Operation Metro Surge




Operation Metro Surge is an ongoing operation by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection with the stated purpose of apprehending undocumented immigrants and deporting them. Beginning in December 2025, it initially targeted the Twin Cities, and later expanded to all of Minnesota. The Department of Homeland Security called it "the largest immigration enforcement operation ever carried out". The surge has been characterized by an escalation in the severity of ICE tactics, harassment, and threats against observers. It has involved the detention of US citizens and the arrest of 3,000 people.
Federal agents killed two civilian observers during the operation: Renée Good and Alex Pretti, who were both US citizens. One person detained by ICE during the operation has died while in custody. The operation has disrupted the economy and civil society of Minnesota, with schools transitioning to remote learning and immigration arrests disrupting everyday business activities. Thousands in Minneapolis have protested the ICE activity. The governor and attorney general of Minnesota have challenged the operation, stating that its primary purpose is "retribution" instead of immigration enforcement. On January 28, 2026, Minnesota chief US District judge Patrick Schiltz found that ICE violated at least 96 court orders in Minnesota since January 1, 2026, alone.

Overview

One of Donald Trump's key campaign promises during his 2024 presidential campaign was a crackdown on illegal immigration and to commence mass-deportation operations. After his inauguration for his second term, Trump signed multiple executive orders related to immigration in the United States, and the Department of Homeland Security and ICE agents began raids across the country.
On December 4, 2025, DHS announced Operation Metro Surge, and on January 6, 2026, DHS announced an expansion of the effort to what it called the largest immigration enforcement operation ever carried out, sending agents to the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area. The surge included Homeland Security Investigations officers focused on the 2020s Minnesota fraud scandals, as the White House announced a multiagency effort to investigate these scandals. In addition, Donald Trump announced an effort to deport people of Somali descent in Minnesota that he said were involved in fraudulent activity, describing them as "garbage". Saint Paul City Council member Molly Coleman described the first day of the action as "unlike any other day we've experienced".
A Department of Justice attorney testified that, as of January 26, at least 2,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and 1,000 Customs and Border Patrol officers were participating in the operation. ICE says it has arrested 3,000 people in Minneapolis since the start of the operation. ICE detainee flights from Minneapolis more than doubled from December to January.
Although the effort was reputedly focused on fraud centered in the Somali-American community, only 23 arrestees were from Somalia, and none had ties to the social services frauds under investigation. Following the killing of Renée Good by a federal agent in January 2026, the largest fraud prosecution faced setbacks due to the resignation of six federal prosecutors, including lead attorney Joe Thompson. Persons detained on the basis of their actual or suspected immigration status have included restaurant, airport and hotel workers, Target employees, children and families, Native Americans, students and commuters. Many detained individuals have been US citizens, legal residents with work authorization, or asylum seekers. The operation has seen a surge in lawsuits for wrongful detention in Minnesota.
Attempts by US citizens to observe or protest federal immigration raids have been met with surveillance, threats, arrests, and use of force including beatings, the use of chemical irritants, flashbangs, and LRADs.

