrorism” and political violence while singling out disfavored views as potential indicators—including opposition to aggressive immigration enforcement, “anti-fascism,” “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity,” and what it calls “extremism on migration, race, and gender.” As FIRE argued in December 2025, NSPM-7 and then-Attorney General Pamela Bondi’s implementing memorandum invite investigators to treat protected political beliefs as evidence of wrongdoing.

Public discovery shows what that looked like in Minnesota: DHS agents infiltrated in-person and virtual meetings at churches, libraries, and schools; monitored encrypted Signal chats; recorded license plates and compiled dossiers; and secretly obtained years of financial records from unions and nonprofits not accused of crimes. 

In this amici curiae brief, FIRE and its fellow amici, the Society for the Rule of Law and the Cato Institute, argue that this sweeping surveillance burdened core First Amendment speech, protest, association, and associational privacy based on viewpoint. The brief, authored by Protect Democracy in cooperation with Ciresi Conlin LLP, urges the District of Minnesota to order additional disclosures that could show whether political animus drove the investigation and prosecution.