DHS Accuses Hilton of Blacklisting ICE Agents in Minneapolis
“We have noticed an influx of GOV reservations made today that have been for DHS, and we are not allowing any ICE or immigration agents to stay at our property.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) posted emails from Minneapolis-area Hilton Hotels showing that the hotels refused service to ICE agents.
Look, Hilton is a private company. It can deny service to ICE agents. It’s the company’s right.
It’s also the right of others to lash out.
DHS blacked out the email addresses, so we do not know who in DHS received them.
One email stated, “After further investigation online, we have found information about immigration work connected with your name and we will be cancelling your upcoming reservation.”
The second email encouraged the recipient to alert all of their colleagues about the policy:
This email is in regards to the reservation you made with the Hampton Inn Lakeville property.
We have noticed an influx of GOV reservations made today that have been for DHS, and we are not allowing any ICE or immigration agents to stay at our property. If you are with DHS or immigration, let us know as we will have to cancel your reservation.
Please pass on this info to your coworkers that we are not allowing any immigration agents to house on our property.
DHS responded on X:
NO ROOM AT THE INN!
@HiltonHotels has launched a coordinated campaign in Minneapolis to REFUSE service to DHS law enforcement.
When officers attempted to book rooms using official government emails and rates, Hilton Hotels maliciously CANCELLED their reservations.
This is UNACCEPTABLE. Why is Hilton Hotels siding with murderers and rapists to deliberately undermine and impede DHS law enforcement from their mission to enforce our nation’s immigration laws?
NO ROOM AT THE INN!@HiltonHotels has launched a coordinated campaign in Minneapolis to REFUSE service to DHS law enforcement.
When officers attempted to book rooms using official government emails and rates, Hilton Hotels maliciously CANCELLED their reservations.
This is… pic.twitter.com/qKMKypGtzi
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) January 5, 2026
“Hilton has launched a coordinated campaign in Minneapolis to REFUSE service to DHS law enforcement,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News. “When officers attempted to book rooms using official government emails and rates, Hilton Hotels maliciously CANCELLED their reservations.”
“Why is Hilton Hotels siding with murderers and rapists to deliberately undermine and impede DHS law enforcement from their mission to enforce our nation’s immigration laws?” asked McLaughlin.
It’s not just the immigration issue. The Trump administration has put more agents and officials in Minneapolis due to the alleged Somali fraud scheme.
Hilton released a statement to Fox News: “Hilton hotels serve as welcoming places for all. This hotel is independently owned and operated, and the actions referenced are not reflective of Hilton values. We are investigating this matter with this individual hotel, and can confirm that Hilton works with governments, law enforcement, and community leaders around the world to ensure our properties are open and inviting to everyone.”
https://x.com/BillMelugin_/status/2008268497139224865
[Featured image via YouTube]
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Comments
Commence operations at all Hilton affiliated properties in Minnesota.
Better yet take a parallel approach. Take Hilton and all its hotel brands off the list of approved vendors for Federal employee lodging. Do that today and leave in place for 90 days no matter what groveling Hilton does. Immediately refuse all visa requests for Hilton corporate and all their franchises. Then hit every Hilton hotel with a multi agency TF of ICE, SBA, SSA, IRS to triple check all the info on employees and franchise holders and make sure all their paperwork/regulatory compliance has I dotted and T crossed.
That works as well, and probably more effective to send the message.
I had similar thoughts about this. How about a bunch of 53′ reefers outfitted with diesel generators, heat and bunks. Line them up end to end, in front of Hilton.
Is there a potential case for lawsuits by induvial agents, alleging racial discrimination? Are there any other causes for litigation? Rico?
No, the reason for the discrimination was clearly stated, and it’s a legitimate one. And there’s no crime, so no conspiracy.
But this is one hotel, not the whole chain. And that hotel is going to have repercussions.
And you know this because the company told you so in a damage control memo. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are other franchisees doing the same thing. I have no problem laying this back at the feet of the parent company; they are the ones with the big hammer.
No, it’s any hotel that is a part of the Hilton Enterprise including Embassy Suites and others. Hilton corporate stops this or there
will be a number of those who will stop supporting Hilton.
Interesting that it’s Mpls. Hmmmmmm are these Hilton owners part of the fraud going
on here?
