What to know about about ICE's Operation Metro Surge now that it is ending

Tim Harlow, The Minnesota Star Tribune on Feb 13, 2026

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MINNEAPOLIS — White House border czar Tom Homan announced this week that the immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities and Minnesota will conclude.

With the end of Operation Metro Surge on the horizon, here are answers to some frequently asked questions about the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts in the state over the past few months.

Yes, Homan said Thursday as he announced the drawdown.

“I’ll continue to say over and over again, if you’re here in the country illegally, you’re not exempt from our immigration laws,” said Homan, who added that agents previously assigned to Minnesota would return to their home bases.

Homan said a small team of federal agents will remain in Minnesota to tamp down what he called “agitator activity” and to prosecute protesters who have been charged. Federal officials investigating social services fraud in Minnesota, which kicked off the immigration surge in the first place, will also remain “until their work is done,” Homan said.

The operation was launched to investigate allegations of pandemic-aid and federal nutrition program fraud involving residents of Somali descent. President Donald Trump also took aim at Minnesota’s Somali residents who were allegedly involved in fraudulent activity, describing them as “garbage.” Efforts ratcheted up in early January after a conservative influencer’s videos alleging fraud within child care centers run by Somalis went viral.

This is the name the federal government gave to largest immigration enforcement deployment in U.S. history. Trump initiated the operation to restore public safety by arresting and deporting undocumented immigrants with criminal histories, identifying them as “dangerous criminal illegal aliens.”

The operation started in early December. Over the past two months, as many as 3,000 ICE agents and those from U.S. Customs and Border Protection were deployed to the state.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said last week law enforcement had arrested more than 4,000 people, including violent criminals in the country illegally, since Operation Metro Surge began. At one point, DHS said 10,000 people had been arrested in Minnesota since the start of Trump’s second term.

It’s difficult to verify that number. The agency has refused to release information or provide names of all those detained in the operation.

Nothing is definite yet, but Gov. Tim Walz said on Thursday, Feb. 12, that the state and federal government were close to announcing a joint investigation into the Pretti shooting last week. The deal has not yet materialized.

“It’s just a matter of them feeling like they have an upper hand to announce it,” Walz said of the federal government.

Pretti’s killing prompted a Department of Justice civil rights probe, but there is no indication of similar action for Good.

It’s difficult to say, but the North Star Policy Action, a Minnesota-based progressive group, estimates the operation cost nearly $18 million a week covering agents’ salaries, lodging and meals, detention centers and police overtime. Sen. Amy Klobuchar appeared to reference that number on Feb. 12 in remarks on the Senate floor.

“ICE’s actions have not made us safer. ... They have taken taxpayer money, at some estimates $18 million a week, and spent it on hotel rooms that should have been used for families visiting from Wisconsin and Iowa and Canada that like to go to the Mall of America in the middle of the winter,” Klobuchar said.