Minnesota residents and local officials welcomed the Trump administration’s drawdown of its Operation Metro Surge in the Twin Cities, but they said the disruption is not fading overnight. Minneapolis and St. Paul officials described a mix of relief and ongoing strain after thousands of federal officers were sent to the area, with the Department of Homeland Security saying it carried out its largest immigration enforcement operation ever and labeling it a success.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, speaking after the Thursday announcement, said the federal escalation “upended daily life, it has eroded trust and inflicted a whole lot of harm on the operation that we need to provide as a city,” and he argued that the federal government should help cover costs. Frey said Minneapolis taxpayers should not “be left to foot the bill of this situation that has been created by the federal government,” describing how overtime for city staff and street cleanups added to the city’s expenses in January.
City officials said the operation also affected local businesses and residents. They estimated that small businesses lost “tens of millions of dollars in revenue,” and Frey said thousands of hotel room cancellations occurred during the surge period. Officials also said that an estimated tens of thousands of people, including school-age children, were in need of support services such as rent and food assistance.
The operation drew heightened condemnation as it grew more volatile, including after federal officers shot and killed U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Officials said those killings prompted criticism of officers’ conduct and led to changes to the operation. Residents also held a vigil at a makeshift shrine at the site where Good was shot in Minneapolis following Thursday’s announcement.
Frey and other Minneapolis leaders characterized the federal government’s role as central to the recovery. They said emergency assistance should come from Washington when federal agencies create the conditions for harm, with Frey saying it was “all the more important” given that the damage stemmed from federal action. At the vigil, Mark Foresman said he was skeptical federal agents would leave, arguing the Trump administration had created an “atmosphere of distrust” and that tactics appeared designed to sow fear; he also said agents had “repeatedly been caught in lies.”
Other residents at the vigil disputed federal claims that the operation made Minnesota safer. John Schnickel said he did not want any ICE officers in the state and challenged officials’ framing of crime reductions, saying, “They talk about how the murder rate is down, and yet they’ve added two people to it.”
On the federal side, Tom Homan, the White House border czar, said his team ended the operation after “extensive engagement” with state and local officials. The White House had accused Minnesota of shielding people from deportation through sanctuary policies, and Homan pointed to examples of coordination after discussions with local stakeholders, including law enforcement becoming more responsive to requests for help and agreements on how jails handle deportable inmates.
Minnesota officials continued to assert their stance on immigration enforcement. Frey said, “We do not enforce federal immigration law, period. We do not cooperate with ICE or any agency around enforcement of federal immigration law, period,” while the Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt said no jail policies had changed—describing Hennepin County Jail’s approach to working with federal immigration authorities as conditional on judicial arrest warrants.
Even with the surge drawdown, Homan said enforcement would continue in the Twin Cities on a smaller scale. He previously said 700 federal officers would leave Minnesota immediately, while more than 2,000 officers remained in the state, and he said the drawdown would continue through the next week. Todd Lyons, ICE’s acting director, told a congressional hearing that the agency was still searching for about 16,840 people in Minnesota with final orders of removal, and Homan said mass deportations would continue across the country.
Homan also pointed to broader deployment patterns, saying the focus on the Twin Cities followed increasing deployments in other cities and small towns governed by Democrats, including Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte and New Orleans. Even as the operation winds down, fallout continued in Washington and the courts: Democratic lawmakers pressed for restraints on immigration officers in Congress after the Good and Pretti shootings, while federal investigations into Pretti’s killing continued and court proceedings moved forward on protest cases.
A federal judge issued a temporary emergency order on Thursday finding that immigrants detained at a federal building in Minnesota faced too many barriers to legal counsel. The case landscape also included a separate federal civil rights prosecution, where former CNN host turned independent journalist Don Lemon pleaded not guilty to federal charges related to a protest at a Minnesota church where an ICE official is a pastor.