Timeline of operation

December 2025

At the beginning of December, ICE announced an enforcement surge in the Twin Cities. At least 12 people were arrested between December 1 and December 5. CNN reported the operations were set to be primarily focused on undocumented Somali immigrants. Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino requested identification from employees of an auto repair business after the owner, a US citizen who had fled Somalia, advised a man that he didn't have to answer their questions. Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey signed an executive order banning federal officials from using city property for staging areas. In late December, ICE agents threatened a pair of observers with arrest, then drove to the home of one of the observers and photographed it.
  • December 6 - Around a dozen federal agents entered a home in Burnsville, Minnesota, and arrested four people, including the parents of a seven-year-old boy. They were taken to detention facilities outside of the state.
  • December 9 - A 55-year-old Minneapolis resident and US citizen was detained by federal immigration agents while observing an ICE enforcement action on a public street in north Minneapolis. According to local news reporting, civil rights organizations, and court filings, the woman drove to the scene after receiving alerts about ongoing federal activity and stood on a sidewalk near the enforcement site. Within seconds of asking an ICE agent "Are you ICE?", she was reportedly tackled to the ground, handcuffed, and taken into custody by agents. Reporting indicates she was transported to the Whipple Federal Building in Fort Snelling, shackled, and held in a cell for approximately four to five hours before being released without charges. During her detention, parts of her clothing and her wedding ring were reportedly removed. The ACLU complaint asserts that the observer was on a public street, did not interfere with federal agents, and that the detention was part of a broader pattern of confrontations between ICE agents and individuals documenting federal actions.
  • December 10 - A 20-year-old US citizen in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood in Minneapolis was wrongfully detained by unidentified ICE agents during his lunch break. The man was tackled, put into a headlock and taken in a vehicle to the Whipple Building, despite offering to show his passport by shouting "I'm a citizen. I'm a citizen." upon contact with the agents. He was released after being allowed to show his passport hours later and walked back to the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood in the snow. Minneapolis and Minnesota police and politicians denounced his detention as unlawful and unconstitutional.
  • December 14 - In an interview, Representative Ilhan Omar said that her son had been pulled over by ICE. He was able to show the agents his passport and was not detained.
  • December 15 - ICE agents in Minneapolis attempted to arrest a woman who they said had attempted to vandalize their vehicle. The use of force in detaining the woman was criticized by Minneapolis police chief Brian O'Hara, and led to pushback from bystanders, who surrounded the agents and threw snowballs at them until they abandoned the arrest.
  • December 22 - ICE agents opened fire on a Cuban immigrant who they alleged had hit them with an SUV while fleeing arrest in Saint Paul.

