Geneva, Switzerland - A UN committee has been urged to investigate the US federal government's "gross violations" in the state of Minnesota, a prominent civil liberties organization said this week.

The American Civil Liberties Union said it had sent an urgent submission to the United Nations' Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), asking it to "investigate the US's grave violations of its human rights obligations" in the midwestern US state.

CERD, which is composed of 18 independent experts tasked with monitoring how countries implement an international convention on eliminating racism, confirmed to AFP that it had received the ACLU submission.

ACLU asked the committee to urgently respond to President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, which saw the fatal shootings of two protesters by federal officers in Minneapolis last month.

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The organization charged that "federal agents have ignored basic human rights in their enforcement activity against Minnesotans, especially targeting Somali and Latino communities."

"The Trump administration's egregious crackdown in Minnesota is not only flouting the Constitution but also United States international human rights obligations that prohibit the use of racial and ethnic profiling, extra-judicial killings and unlawful use of force against protesters and observers," Jamil Dakwar, head of ACLU's human rights program, said in a statement.

"We are calling on the United Nations to hold the US government accountable for its blatant violations of international law and to officially report on its disregard for their human rights treaty obligations," he added.

The request was filed under CERD's early warning and urgent action procedure, which allows the committee to address urgent matters in between its regular sessions.

CERD will consider the submission before its next regular session, due to begin in mid-April, a spokeswoman told AFP.

The ACLU filing maintained that ICE agents were conducting stops and arrests of Minnesotans on the basis of race, ethnicity, and national origin, representing "flagrant violations" of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which the US has been party to since 1994.

"The Trump administration's ongoing immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota are being carried out by thousands of masked federal agents in military gear who are ignoring basic constitutional and human rights of Minnesotans," said Teresa Nelson, legal director of the ACLU of Minnesota.

"Their targeting of our Somali and Latino communities threatens Minnesotans' most fundamental rights," she said in a statement.