And the government can stop doing business with the whole chain. Perfectly legitimate. Their employees aren’t safe there
It’s a franchise operation using Hilton’s name and reservation system to conduct business. Hilton could respond by freezing it’s reservation system and removing the franchise. As for a crime in not allowing government employees to use that hotel, I agree that it’s probably not illegal.
Hilton did immediately issue a statement apologizing and said it’s taking action. I would expect whoever at that hotel that sent the email is already terminated. One or two bad employees can do damage. It’s the reaction to it by their employer that counts.
BREAKING: Hilton to remove independently owned hotel in Minnesota from their systems after @nicksortor video appears to show they were still banning DHS/ICE employees from booking rooms at the hotel following a statement they issued in which they said they had fixed the issue.
Ah, CommoChief, I see you once worked as a building inspector for the city of Chicago!
The city government here had a rather parallel way of handling anyone who owned a building who ran afoul of the building code (e.g., didn’t pay the vig).
No, not Chicago… though I have a good deal of experience dealing with pompous bullies in the 2nd/ 3rd world. Nothing speaks louder to capture their attention than decisive corrective action to force immediate capitulation.
I forgot
Look
What little Timmy did to the State flag of Minnesota
Wondering what “new” food” inventions are at the Minnesota state fair
Cats and dogs?
https://x.com/ILA_NewsX/status/2008195344430227689?s=20
This allegation has always been ridiculous. The new flag is much better, and any resemblance to various state flags in Somalia is coincidental.
I disagree. I dislike the new flag. There is no meaning to it. And like it or not it does resemble the Somali flag. The washed out blue color also sucks.
The new flag is ugly as Hillary’s soul. I don’t think it had anything to do with Somalia. But it was definitely deliberately dumbed down and made ugly.
You have to be kidding. There is no “coincidence” in that flag.
Yeah right, that’s the ticket, it’s all just a “coincidence” that the state with the largest population of Somali immigrants (Minnesota) has adopted a flag that bears a striking resemblance to Somalian state flags.
This was the actual flag the Minnesota State Emblems Redesign Commission selected which they then modified into the officially adopted flag:
https://www.mnhs.org/hs-fs/hubfs/1935.png
But it’s all just a coincidence that it resembles the state flags of Somalia.
Hilton is most likely not the owner of the property.
Hilton, choice hotels, Best Western, Ramada, Holiday Inn, etc are the property managers. The individual hotel properties (the real estate and building) are typically owned by unrelated 3rd parties. The 3rd party owners contract out the management of the property to the various hotel management companies such as Hilton, Ramada, etc.
Mostly likely what happened is the owner of the property cancelled the reservations that hilton had booked.
Blame the property owner, not Hilton.
What do you want to bet the lobby smells of curry?
Hilton knows that business lost in Minnesota will affect other locations,
Hilton has a brand name that they need to protect, so bringing them into the conversation is fair and appropriate, and probably most effective.
So let me get this right. You can’t deny service to a black, a white, a jew, a muslim, a christian. a gay, a transexual, a hispanic, and asian, an indian, a woman or a man; but, you can deny service to an immigration official of your own country? Do I have that right? Okayyyyyy
This hotel is owned by Marcus Hotels and Resorts. The chairman of Marcus is Gregory Marcus, Gregory Marcus is a democrat or at least makes political contributions to democrats. Color me surprised. Should investigate this hotel to see how many illegal aliens it employees.
Kudos to people who do such tracing for a living.
According to Sean Davis, that specific property was sold to an LLC owned by four Indians (Asian) last summer.
https://x.com/seanmdav/status/2008263492030349618
Okay so I’m bad at tracing too.
Um, yes. That is correct. Actually you can deny service to a black, a white, a jew, a muslim, a christian. a gay, a transsexual, a hispanic, and asian, an indian, a woman or a man, so long as you aren’t doing it because they’re those things. There is no such thing as a protected person or class, only prohibited reasons.
There is no such thing as a duty to serve all comers. You can deny anyone service, for any reason you like, except those reasons specifically prohibited by law. The exact list of prohibited reasons depends on state and local law, but the federal list is (if I remember correctly) sex, race, religion, national origin, disability, and age over 40. As far as federal law is concerned you can discriminate on any basis other than those. States and localities add to the list. As far as I know government service isn’t on any list, and it would probably be unconstitutional to add it.
