The end of Operation Metro Surge appears to be in sight.
White House border czar Tom Homan announced Thursday that the federal law enforcement presence in Minnesota would be scaled back in coming days, claiming its multi-pronged mission had been accomplished.
Tom Homan speaks at a press conference at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building on Thursday. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
“I’m very pleased to report that this surge operation and our work here with state and local officials to improve coordination and achieve mutual goals … have yielded the successful results we came here for,” Homan said.
What exactly they came here for has shifted somewhat in the 2½ months since the U.S. Department of Homeland Security launched what officials described as the largest immigration crackdown in its history.
The Trump administration’s stated goals when it launched Metro Surge in December were to investigate allegations of fraud within Minnesota’s Somali community and “target the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens in the Minneapolis area.”
It soon evolved into a mass deportation operation, employing as many as 3,000 masked agents fanned out across the Twin Cities under U.S. Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino.
When Homan arrived to replace Bovino following the fatal shootings of Renee Macklin Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis, the border czar said DHS forces in the state would be drawn down as soon as local officials granted them greater access to county jails.
Were any of those goals achieved? That depends on who you ask.
Fraud investigations
Brooke Rody, of St. Paul, joined about 60 other people who came together to show their support of their Somali neighbors in front of the Dawah Mosque on Fairview Avenue in St. Paul on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. “I’m a midwife and about 50% of my patients are Somali and I want to show up for them,” Rody said. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
The roots of Operation Metro Surge stretch back to mid-November, when right-wing media outlets circulated claims that Somali immigrants in Minnesota were funneling money from social welfare programs to the terrorist group al-Shabaab.
Fraud schemes targeting these programs in recent years have been well documented in local news coverage and have resulted in dozens of criminal convictions — a majority of them of Somali Americans. None of those cases was linked to al-Shabaab.
Assistant U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Joe Thompson was already investigating a new crop of what he described as “industrial-scale fraud” schemes in the state when the al-Shabaab allegations caught the attention of President Donald Trump.
Metro Surge began in early December when Trump ordered immigration agents and DHS investigators into Minnesota as he vilified Somali immigrants in a series of openly xenophobic public statements, even calling them “garbage” during a Cabinet meeting.
More attention was heaped on Minnesota’s fraud problems later that month when YouTuber Nick Shirley released a viral video leveling accusations at Somali-run day cares in the Twin Cities, claiming they stole $100 million in federal assistance.
The Trump administration responded on Jan. 6 by dispatching thousands more federal agents to the state. The next day, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Macklin Good.
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Thompson’s office was reportedly pressured by administration officials to investigate Macklin Good’s widow, leading him and half a dozen other federal prosecutors in his office to resign.
The fraud investigations that drew the administration’s attention to Minnesota in the first place now appear hampered by the wave of resignations, according to B. Todd Jones, who served as Minnesota’s U.S. attorney under Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
“The investigations will slow down,” Jones said earlier this month. “You’ve had a drip, drip, drip of people that worked on those cases that have left during the last year because of the dynamics at the Department of Justice, and there’s more that’s happening as we speak.”
‘Worst of the Worst’
Federal immigration agents throw tear gas as they confront protesters near the site where federal agents shot and killed a 37-year-old Minneapolis resident Alex Pretti at Nicollet Avenue and 26th Street in Minneapolis on Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
Homan said Thursday that Metro Surge is leaving Minnesota safer, with more than 4,000 arrests. DHS said the operation targeted “criminal illegal aliens” with prior convictions for serious crimes such as sexual assault, domestic violence and gang affiliation, as well as individuals with final deportation orders.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty was among those who publicly disagreed that the state is more secure.
“Anyone who has witnessed this occupation in our community, or seen the footage online, knows that none of this has made us safer,” she said. “Instead, it has caused irreparable damage to our community. Alex Pretti and Renee Good are no longer with their families.”
DHS has a website highlighting the “Worst of the Worst,” and the agency includes nearly 500 people. They list their crimes, but the locations of the most offenses aren’t included, and neither are dates of birth. Without that information, independent verification of these cases through state and federal court records systems is unreliable.
