By Brad Brooks and Alexandra Valencia
MINNEAPOLIS, Jan 27 (Reuters) - A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent tried to get into Ecuador's consulate in Minneapolis on Tuesday but was prevented from entering the premises by consulate staffers, the country's Foreign Ministry said.
The attempted entry prompted the Foreign Ministry to send a "note of protest" to the U.S. Embassy in Quito, the Ecuadorean capital, demanding such incidents "not be repeated," the ministry said in a statement.
The statement carried a headline referring to the incident as an "attempted incursion into the Ecuadorean Consulate in Minneapolis by ICE agents."
It said the consulate staff members' actions to prevent ICE entry ensured the protection of Ecuadorean nationals who were in the building at the time.
The incident occurred during a mass deportation operation being conducted by some 3,000 heavily armed agents of ICE and the U.S. Border Patrol deployed to Minnesota under orders of President Donald Trump several weeks ago.
Neither the State Department nor the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE and the Border Patrol, immediately responded to requests from Reuters for comment.
Ecuador's Foreign Ministry provided few other details. But eyewitnesses working in retail shops near the consulate said they saw immigration agents try to enter the building.
"I saw the officers going after two people in the street, and then those people went into the consulate and the officers tried to go in after them," said one woman, who asked not to be named, citing a fear of retribution by the federal government.
The agents "weren't able to enter the consulate, from what I could see," she said.
Under an international treaty, a country's embassies, consular offices and other diplomatic compounds are regarded as sovereign territory of that nation, protected under diplomatic immunity from unauthorized entry by agents of other governments.
Dubbed Operation Metro Surge, Trump's immigration enforcement drive in Minneapolis has led to fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens on the streets of Minnesota's most populous city, sparking weeks of protests there and across the country.
As political pressure for a de-escalation of tensions mounted, Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, met on Tuesday with the mayor of Minneapolis and the governor of Minnesota, seeking to defuse the crisis.
(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Minneapolis and Alexandra Valencia in Quito; Writing and additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; editing by Michelle Nichols and Thomas Derpinghaus)