    January 2026

  • January 6
  • * DHS announced it was launching what it called the largest immigration enforcement operation ever carried out, sending 2,000 agents to the Twin Cities.
  • * ICE agents photographed the license plates and faces of a St. Paul couple observing their activities, then greeted them by name and drove to their house. According to the couple, the encounter was intimidating and left them shaken.
  • * A woman, her child and her neighbor's child, who is African American, were also pulled over by ICE. Observers gathered around the traffic stop, and the agents eventually left without making an arrest or speaking to anyone in the car.
  • * A 10-year-old Columbia Heights student and her mother were taken by ICE and sent to a Texas detention center.
  • * Victor Manuel Diaz is taken by ICE and transferred within a week to Camp East Montana, a detention center at Fort Bliss, Texas.
  • January 7
  • * Renée Good is shot and killed in her car by federal agents.
  • * A resident of St Paul's North End neighborhood said that federal agents knocked on her door asking her to identify houses in her neighborhood where Hmong families lived.
  • * A Minneapolis pastor was detained by ICE during a protest near his church. He said that agents invoked his race in determining that he would be released shortly after arrest.
  • * Health care workers and organizers said ICE entered a Minneapolis hospital without a warrant and guarded/handcuffed a patient to a bed, raising concerns about interference with care and access to private areas.
  • * Federal agents tackled people and used chemical irritants and detained an educator outside Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis. Eyewitnesses said the agents were hitting people who were already on the ground. Minneapolis Public Schools subsequently canceled classes for the remainder of the week.
  • January 8
  • * In a McDonald's in Minneapolis's north side, a security guard blocked ICE from forcing their way behind the restaurant's counter without a warrant.
  • * A video showed ICE agents raiding a Target store and arresting two workers in the Minneapolis suburb of Richfield. Both were US citizens, who were injured during the incident and released shortly after being detained.
  • January 9
  • * An ICE agent threatened a pregnant St. Louis Park immigration attorney with a can of pepper spray and scanned her face after she requested that the agent leave the private parking lot of her law firm.
  • * Four members of the Oglala Sioux tribe were detained by ICE during a raid on a homeless encampment in Minneapolis. DHS refused to give tribal President Frank Star Comes Out more information about the detainees unless the tribe entered into an immigration enforcement agreement with ICE. One of the four detainees was released, and the other three were held at Fort Snelling, the site where native prisoners were held during the Dakota War of 1862.
  • * A family reported that a father was detained by ICE while on his way to work, disrupting the family's livelihood and leaving them uncertain about his status and location.
  • January 10
  • * While tens of thousands of people protested against the activities of ICE in reaction to the killing of Renée Good, as part of a coordinated national protest movement targeting ICE and federal immigration enforcement practices, 29 protesters were arrested.
  • * A restaurant's surveillance video showed a worker described as legally authorized to work being seized by federal agents who appeared to have been waiting outside.
  • January 11
  • * An ICE agent threatened a man who said he was trying to get home, accusing the driver of following them and saying "Did you not learn from what just happened?" in reference to the killing of Renée Good.
  • * ICE arrested two US citizens engaged in a community patrol who were monitoring their activities. The agents sprayed pepper spray into the vent of the patrollers' car and smashed the car's windows. One patroller described his experience inside the Whipple Federal Building, where he said that food and bathroom breaks were rare, injured detainees were denied medical attention, and that DHS agents offered to "pay him money or extract favorable immigration outcomes on his behalf if he would give them the names and contact information of other illegal immigrants". The pair were released into an active protest outside the building after 8 hours of detention, and subsequently pepper sprayed alongside the other protesters.
  • * In St Paul, ICE smashed the window of a Honduran national and dragged him from his car, also arresting a protestor out of the crowd that had formed to observe the arrest. On 14 January, his family said he was alive, but very injured and not receiving treatment, in a detention center in El Paso, Texas.
  • * Greg Bovino was booed and cursed at after using the bathroom at a Target in Midway.
  • January 12
  • * A classroom assistant and US citizen was detained by ICE outside the special needs school where she works in Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota. Witnesses disputed DHS claims that the woman had rammed their vehicle, saying it was "evident they rammed her and then broke her window to pull her out of the vehicle" based on the damage done by the collision to the side of her car. She was released after 12 hours in custody, pending an investigation.
  • January 13
  • * A crowd of over 100 confronted ICE agents raiding a home in Powderhorn Park, Minneapolis. Three people were detained, two of whom were acting as observers. Witnesses observed ICE agents pushing one observer's head into the cement before detaining him. A different protestor kicked the taillight of an ICE vehicle and was able to escape capture. As ICE left the scene, they fired pepper balls and tear gas at the crowd.
  • * Another woman who said she was on her way to a doctor's appointment at the Traumatic Brain Injury Center had her window smashed and was dragged from her car, bound and carried away by masked agents. She said that she was denied access to a doctor and lost consciousness while in detention, and that she felt "lucky to be alive".
  • * Federal agents fired flashbangs and tear gas at protesters outside the Whipple Federal Building. 8 people were arrested.
  • * ICE deployed to Minneapolis-Saint Paul Airport, establishing checkpoints to verify the documents of travelers and employees.
  • January 14
  • * Healthcare workers in the Twin Cities said that ICE agents were entering hospitals with detained individuals, worrying nurses and interfering with patient care by entering private areas of the hospital without a warrant.
