Operation Metro Surge began in early December and, by the time the administration announced its end in Minnesota, the effort had spurred recurring street confrontations, a broad sweep of arrests, and multiple fatal shootings involving federal immigration officers in the Twin Cities. The Associated Press timeline describes the operation as centered on the Minneapolis-St. Paul area and as unfolding alongside heightened political rhetoric aimed at the Somali community in Minnesota.
In the lead-up to the crackdown, the AP timeline says the immigration enforcement started after weeks of escalating Trump rhetoric criticizing Minnesota’s Somali community. It describes Trump saying immigrants from Somalia were “completely taking over the once great State of Minnesota” and later referring to Somali residents as “garbage” during a Cabinet meeting. Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Tim Walz criticized the remarks, saying Trump slandered all Minnesotans and that the “contempt” for the Somali community was “unprecedented for a United States president,” according to the timeline.
The timeline places the focus of Operation Metro Surge on the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, which it describes as home to the nation’s largest Somali community. It also cites U.S. Census Bureau data estimating 260,000 people of Somali descent in the United States in 2024, including about 84,000 in the Minneapolis area, most of whom are American citizens.
As the enforcement progressed, ICE announced early arrests during the crackdown. On Dec. 5, the timeline says ICE reported it had arrested 12 people, including six Mexican nationals, five from Somalia and one from El Salvador. Protest confrontations grew more frequent soon afterward, including clashes in heavily Somali neighborhoods as officers checked identifications. On Dec. 9, federal agents used pepper spray to push through a crowd of protesters who had blocked vehicles as they conducted identification checks.
The timeline says the protests and clashes broadened in the following weeks, with residents building a network to help immigrants, warn others of approaching agents, and film encounters involving immigration officers. It recounts Dec. 18 charging developments tied to a separate Minnesota housing services fraud investigation. The AP timeline says five new defendants were charged then, and it quotes First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson as saying authorities believed as much as $9 billion in federal funds could have been stolen in the multilayered fraud scheme. It also says the case had resulted in charges against at least 92 people by that point.
According to the timeline, eight-two of the 92 defendants were Somali Americans, citing the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Minnesota, and it describes the Trump administration as using the fraud cases to target the Somalia diaspora in Minnesota. On Dec. 30, the timeline describes additional federal immigration officers arriving in Minnesota after allegations of fraud at Somali-run day care centers posted online by right-wing influencers. It says DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and FBI Director Kash Patel announced an increase in the immigration operation and that the administration also announced a freeze on child care funds to the state.
The timeline also highlights how public scrutiny and video evidence reshaped the narrative around use of force in the crackdown. On Jan. 7, it says ICE officers shot and killed Renee Good, described as a 37-year-old U.S. citizen and mother of three, in Minneapolis. The AP timeline says the killing was recorded on video by witnesses and that it sparked outrage nationwide, with Noem calling it an “act of domestic terrorism” and Vice President JD Vance later attributing the officer’s actions to self-defense after Good was allegedly trying to hit him with her vehicle. It says Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, Walz and others criticized that account based on videos of the confrontation.
The timeline reports that it was unclear in the videos if Good’s car made contact with the officer, and it describes the sequence shown by bystander footage: the officer shoots first while standing in front of the vehicle, then shoots twice more while standing at the side of the car, an arm’s length from the driver’s side window. It says on Jan. 11, DHS posted additional video on X showing minutes before the shooting, including footage of officers approaching and video from the officer who fired, as Good reverses briefly and then turns her steering wheel, before officers order her out and shots are heard. MSI previously reported that the confrontation drew sustained scrutiny after video showed the moments leading to Renee Good’s killing marking the one-month anniversary.
The crackdown’s timeline also describes other incidents involving force and deaths beyond Good’s. On Jan. 14, it says ICE agents shot a 51-year-old Venezuelan man in the leg and that officials said the non-fatal shooting occurred after the officer was attacked by two other people with a shovel and a broom handle while attempting to arrest the Venezuelan man. The timeline says protesters and federal officers continued to clash near the scene, with officers firing tear gas and protesters throwing snowballs and chanting “Our streets.”
That day, the AP timeline says an immigrant from Nicaragua who was swept up in Operation Metro Surge was found dead at a Texas immigration detention facility. It says ICE said Victor Manuel Diaz appeared to have killed himself, but that the death remained under investigation. The timeline also adds that another detainee at the same facility died earlier in January and describes differing accounts: ICE said that death happened as staff tried to keep him from killing himself, while a fellow detainee said at least five officers were restraining a handcuffed inmate and one had an arm around his neck. It says a preliminary investigation by the El Paso County Medical Examiner’s Office found Lunas Campos, 55, died from asphyxia from chest and neck compression and that the death would likely be classified a homicide.
Other episodes described in the timeline included detentions of U.S. citizens and actions during protests. On Jan. 18, it says federal immigration agents broke open the front door of a Minnesota home and detained a U.S. citizen at gunpoint without a warrant, then led him out into the streets in his underwear in subfreezing conditions. The same day, the AP timeline says the U.S. Department of Justice said it was investigating protesters in Minnesota who disrupted services at a church where a local official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement served as a pastor. It describes a livestream of the protest in which people interrupted services by chanting “ICE out” and “Justice for Renee Good.”
The timeline also says that on Jan. 20, a 5-year-old boy arriving home from preschool was taken by federal agents along with his father to a detention facility in Texas. It says Columbia Heights Public Schools Superintendent Zena Stevnik told reporters that federal agents took Liam Conejo Ramos from a running car in the family’s driveway and then told him to knock on his home to see if other people were inside, which she described as “essentially using a 5-year-old as bait.” The timeline says the family had an active asylum case and had not been ordered to leave the country, and it says federal officials denied Stevnik’s allegations.
In subsequent days, the timeline notes additional arrests connected to church disruptions, describing Jan. 22 announcements by Trump administration officials that a prominent civil rights attorney and at least two others involved in the protest at the church had been arrested. It also describes leadership changes as the operation continued. On Jan. 26, the timeline says Trump reshuffled leadership of Operation Metro Surge, with Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino and some agents leaving Minneapolis, and that Trump announced Tom Homan, described as the administration’s border czar, would be in charge.
The timeline describes Homan’s leadership shift as following more fatal incidents. On Jan. 24, it says Alex Pretti, described as a 37-year-old intensive care nurse at a VA hospital and a U.S. citizen, was shot and killed by a Border Patrol officer in Minneapolis. It says Pretti had no criminal record, was a licensed gun owner with a permit to carry a concealed weapon, and was wearing a holstered gun when he died. It describes bystander videos showing Pretti with only a phone in his hand as he stepped between an immigration agent and a woman after the agent shoved the woman, and it says the officer shoved Pretti in the chest, pepper sprayed him and the woman, and later fired multiple shots into Pretti’s back. It adds that use-of-force experts said the bystander video undermined federal authorities’ claim that the officer opened fire defensively.
Finally, the timeline describes subsequent developments after the fatal shootings. It says on Jan. 26, leadership was reshuffled again, and then on Feb. 1, it says Liam Conejo Ramos and his father were returned to Minnesota following a judge’s order. It reports that on Feb. 2, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced more arrests in connection with the Jan. 18 protest at the Cities Church in St. Paul, with independent journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort among those arrested. The timeline concludes with the administration’s Feb. 12 announcement that Border Czar Tom Homan said Operation Metro Surge had ended in Minnesota.