2025–26 Minnesota ICE Deployment

Pres. Donald Trump surged back to the presidency in 2025 in part by pledging an unprecedented crackdown on unauthorized immigration. His administration moved quickly to fulfill this promise, empowering U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to carry out intensified enforcement actions. Trump’s signature spending bill rapidly doubled the number of agents and increased the budget for the Department of Homeland Security by an additional $170 billion over four years.

Within this broader national shift, ICE officers launched large-scale immigration raids in cities across the United States. While these operations resulted in the apprehension of many people without lawful status, they also led to the detention of U.S. citizens and immigrants with legal status and drew widespread criticism for their aggressive tactics. The raids were frequently met with public protests, coordinated responses by advocacy organizations, and fierce opposition from local officials.

Minneapolis, the epicenter of historic Black Lives Matter protests several years earlier, quickly became a flashpoint under the intensified enforcement. The fatal shootings of U.S. citizens Alex Jeffrey Pretti and Renee Nicole Macklin Good by federal agents, occurring mere blocks from where George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020, once again transformed the city into a national hub of protests.

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Timeline of federal deployment to Minnesota

What federal officials initially described as a routine, if unusually large, immigration enforcement operation escalated into a national crisis, with thousands of arrests carried out amid racial profiling, ultimately culminating in the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by federal agents.

• December 1–3: DHS launches Operation Metro Surge in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis–St. Paul). Large numbers of ICE and CBP personnel are deployed. Federal officials portray the operation as targeting individuals with deportation orders. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey issues an executive order restricting ICE use of certain city-owned facilities.
• December 4: ICE reports 12 arrests of Somali and Latino individuals who ICE claims have criminal backgrounds.
• December 8: U.S. Pres. Donald Trump links the immigration crackdown to a series of alleged fraud cases involving government funds and the Somali community.
• December 9–10: Two U.S. citizens are detained by ICE and later released.
• December 12: DHS reports that ICE has arrested “more than 400 illegal aliens including pedophiles, rapists, and violent thugs,” and releases a list of 10 Somali, Latino, and Southeast Asian individuals who DHS says have been convicted of crimes.
• Late December: Protests in the Twin Cities grow increasingly widespread.
• January 5: The federal government announces the deployment of 2,000 additional federal agents in Minnesota, describing Operation Metro Surge as the “largest immigration operation ever.”
• January 7: 37-year-old U.S. citizen and mother Renee Nicole Macklin Good is fatally shot by an ICE agent. Federal officials claim that Good was trying to run over the agent with her car, but video footage and eyewitness accounts contradict that narrative. The New York Times reports that “an analysis of footage from three camera angles shows that the vehicle appears to be turning away from a federal officer as he opened fire.” Vice Pres. J.D. Vance publicly blames Good, saying the killing was “a tragedy of her own making.” Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem labels Good a “domestic terrorist.” Tens of thousands protest in Minneapolis and around the country.
• January 12: The State of Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul file a federal lawsuit against DHS, asking the court to end Operation Metro Surge.
• January 14: Venezuelan national Julio Sosa-Celis is shot in the leg by an ICE agent, allegedly after assaulting the agent with a broom.
• January 17: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz mobilizes the state National Guard in support of local law enforcement.
• January 18: The Pentagon places approximately 1,500 active-duty troops on standby for possible deployment to Minnesota.
• January 19: DHS reports 3,000 arrests since the beginning of Operation Metro Surge and releases a list of 13 Somali, Latino, and Southeast Asian individuals who DHS says have been convicted of crimes.
• January 23: An estimated 50,000 people brave subzero temperatures to gather in downtown Minneapolis for “ICE Out of Minnesota: Day of Truth & Freedom.” The protest and general strike was endorsed by a coalition of Minnesota labor unions; it marked perhaps the first general strike in the U.S. since the passage of the Taft–Hartley Act in 1947.
• January 24: 37-year-old U.S. citizen and ICU nurse Alex Jeffrey Pretti is fatally shot by a CBP agent. Noem claims Pretti was “brandishing” a gun. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller refers to Pretti as an “assassin.” Border Control Commander at Large Gregory Bovino accuses Pretti of attempting to “massacre law enforcement.” The New York Times reports that a video analysis clearly contradicts federal statements, showing that Pretti was holding a cell phone in one hand, with the other empty, and made no threatening movements toward agents before he was forced to the ground and shot.
• January 26: Gregory Bovino is stripped of his title as Border Patrol “commander at large” and recalled to his previous post as chief patrol agent along the El Centro sector of the U.S.-Mexico border in California. Trump announces that “border czar” Tom Homan will assume command of Operation Metro Surge. Walz states in a social media post that he had a “productive call” with Trump, while Trump says the two “seemed to be on a similar wavelength.”
• February 4: Homan announces that 700 federal agents will be withdrawn from Minnesota as the result of “unprecedented” cooperation between local and federal officials. The drawdown leaves about 2,000 federal border agents in the state, in what the administration had called its largest operation to date.
• February 12: Homan announces the end of the immigration operation.

The killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti

In the wake of the ICE deployments, residents of Minneapolis, who had taken to the streets after the 2020 murder of Floyd, again turned out in large numbers to protest. The demonstrations were largely peaceful, with citizens using civil disobedience strategies including blowing whistles and blocking traffic with cars even as masked ICE agents deployed more heavy-handed tactics. That all changed on the morning of January 7.

Renee Nicole Macklin Good was an American citizen and mother of three who had just dropped off her six-year-old at school. She and her wife then headed to the neighborhood where the shooting later occurred to observe and object to the presence of ICE in their community. She was shot and killed in an altercation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers. Moments before her death, she said to the ICE agent who fired the fatal shots: “That’s fine, dude; I’m not mad at you.”