  • * A Woodbury, Minnesota real estate agent who spotted an ICE patrol and parked next to them at a shopping center had his car blocked in by ICE agents and was detained by them for three hours at the Whipple Federal Building.
  • * A neighbor's home security camera captured an ICE arrest at a bus stop in South Minneapolis. The camera has also captured changes in the behavior of commuters, including people waiting around the corner until the bus comes or running home after getting off the bus, for fear of being picked up by ICE.
  • * Aquila Elementary School was forced to change its pick-up procedures due to a persistent ICE presence at the school and at an apartment building across the street. One PTA member said that "Aquila teaches its kids to be kind, to be tolerant, to be thoughtful, to keep their hands to themselves, and none of those attributes are being modeled for them in the world outside their school", and that "Kids are missing school because ICE keeps cracking down on this city, this community, and specifically this neighborhood, these few blocks here, almost every day."
  • * Agents forced their way into an apartment building, detaining a 17-year-old Columbia Heights student and her mother.
  • * Death of Victor Manuel Diaz at Camp East Montana.
  • January 15
  • * A couple reported having ICE agents deploy tear gas and stun grenades around their car as they were stuck near a protest, resulting in the hospitalization of their six children inside.
  • * ICE detained several workers at a Mexican restaurant in Willmar, Minnesota. The officers ate at the restaurant earlier in the day, then returned to arrest the employees after they closed.
  • * St. Paul Public Schools reported ICE stopped two of its contract vans transporting students and staff.
  • January 16
  • * More than a dozen MSP airport workers were detained by ICE on the job. Their union, UNITE HERE Local 17, said all of the workers had legal authorization to work in the country and had passed rigorous federal background checks in order to work in the airport.
  • January 17
  • * Jake Lang, a pardoned January 6 rioter, attempts to burn a Quran in front of a government building and march through the streets of a Somali neighborhood, but is disrupted and attacked by counterprotesters.
  • January 18
  • * Without a search warrant, federal immigration agents made entry into a US citizen's home in Minnesota, handcuffed him, and took him outside in freezing temperatures in his underwear. He was detained for two hours before immigration agents released him. ICE officials claimed they were searching for two men with criminal records who they believed were living in the house. Local media reported that one of the men ICE claimed they were looking for had been in a Minnesota prison since 2024.
  • * ICE officially announces the death of Victor Manuel Diaz while in ICE custody. In a statement, ICE claims that Diaz committed suicide, which the family disagrees with.
  • January 19
  • * ICE arrested a man working at a St. Louis Park hotel where agents were staying. The man came to the United States as a refugee and had a valid work permit, and was ordered released by a judge on January 25.
  • January 20
  • * A police chief shared that two off-duty Saint Paul Police officers had been briefly stopped by ICE.
  • * Brooklyn Park Police Chief Brian O'Hara stated that an off-duty Brooklyn Park Police Department officer had been stopped by ICE at gunpoint.
  • * Liam Conejo Ramos, a five-year-old student at Valley View Elementary was approached by masked ICE agents as he returned home from school with his father. According to school officials, they took the boy to the door of the house and used him as 'bait' to get the residents to open the door. In response to backlash, senior ICE officials alleged the officers were attempting to protect the child from the cold. At the same time, ICE claimed that Liam's mother was inside the house. School officials suggested the pregnant mother was likely fearful of opening the door. The ICE agents took Liam and his father away to a detention center in Texas. According to their lawyer, the family came to the US in 2024 from Ecuador and has an active asylum claim. This was the fourth student at the Columbia Heights School District to be detained by ICE. Earlier the same day, a 17-year-old student was taken from his car by ICE agents.
  • January 21
  • * Fong Khang, a US legal permanent resident from Laos, was taken into ICE custody and transferred to Texas in apparent violation of a federal court order. The day before the Minnesota Board of Pardons had set aside Khang's criminal convictions; he had remained free of convictions since 2010. According to his lawyer he was to be returned to Minnesota.
  • * Volunteers delivering food to migrants reported ICE vans were staking out area food banks and following them. Visits to local food pantries were down 50–80 percent.
  • January 22
  • * Federal agents detained an immigrant man and his 2-year-old daughter, who had active asylum cases, as they were returning from grocery shopping. When a crowd gathered, the agents used flash-bang grenades and chemical agents. Despite a federal court order for the toddler's release, both were transferred to Texas. The 2-year-old was later returned to her mother.
  • January 23
  • * A general strike is held across the state in response to ICE activity in the state.
  • * Thousands protest in downtown Minneapolis.
  • * A woman is arrested by ICE from her car at 36th and Portland.
  • January 24
  • *Intensive care nurse Alex Pretti is shot and killed by United States Border Patrol agents.
  • January 26
  • * The Trump administration announces that Tom Homan would oversee operations in Minnesota.
  • January 27
  • *Attempted entry of Consulate of Ecuador, Minneapolis, by ICE.
  • January 28
  • *ICE detains a volunteer community food shelf delivery driver at the Hallie Q. Brown Community Center in St. Paul, in violation of a mayoral directive forbidding immigration enforcement on city-owned property. ICE cited the man's criminal record as a teenager to justify his detention and deportation. Since his release from prison in 2016, the man had been involved in various community organizations in Frogtown and St. Paul's North End, and community members spoke to his good character.
  • January 30 and 31
  • *A second Twin Cities general strike planned by University of Minnesota campus student union organizers expands nationally, branded as National Days of Action in Solidarity, calls for a general strike and economic blackout - no school, work or shopping.