MN ICE Watch Feb. 16-20: Daily Updates on DHS Goons in MN Till We’re Absolutely Sure They’re Gone

Having trouble keeping up with the fascist Trump administration's "largest ever" wave of immigration stormtroopers that continues to terrorize Minnesota? You're not alone. The rolling updates below will provide nugget-sized intel/links/embeds amid this infuriating news cycle, hopefully making you feel a little better-informed and/or connected to your community. As always, feel free to contribute in the comments.

FRIDAY 2.20

File under “liars gonna lie”: According to CNN, “the Department of Homeland Security admitted that its website featuring what it calls the ‘worst of the worst’ arrested immigrants was rife with errors.” The charges against hundreds of immigrants were listed incorrectly due to what a DHS spokesliar called a “glitch.” In addition, many of these supposed master criminals had been convicted of nothing more than traffic offenses, marijuana possession or illegal reentry. Is there a slight chance these flubs were accidental rather than intentional? Sure—these people are as incompetent as they are dishonest. But the same lesson applies in either case: Never believe anything they say.

Around these parts we're big fans of Alex Baumhardt, the ex-MPR News reporter who's now senior reporter for the Oregon Capital Chronicle, a sister site to the Minnesota Reformer. Why are we bringing up this non-local industry observation? Because for one week OCC traded Baumhardt to TMR. (Side note: Newsrooms should swap journalists like sports teams swap players—typing speed would be 40-yard dashes, scoops would be home runs… you get the idea.) 

Back now in Oregon, Baumhardt just filed this (optimistic!) warning after (metaphorically) parachuting into a state that’s experiencing the largest immigration crackdown in U.S. history. At first she worries that the brutal, months-long siege might've "irrevocably changed" her former home, leaving residents "fearful, exhausted or completely disillusioned."

Sensing a hard and hopeful pivot?

She continues:

I was humbled by what I discovered instead: People across the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metro exercising exemplary strength, organization and non-violent resistance, not just against the federal occupation, but primarily in service to the safety and survival of one another.

About every store, restaurant and coffee shop I visited had bowls of whistles for the taking, meant to be used at a moment’s notice to warn that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are near. Businesses posted notices about the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures on their doors and signs ensuring immigrants who entered their buildings would be kept safe. Neighbors patrolled parking lots and side streets to keep watch for ICE agents, especially near ethnic shopping centers and areas with high numbers of immigrant residents.

With their whistles, Minnesotans haven’t just been warning their neighbors of imminent danger from the masked agents outside their doors. They’re signaling that they are a bellwether to follow if those masked agents come in numbers to other American cities, like Portland.

I (Keith) swung by Mercado Central on Lake Street this Saturday to grab some burritos for an al fresco Brunch Buds, and the place was hopping. But apparently weekdays have not been so busy, with the business coop’s core clientele justifiably lying low due to a persistent ICE presence. But as Sharyn Jackson writes for the Star Tribune, the elderly and the religious are trying to pick up the slack. “About 20 people arrived by bus from Becketwood Cooperative, a retirement community in south Minneapolis,” Jackson says of the say she visited. “Another 20 or so caravanned from Mount Olivet Lutheran Church.” What a world, where eating tacos and pupusas is genuinely a good deed. 

Say, you remember last week when a reckless car chase in the Cathedral Hill neighborhood of St. Paul ended with a car T-boned, debris everywhere, and immigration thugs carting one Honduran man off? According to the Pioneer Press, U.S. District Judge John M. Gerrard has ordered the man released. This is the second high-profile DHS abduction that ended with an L for the feds—last week a judge ordered the release of a man who’d been taken after a foot chase through the Hennepin County Government Center. 

A kidney transplant recipient has returned to his family in Rochester, Minnesota, after two weeks in an ICE detainment center in Texas. The father of two was taken into custody while delivering groceries for a church mutual aid group. During his time there, family, lawyers, and officials at the Mayo Clinic advocated for him to receive his anti-rejection meds; his wife tells MPR News that he was never given the correct doses at the correct items.  

Protecting neighbors from ICE comes with a whole new set of challenges when you live in a mobile home park. Most are in isolated locations with limited road access, making rapid observer response difficult. Katelyn Vue visited a few suburban parks for Sahan Journal, where the streets are eerily quiet as people shelter in place. “Agents have been spotted driving around or parked for hours outside several mobile home park offices,” she writes. “Some residents said they’ve seen drones surveilling their parks nearly every day, and suspect that federal agents are watching them.” 

German soccer team Werder Bremen was set to tour the U.S. this summer for a series of friendly matches, including a stop in Minnesota, but our current fascist situation has brought them to cancel. “Playing in a city where there’s unrest and people have been shot, that does not fit with our values here,” says Christoph Pieper, the club’s head of communications, in an announcement. “Furthermore, it was unclear for us which players could be able to enter the United States due to the stricter entry requirements.”