Video of the incident was widely circulated in the hours after the shooting. In it, Good’s car is positioned sideways on the street. She allows a driver to go past her before her vehicle is approached by three ICE agents. Good first reverses, then moves forward as an ICE agent orders her to get out of her car while grabbing the door handle. Good then turns her SUV to the right and begins to move the car forward, at which point another ICE officer, Jonathan Ross, standing on the front left side of the vehicle, fires three times, killing Good.

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Trump administration officials labeled Good a “domestic terrorist” who was attempting to hit the officer with her car. Numerous eyewitnesses said they believed Good had been attempting to leave the scene rather than hit anyone with the vehicle.

On January 24, 2026, CBP agents killed Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse at a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital. Pretti, also a U.S. citizen, was shot multiple times during a protest against the continued immigration crackdown. The shooting occurred about two miles from where Good was killed.

As in the Good incident, video shot by onlookers soon emerged. It appears to show Pretti using his phone to record immigration officers confronting protesters on Minneapolis’s Nicollet Avenue. His other hand appears empty. He comes to the aid of a woman protester who has been pushed by officers. The video appears to show him being sprayed with chemicals and hit in the head multiple times. He is then surrounded by at least half a dozen officers who push him to the ground. As Pretti is on the ground, one of the officers yells “gun.” Pretti had a permit to carry a handgun, which was tucked in his waistband. The video shows an officer removing the gun while Pretti is on the ground. A second later as many as 10 gunshots ring out, killing Pretti. Two agents fired their guns in Pretti’s death, according to a report later prepared for Congress.

Trump administration officials labeled Pretti a “domestic terrorist” who “tried to murder federal agents.” Michael Pretti called his son “a kind-hearted soul” whose “last thought and act was to protect a woman.”

Minnesota response

In early December 2025 the Trump administration announced its planned deployment of ICE and border patrol agents in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. Operation Metro Surge, as it was called by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), was immediately condemned by state and local political leaders and protested by residents of the Twin Cities. In January 2026 the administration’s deployment of 2,000 additional immigration officers and the subsequent ICE shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti greatly enlarged and intensified anti-ICE protests, underscoring major tensions between the state and federal governments.

The expanded protests even included a day of statewide closures by hundreds of businesses in solidarity with residents and ICE victims. Soon after Good’s death, Minnesota and the Twin Cities filed suit against DHS in federal district court, arguing that the deployment and operations of ICE in the state are both unconstitutional (because they violate the state’s “sovereign authority” under the Tenth Amendment) and illegal (because they involve “unlawful seizures, excessive force and retaliation”).

Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat who was Kamala Harris’s running mate in the 2024 race against Trump, and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, also a Democrat, emerged as two leading voices against the administration. They demanded the Trump administration pull ICE out of Minnesota, lambasted ICE agents as poorly trained and dangerous, accused the federal government of blocking state investigations into the killings, and contested the federal government’s account of the shootings. They also implored Minnesota protesters to remain peaceful as public frustration mounted and demonstrations swelled despite the freezing cold January weather.

“This federal occupation of Minnesota long ago stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement. It’s a campaign of organized brutality against the people of our state. And today that campaign claimed another life. I’ve seen the videos from several angles, and it’s sickening,” Walz said January 24, 2026, following the killing of Pretti.

Amid the chaos, Republican candidate for governor Chris Madel ended his bid for office in 2026.

“I cannot support the national Republicans’ stated retribution on the citizens of our state, nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so,” Madel said, explaining his decision.

“I have to look my daughters in the eye and tell them, ‘I believe I did what was right,’ ” he added.

The federal government’s response

Following the killings of both Good and Pretti, the federal government rushed to defend the actions of its agents. Noem and Bovino have framed the operations as lawful, necessary, and constrained by officer safety, even as widely circulated videos appear to contradict their accounts. Noem, for example, characterized Good’s actions as “domestic terrorism,” while Bovino stated that the officer “had no clue that that was going to happen, but he was put into that violent situation and reacted when a 4,000-pound missile came right at him.” Similarly, in addressing Pretti’s killing, Noem claimed “it looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and kill law enforcement,” echoing DHS’s portrayal of Pretti as an imminent threat.

After initially stating that Good “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE officer,” Trump later called her death a tragedy and acknowledged that ICE agents sometimes are “going to make a mistake.” As protests grew, Noem ordered “hundreds more” agents to the area, and the president threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy federal troops if state leaders did not control the “professional agitators and insurrectionists” disrupting ICE operations. Approximately 1,500 active-duty troops were placed on standby for possible deployment to Minnesota shortly thereafter.

Trump’s response to the later killing of Alex Pretti has been notably quieter amid bipartisan calls for accountability. Bovino was pulled out of Minneapolis by the administration and sent back to his previous post in California. Despite some demands for Noem’s resignation, the White House says she retains the president’s full trust. Trump and Walz described a January 26 call as “productive,” with Walz pressing for impartial investigations as Trump’s border czar Tom Homan was sent into Minneapolis to oversee the ongoing federal response. In his first public comments since taking over, Homan said that an agreement between federal and state and local leaders to give border agents access to undocumented individuals being held in jails and prisons would allow ICE “to draw down on the number of people we have here.” He also called on local residents to end the “hateful rhetoric.”

On February 4, Homan announced that 700 federal agents would be withdrawn from Minnesota as the result of “unprecedented” cooperation between local and federal officials. The drawdown left about 2,000 federal border agents in the state, in what the administration had called its largest immigration operation to date. Less than two weeks later, Homan announced that the operation was ending after more than two months, some 4,000 arrests, and the deaths of two U.S. citizens.