Are you not familiar with the common-law duty of inn keepers to, in general, accept all guests? I don’t know the current status of that duty in all 50 states. But inn keepers have had, for centuries, duties that other businesses don’t have.
I don’t believe such a duty exists in any state. Hotels are like any other business; they can refuse service for any reason except those specifically prohibited by law.
And you base this on what exactly? I think you should probably not just make stuff up when you pretense to vast legal knowledge.
I am not going to do a 50-state survey here because I like money for legal work. But let’s just look at Minnesota, since that’s where the story comes from. In Minnesota, the duty exists by statute and roughly codifies the common law. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/327.73
Before the statute was codified in 1982, Minnesota courts recognized the existence of the common-law duty:
“There is a clear distinction between a mere private lodging house and a hotel where no meals are served. Such a hotel or inn is a house the proprietor of which ‘holds out that he will receive all travelers and sojourners who are willing to pay a price adequate to the sort of accommodation provided, and who come in a situation in which they are fit to be received.’ The keeper of such a house is bound, without making any special contract therefor, to provide for all, to the limit of his facilities, at a reasonable price; but the proprietor of a private lodging house is not bound to receive all who apply, but he has the right to select his guests, contracting specially with each.”
Nelson v. Johnson, 104 Minn. 440, 444, 116 N.W. 828, 829 (1908).
in a nutshell, that’s correct. Being a government employee isn’t a protected class under law.
“This hotel is independently owned and operated…”
There’s your answer, right there. Since it’s nearly impossible to hire Americans willing to make beds and the H-2B visa program is such a hot mess, ICE will doubtless find many illegal aliens on staff at this hotel. The owners apparently have never heard of the Streisand Effect. Watch for a raid in the coming weeks!
The greedy hotel managements have illegals making beds because they pay them pennies an hour. The hotels and all employers must be held to pay workers salaries for Americans and not for illegals. Maybe then we would have a smaller percentage of workers sitting home and not working.
Cancel all government contracts with Hilton and affiliates. Take Hiltons and affiliates off the list of approved or possible places for government employees to stay.
Audit them with the IRS and start looking to find which of their staff is illegal. Then stage ICE raids to arrest them.
Start by staking out the employee entrances and pick them off on their way in and out… That can start this afternoon. It gives the ICE folk something to do while the removal of Hilton (and associates) from vendor lists around the world…. It looks like their FA is about to yield a FO.
If it were the chain, and not an individual hotel, then you’d be right. Likewise if the chain doesn’t take action about this.
Do it anyway. The chain sets the standards for the franchise. The chain gets punished so they make sure no franchise ever thinks of doing something like this again.
Hilton already has. I bet that hotel franchisee has already fired the employees. If not then the proper action would be for the government to remove Hilton from it’s list of approved hotels. Either Hilton can take action or the government can.
See my comment above, –
Hilton is the property manager, not the owner of the hotel.
Most likely, the owner of the hotel cancelled the reservations and Hilton had nothing to do with the cancellation.
meaning…hilton is hiring illegals..would be a fair assessment
Well then, President Trump can (and probably will) write an executive order banning ANY government business be done with Hilton. At the same time, start raiding their properties everywhere they exist.
It shouldn’t take too much of this to drive them deep into red ink, which is much preferable to letting them surrender.
In fairness it was a franchise operation not Hilton Corporate making the decision to revoke reservations and deny lodging to ICE. That said the Hilton corporate suits had the opportunity to make a very clear statement:
‘Hilton opposes this act by the franchisee and we have the Regional VP on the way with a gang of guys to rip the Hilton logo off this property and every other property this FORMER franchisee used to operate under the Hilton umbrella. The franchise.agreement is terminated, the former franchise holder is blacklisted from future ventures with Hilton and the employees who seemed joyous in sending the cancellation notices to our dedicated Federal LEO are likewise blacklisted from any any employment or association with Hilton. In the mean time Hilton will pay for 30 days accommodation for every Federal LEO impacted and will work with our competing companies to secure lodging. Hilton doesn’t discriminate and any employee or franchisee found to have done so will be terminated from their association with Hilton’.
