The presence of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Minnesota is a very divisive topic with a lot of controversy tied to the unfolding situation in the Twin Cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul.

In December of 2025, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) began Operation Metro Surge to target immigrants in Minnesota. Around 2000 federal agents were sent to Minneapolis and St. Paul to carry out the operation, and they mainly targeted Somali residents. On Jan. 13, DHS announced that the Temporary Protected Status for Somali nationals in the U.S. would be revoked.

Kristi Noem, the Secretary of DHS, was quoted saying “Country conditions in Somalia have improved to the point that it no longer meets the law’s requirement for Temporary Protected Status.”

President Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed anti-Somalia rhetoric. At a speech in Pennsylvania, he made a number of remarks about the country and its people.

“…we always take people from Somalia, places that are a disaster, right?” Trump addressed the crowd, saying the country was “filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime”.

Due to recent controversy, on Monday, Jan. 12, around a month after the deployment of federal agents to Minnesota, the state filed a suit against the Trump administration. The suit is an attempt to stop the immigration enforcement crackdown. 

“This is, in essence, a federal invasion of the Twin Cities and Minnesota, and it must stop,” State Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a news conference. “These poorly trained, aggressive and armed agents of the federal state have terrorised Minnesota with widespread unlawful conduct.”

The suit states that “Thousands of armed and masked DHS agents have stormed the Twin Cities to conduct militarized raids and carry out dangerous, illegal, and unconstitutional stops and arrests in sensitive public places, including schools and hospitals—all under the guise of lawful immigration enforcement.”

The suit followed soon after the murder of Renee Good (a U.S. citizen) on Jan. 7. She was shot multiple times by an ICE agent while she was in her car. 

“Today, in an act of terrorism, an anti-ICE rioter weaponized her vehicle against law enforcement,” DHS stated in social media post the day of the killing. “Our officer relied on his training and saved his own life, as well as the lives of his fellow officers.”

This rhetoric has been challenged by many, including Washington state’s Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez.

“I think we can all relate to the instinct to panic in stressful situations, and it’s our task to collectively dial back the breakneck increase in temperature,” Gluesenkamp said. “While the angle of camera footage significantly impacts the perspective on what exactly occurred, in all the footage I’ve seen this was a preventable tragedy.”

On Jan. 24, 12 days after the lawsuit was filed, another U.S. citizen in Minnesota was killed by ICE agents. Alex Pretti, a 37 year-old ICU nurse, was filming ICE agents as they pushed a woman over on the sidewalk. When he attempted to help her up, the ICE agents pepper sprayed him, tackled him to the ground and finally opened fire and killed him. According to ABC, a forensic audio analysis shows that 10 shots were fired into Pretti in less than 5 seconds.

 Soon after the killing, U.S. officials once again claimed that the officers involved were acting in self defense, and that Pretti had a firearm that he was going to use.

“[Pretti] arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and kill law enforcement,” Kristi Noem said in a press conference the day after the deadly shooting. 

With the recent events in Minnesota, demands for accountability have come from all sides of the political spectrum.

In an attempt to combat the backlash ICE agents face, Noem said in a post on X, “We will rapidly acquire and deploy body cameras to DHS law enforcement across the country.” 

Even if this comes into effect, there is no guarantee of complete transparency. For example, when Alex Pretti was tragically shot, DHS confirmed that four of the agents on scene had body cameras. The footage from the scene hasn’t been released at the time of writing.

If ICE agents were more transparent, there’s a chance that the citizens of the Twin Cities wouldn’t feel as tentative as they are currently with the agents around.

In an interview with Associated Press, restaurant owner Hibaq Nimale, a U.S. citizen raised in Kenya as a Somali refugee, said,“Even if you tell [ICE] you’re a citizen they won’t listen, so everyone is scared.” 

Concerned citizens of the Twin Cities have started “ICE watches”, which are neighborhood-scale efforts to keep any actions caused by ICE documented, and to ensure the safety of community members.

Tactics similar to the recent ICE watches have been adapted from the works of immigrant right groups under previous administrations. These groups have gathered inspiration from previous movements like “Cop Watch” activism which keeps officers accountable through non-violent civilian observation. 

U.S. federal agents’ presence in Minnesota has made people across the country weary of the future and how far the government is willing to go. Thousands of ICE and border patrol agents have entered massive cities like Minneapolis to deport as many illegal immigrants as they can, all the while killing American citizens and taking little to no accountability for their deaths. Unfortunately, it seems like the country is heading in a darker direction. But with midterms coming around and debates on ICE funding getting more heated, hopes should still be high when looking into the next few years.

Article by Elliot Gardner and Ty Jones