The SEIU has spent decades funneling hundreds of millions into Democrat campaigns while calling itself a workers' organization.
Now a court filing exposes an investigation that goes far deeper into America's labor movement than anyone on the left expected.
What the grand jury saw on that DHS conspiracy slide is something that blows Big Labor’s cover.
Operation Puppet Master Sent Undercover Agents Into Minneapolis Union Halls to Map the Direct Action Minnesota Network
A team of Homeland Security Investigations agents walked into the United Labor Center in Minneapolis on February 15 wearing concealed audio recorders.
The agents posed as anti-deportation activists and signed in at the registration tables like everyone else.
The gathering had 200 participants and a formal agenda drawn up in advance.
The Democratic Socialists of America's Twin Cities chapter co-organized the event, billed as a "Workers Assembly to Defeat ICE and Plan the Next Mass Strike."
Inside, meeting organizers pushed to abolish ICE – and after debate, dropped DHS from the agenda to concentrate the effort.
The Revolutionary Communists of America proposed forming a labor-oriented political party called the "Workers Party."
Healthcare Workers for Palestine's National Day of Action against Israel was on the agenda too.
Other co-sponsors included Socialist Alternatives and the Communications Workers of America's Minneapolis branch.
Federal agents recorded all of it and filed detailed debriefs back to supervisors.
This was not a one-time operation.
DHS's internal case files – disclosed in court documents from the prosecution of 15 antifa cell operatives – show that Project Whipple Shield ran throughout Operation Metro Surge, the largest immigration enforcement operation in American history.
Agents attended meetings at churches, parks, libraries, schools, and union halls across the Twin Cities.
They were added to Signal chat groups where organizers tracked ICE vehicles in real time and coordinated street blockades outside hotels where ICE officers were sleeping.
Both operations ran under the authority of National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, a directive President Trump signed ordering DOJ to investigate networks supporting domestic terrorism and organized political violence.
SEIU and CWA Bank Records Subpoenaed Under Operation Metro Surge Terrorist Financing Authority
DHS used that presidential authority to go straight for the money.
Through an administrative subpoena, HSI obtained years of wire transfers from the Service Employees International Union's Minneapolis bank account – transactions spanning 2023 through 2026.
The SEIU is the country's second-largest labor union – one whose former president Andy Stern was investigated by the FBI and whose allied network ACORN was exposed for financial fraud in nine states before collapsing entirely.
HSI also subpoenaed the Communications Workers of America's full PAC spending history and donation records.
CWA represents workers across the United States, Puerto Rico, and Canada – including journalists at print and broadcast news organizations.
The investigation also pulled financial statements from the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, another AFL-CIO affiliate.
Then DHS handed the grand jury a slide.
The conspiracy diagram – prepared by HSI agents and presented to the grand jury that returned a 94-page indictment – placed the AFL-CIO, the Minneapolis Federation of Educators, the Minnesota Association of Public Employees, and SEIU 26 of Minnesota inside the antifa network as "council members."
An HSI agent testified before the grand jury that the slide depicted "a snapshot of some of the other organizations that members are affiliated with that kind of comprise and make up DAMN."
Attorney General Todd Blanche said the defendants had engaged in "an unrelenting campaign of harassment and violence targeting federal and local law enforcement."
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin was direct: "If you lay a hand on law enforcement, you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
The lead defendant, Isaac Sant, did not hide who he was.
On an anarchist speaking tour, Sant told audiences: "I am in an anarchist, revolutionary organization" – identifying it as the Black Cat Worker's Collective.
Sant – charged with conspiracy to impede federal officers and interstate stalking – described his rapid-response network against ICE as a revolutionary project, not a protest movement.
Defense attorneys are calling the investigation an unconstitutional "mass spying campaign" while their clients' supporters have crowdfunded more than $380,000 in legal defense money, most of it from anonymous donors.
The Left always funds itself. The question DHS spent months trying to answer is who else was helping.
Three years of SEIU wire transfers sit in the federal case file. The grand jury has already seen the conspiracy diagram. Someone's name is on one of those wire transfers – and DHS knows whose.
Sources:
- Mia Cathell, "Homeland Security investigated Minnesota labor unions for antifa ties," Washington Examiner, August 17, 2026.
- "15 Members of Direct Action Minnesota, a Minneapolis-Based Direct Action Group with Antifa Ties, Indicted," U.S. Department of Justice, June 16, 2026.
- "15 Antifa radicals indicted, 12 arrested in sweeping federal probe into Minneapolis anti-ICE operations," Fox News, June 20, 2026.