But Minnesota Department of Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell, who testified Thursday before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs in Washington, said the “Worst of the Worst” website included nearly 70 people who served time in the state’s prisons and were “then transferred over to ICE because of our cooperation.”
“Multiple times during Operation Metro Surge, we honored pre-scheduled releases to ICE, as is our policy,” Schnell said in written testimony. “The next day, we would find DHS press releases and social media posts hailing these transfers as arrests made as part of federal agents’ efforts to remove ‘violent criminal illegal aliens from the streets of Minnesota.’
“The clear implication was that these individuals had been on the loose and were apprehended by federal agents as part of Operation Metro Surge due to Minnesota’s alleged non-cooperation, when in reality these individuals never touched the street — they went from a Minnesota prison cell into ICE custody due to our voluntary cooperation,” Schnell continued.
In contrast with county jails, the state’s 11 prisons house people after they are convicted of serious crimes and their release dates are known well in advance, “so ICE has ample time to arrange a pickup when a sentence ends,” Schnell added.
The offenses listed on the “Worst of the Worst” website were a mix of serious and less severe, such as property damage or violating court orders,” Schnell said. “These are not what most people would consider ‘worst of the worst’ violent felonies, since these crimes are often neither violent nor felonies.”
He added that “no one is denying that ICE took custody of some serious offenders — they did, and Minnesota welcomes the removal of truly dangerous individuals. But the data strongly indicates that those individuals were a minority of the surge’s targets, and that at least some were a direct transfer from facilities in Minnesota.”
Mass deportation and detentions
Demonstrators carrying shields that say “We Keep Us Safe” line up along the street during protests at the Bishop Henry Whipple federal building near Fort Snelling on Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
For legal experts and other observers, more questions loom. How many detainees have been deported, and how many are lawful green card holders or applicants for asylum and permanent residency? How many detainees have been released from federal facilities and allowed to return home?
“Of that 4,000, who knows where all those people are?” said Virgil Wiebe, director of the Immigration Law Practice Group at the University of St. Thomas School of Law.
Given sweeping enforcement that at times seemed targeted and at other times focused on little more than accent and skin color, “I wouldn’t be surprised if DHS doesn’t have a number on how many actually got deported,” Wiebe said. “Sometimes there’s a rhyme and sometimes there’s a reason (for detention), and sometimes there’s not.”
According to the Cato Institute, which reviewed leaked government data, 73% of individuals detained by ICE have no criminal convictions on record, and nearly half had no conviction or pending criminal charges. Only 5% had previously been convicted of a crime of violence.
“The White House website was claiming that all 4,000 (detainees) were criminals,” Wiebe said. “It’s just ridiculous.”
During the president’s current term, the Trump administration’s efforts around mass deportation have resulted in more than 18,000 “habeas corpus” challenges in federal court from immigrants claiming their detention is illegal, which is more than were filed under the last three administrations combined, according to a national analysis of court filings conducted by ProPublica.
Hand in hand with Operation Metro Surge, DHS announced Operation PARRIS, which stands for Post-Admission Refugee Reverification and Integrity Strengthening — an effort to re-interview refugees whose green card applications are still under review and put them through fresh background checks and other “enhanced vetting.”
The stated goal of Operation PARRIS was to focus on 5,600 refugees awaiting lawful permanent resident status. Rather than simply schedule sit-down interviews, federal agents resorted to armed arrests, removing people from their homes for weeks at a time before releasing them, often out of state, without a bus ticket or plane ride back to Minnesota.
In numerous cases, within 24 hours of being detained at the Whipple Federal Building at Fort Snelling, lawful U.S. residents were flown to federal detention facilities in Texas before judges could order them to be freed. In late January, a federal judge in Minneapolis approved a temporary restraining order against Operation PARRIS, a decision the judge reaffirmed in early February.
“Mandatory detention, in addition to being practically impossible given the number of refugees awaiting inspection and adjustment, seems clearly to be a solution in search of a problem,” wrote U.S. District Judge John Tunheim, a Bill Clinton appointee, in the latest 20-page order. “The swift reinterpretation of long-held and consistently understood applications of the law raises serious constitutional questions.”