Commochief – The ownership/franchisee/hilton property manager set up that you described is common business structure in the hotel industry.
Terminating the franchise agreement is the absolutely the correct action by Hilton.
That being said, I would have thought that Hilton would have been a little more quiet about terminating the contract since it would likely cause some backlash by their left wing customers ( approximately 1/2 of their customer base). Unless Hilton, thought the backlash would only be from the fringe leftwing base.
Hilton corporate’s response is of the “Find who did this and fire them, the hard way. Take the canolli.”
I expect this man’s franchise will be stripped and his nice hotels will suddenly be Red Roof Inns.
Hilton corporate is pretty good about government pricing on its rooms even when they’ve technically sold out of them.
I doubt the franchise will be stripped unless there is evidence the franchisee made it policy to exclude ICE from the hotel. If that was corporate policy then I agree Hilton needs to take immediate action and strip the franchise. If it wasn’t and the franchisee immediately terminated the employees who sent the email I’m not sure what else everyone want’s the man/woman to do? Hilton has made it a policy to prohibit ICE/Border Patrol etc from housing any detained persons on it’s properties saying that it’s a hotel, not a jail. I find that reasonable.
Well, nothing says that this Hilton is trying to avoid an immigration audit of its staff like not allowing ICE agents. I mean, I bet the management is hiding something pretty significant.
From Ace of Spades:
But Tricia McLaughlin of the DHS says it’s not just this one Hilton Hotel refusing service to the DHS, but multiple Hilton Hotels.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd-nnBA5_kY
I don’t think much of this blogger’s production. He blathers on for over six minutes before finally admitting that Hilton corporate is claiming they have nothing to do with this activity and that is all the work of franchisees. The government spokes woman he interviews claims that there are multiple Hilton hotels in Minneapolis that are turning her people down, but also fails to distinguish between franchisees and the national chain, so her claim is essentially meaningless until it is qualified. He seems to be more intent on ginning up the mob than actually investigating the story.
Yeah, I’m positive that Hilton corporate is warming up the hot irons and other such ‘encouragement’ devices for the clueless dupe who put out this brain-dead leftist memo. “Pour encourager les autres” after all.
I’ve no idea why this Benny guy is popping up so much in recent days. Considering that this is the first anyone heard of this happening I’m throwing the flag on his claims. If multiple hotels in MN are doing this then why have we not heard of it? Are they all part of the same franchisee’s holdings? This is obviously not a Hilton Corporate policy as they said as much. I put zero credence in his claims
If it is found to be secondary to the Hilton corporation, the government should pull all contracts for a housing for their agents From any and all agencies of the government. This would definitely Kneecap the Hilton corporation
I was a federal worker once, USMC, and we got charter flights to Asia on the oldest and least comfortable DC 8s flying. When they put us up it was in a motel or the closest thing to a camp they could find. If we flew commercial it was coach, usually by the bathroom door. WTF are ICE agents staying in a Hilton for? I would fire the person who made the reservations and advise the new person that Motel 6 is still around! DHS had better get on this right away necause it is the same thing Dems have been doing for ever!
Give me a break. It was a Hampton Inn. I put that at the same levels as a Howard J or bottom level hotels. Maybe they should just setup in Air B&B’s. I would also not approve any government contractor stays in non approved hotels like Hilton or Hyatt.
The federal government obligated $759 billion through contracts in fiscal year 2023, a $33 billion increase from fiscal year 2022 after adjusting for inflation.
Government typically gets a discount at hotels much like American Legion members, active duty military, AAA and many other groups.
Old hotel guy here. I wouldn’t get your panties in a wad just yet. This has got to be the reservations clerk or front desk clerk tasked with handling reservations at one franchise operation.
There is NO WAY that Hilton corporate had a hand in this. They do too much business with .GOV entities to slam the door like this.
A lot of third and fourth tier hotel franchises are owned by wealthy immigrants (mostly Indians) as part of the EB-5 Immigrant Investment Program. They run really loose ships, trust me. Or this could have been a blue haired clerk doing their own thing. But for sure it’s not Hilton corporate.
So, how many illegals do you suppose are working at that Hilton?