People working with immigrant communities are aware of two workers who were detained in Tuesday’s federal operation at a St. Paul warehouse, they said at a Wednesday community gathering.

Local attorneys are trying to determine if anyone else was taken into custody.

“We had multiple reports saying there were more than two people, but we don’t know unless we confirm it. … We continue to work to confirm that information,” said Ryan Perez, director of organizing for Communities Organizing Latino Power and Action (COPAL).

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson said in a Tuesday statement that ICE Homeland Security Investigations and other agencies “conducted court authorized law enforcement activity and served a search warrant in furtherance of a federal criminal investigation,” which is ongoing. They have not released additional information.

About 200 people gathered Wednesday morning outside Bro-Tex Inc. on Hampden Avenue near University Avenue, the location of Tuesday’s federal operation. Elected officials and immigrant rights leaders spoke.

Bro-Tex’s website says they’ve been manufacturing and converting cloth and paper wiping products since 1923.

Perez said they started receiving reports just before 9 a.m. Tuesday of federal agents staging in Newell Park on Fairview Avenue in St. Paul before they went to Bro-Tex in the St. Anthony Park neighborhood.

Perez, speaking outside the business, said he knows of “a St. Paul dad and his brother, who would move heaven and earth to put dinner on the table for their families, who were forcefully zip-tied and removed from this premises.” A St. Paul youth called Perez on Tuesday and told him “that was my dad and that was my uncle” who were detained, and COPAL connected her with legal support.

A person who answered the phone at Bro-Tex on Tuesday morning said the company had no comment. There was no answer at the business on Wednesday.

Perez said he heard from a person who “was peacefully documenting and recording, who texted him and said, ‘It’s not that fun to get hit with pepper spray.’ … Folks that were there peacefully documenting that were forcefully assaulted and shoved by officers, who were physically injured.”

Some people swarmed vehicles driven by federal agents while yelling, “No justice, no peace.” Federal personnel sprayed protesters with a chemical irritant.

Video showed people stood in front of moving vehicles and law enforcement shoved them out of the way.

“We teach folks to be nonviolent and not to obstruct, but let’s keep in mind that standing on a public road is not being violent,” Perez said. “But assaulting someone and shoving them to the ground and pepper spraying them is.”

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The husband of a woman who was cuffed and taken into custody outside the business Tuesday wrote on social media that she’d been “peacefully protesting and filming.” She was held at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building at Fort Snelling until she was released later in the day.

In addition to agents seen wearing “ICE” and “HSI” gear, there were people wearing “FBI” and “DEA” on the scene Tuesday. A spokesperson for FBI’s Minneapolis division said they were “assisting our federal partners” and the DEA said they were “out in support of the activity.”

“Federal agents were seen with ‘police vests’ but we have confirmation that SPPD and the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office were not involved or present,” City Council Member Molly Coleman, who represents the area, wrote on social media.

This is a developing story and will be updated.