The next hearing in a class-action suit filed by the Advocates for Human Rights will take place Thursday at the federal courthouse in Minneapolis.
Will Operation Metro Surge deter future illegal immigration or the hiring of undocumented workers? Given an estimated 130,000 undocumented immigrants in Minnesota, 4,000 detentions would total a 3% reduction by the most liberal estimates, even if every detainee were, in fact, undocumented — and many were not.
“What I haven’t heard or seen are actions against employers,” Wiebe noted. “Maybe intelligence was gathered as a part of this operation, and there will be follow-up later. I’m not advocating (for that), but historically, the biggest burden falls on individual workers.”
“Will it deter (illegal immigration)? It’s really hard to answer, because they certainly achieved the goal of scaring the hell out of people, and not just people who were undocumented,” he continued. “People with green cards, people who are U.S. citizens, all were afraid to go to work. I don’t know if there will be enough residual fear to convince people to leave without a constant presence. If an occupying force leaves, I’m guessing the fear will subside.”
Local cooperation
Minnesota Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell shows video from the Lino Lakes prison sallyport at the Department of Corrections offices in St. Paul on Jan. 22, 2026. DOC coordinated with ICE to turn over two people on Jan. 12, 2026, who had immigration detainers and who had reached the end of their prison terms, which was shown in the video. The next day, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security listed the two men as “criminal illegal aliens arrested yesterday during Operation Metro Surge.” (Mara H. Gottfried / Pioneer Press)
In explaining the administration’s decision to end operation Metro Surge on Thursday, Homan cited increased cooperation with officials in charge of county jails.
“We now have the ability to arrest criminal aliens in the safety and security of jails throughout the state at the time they’re being released, like we’ve done in other states,” he said. “As far as the jails, we got more cooperation.”
He said that’s important because arresting people who are public safety threats in a jail “just makes sense” from a safety standpoint, plus it reduces the number of agents needed for an arrest.
But on the ground, there don’t appear to be policy shifts at Minnesota’s county jails.
“We have not changed anything,” Dakota County Sheriff Joe Leko said Friday. The jail already gave “access to ICE to come into our jail to interview detainees to determine if they are going to be going through the (ICE) removal process.”
If someone has an ICE detainer, the Dakota County Sheriff’s Office notifies ICE “prior to release,” Leko added.
Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt, whose jail has been under particular scrutiny, said Friday that the county has not made changes to jail policy. A sheriff’s office spokeswoman said the jail does not notify ICE unless the federal agency has a judicially signed warrant.
“Let me be clear: The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office does not conduct any civil immigration enforcement,” Witt said at a Friday news conference. “… Our office is operating in the exact same way as it did when I took office here at the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office. We have not entered into any new agreements with (the) federal government.”
There was a shift from when Homan replaced Bovino on the ground in Minnesota after federal agents fatally shot Pretti in Minneapolis.
“What changed was when Tom Homan came here, I could get a conversation with someone,” Gov. Tim Walz said at a Thursday news conference, adding there previously hadn’t been “a single interaction” with DHS Secretary Kristi Noem or Bovino about the immigration surge.
In addition to Walz, Homan also met with Witt and the mayors of St. Paul and Minneapolis, among other officials.
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Homan said Thursday that he’s “directed the strategic placement of (ICE) officers in certain areas throughout the state that can respond quickly to sheriffs who want to release somebody and notify us. We need to be nearby so they don’t hold them unnecessarily.”
Minnesota’s county jails and prisons cannot hold people in custody solely based on civil immigration detainer requests from ICE, according to an analysis by state Attorney General Keith Ellison of state and federal laws, and how courts have interpreted them.
In Dakota County, ICE is able to pick people up most of the time as they’re released from the jail in Hastings, but sometimes they don’t get there in time, Leko said.
Pioneer Press reporters Nick Ferraro and Alex Derosier contributed to this report, which includes information from the Associated Press.
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