Have words lost all meaning on the political right? A compelling case was made Thursday, at least in the context of “dox.” I (Jay) have not stopped thinking/laughing about this since:

THURSDAY 2.19

We regret to inform you that the giant walleye statute in Isle, Minnesota, is complicit in a federal ethnic cleansing campaign. Or, rather, that all of Isle is: The Star Tribune reports that the 800-person Lake Mille Lacs city became the only one in Minnesota to ink a loyalty agreement with ICE. “We are grateful to be included in the mission of ICE, and will do everything we can to assist them or any other law enforcement agency," says Mayor Ernie Frie, whose town is 99% U.S.-born. “It sounds great, but there’s really no point,” gun shop employee Ryan Schik tells the Strib. Well, there’s kind of a point: In exchange, Isle gets $100,000+ in blood money supplies (our phrasing) from DHS. Though Isle is the only city to collaborate with the feds, eight Minnesota counties have joined in signing 287(g) agreements. 

The hottest new pro-wrestling chant? "Fuck ICE."

Minnesota Democrat Matt Little has formerly served as mayor of Lakeville, a state senator, and a Lakeville city councilor; he’s currently running for Congress in Minnesota’s Second Congressional District. On Twitter, Little shared his “crazy” experience of being boxed in by ICE outside of his house earlier this week. “Despite the drawdown, ICE is still here,” he writes. “They’re stalking legal observers in our communities, at times doing so with no regard for traffic laws or safety.”

Since Operation Metro Surge began last December, 1,000+ habeas corpus petitions challenging immigrant detentions have been filed in Minnesota courts, recent RacketCast guest Max Nesterak reports for the Minnesota Reformer. In the year prior to that? Just 73 were filed.

How real is “border czar” Tom Homan’s promised drawdown of Operation Metro Surge? DHS isn’t releasing any updated facts/figures, and the department is staffed by notorious liars anyway. It certainly doesn’t feel very real in small communities outside of the Twin Cities, where Jon Collins of MPR News reports “steady enforcement” is still taking place. Lawyer John Hayden has filed around a dozen habeas corpus petitions on behalf of clients, one of whom was arrested the day of Homan’s announcement, in the past two weeks. 

“The political theater that this administration wanted to put on is going to wind down, but it's still a lot of harm done,” Hayden tells Collins. “The damage will be felt for decades to come as the children of these individuals kind of grow up with that distrust for law enforcement, the fear of social services, fear of doing the right thing. It's a tragedy.”

Counterpoint: Maybe things are getting better? 

Even assuming that the drawdown is happening, the toll on Minnesota’s immigrant-owned small businesses has already been tremendous. The Strib’s Dee DePass spoke with folks like El Sazon restaurant owners Cristian and Karen DeLeon, who say that after ICE started showing up in their parking lots in December, they temporarily closed three of their five locations. As a result, they owe $200,000 in back rent, taxes, and vendor bills; unless something drastic happens, they’re preparing to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

"This isn’t living, right?" “We’re unwanted.” “I’m watching my life pass me by.” “As if I were in prison.” Those are just a few of the desperate reflections MPR News collected from Minnesota immigrants who remain in hiding from ICE. 

The Ringer joins all the other national outlets who’ve published longform stories on the terror of Operation Metro Surge. This one, by Jordan Ritter Conn, is headlined: “Inside the Hidden Network of Resistance in Minneapolis.” (If it’s not obvious, we don’t have time to read every article included in the MN ICE Watch blotter…)

AI data centers, tacky 5-over-1 apartment complexes, and, crucially, ICE detention centers: Most everything being built these days STINKS. MinnPost's Ana Radelat has much more on that latter category in this piece, which explores how/why (and let's not forget who, what, and where!) cities like Shakopee and Woodbury declined a slice of the $38.3 billion pie to retrofit “non-traditional facilities” (i.e., warehouses and factories) into immigrant jails. Community and political pushback has been key to shutting down proposed sites. “We got it killed,” brags state Rep. Brad Tabke (DFL-Shakopee). “Our community pushed back really hard.”

There’s a new mural at Insight Brewing Co. in northeast Minneapolis…

Local “fish-fluencer” Nate Pischke, a one-time Racket profile subject, got some national shine in Mother Jones for his efforts to protest ICE.

WEDNESDAY 2.18

They don’t even want us to mourn. Some scumbag arsonists targeted the Renee Good memorial in south Minneapolis Tuesday night. They doused the site in gasoline and started a wood fire, but community members were able to extinguish the flames before there was much damage. 

People keep saying the world isn’t paying attention to Minnesota anymore, but we’re still running across plenty of national coverage. For instance, the Times ran this lovely guest essay from Will McGrath about his experiences driving children to school during the occupation while blasting Idles.  

Writes McGrath:

Here’s what you need to remember: There is no reward that comes later. No righteous justice will be dispensed, not soon and not ever. Renee Good and Alex Pretti don’t come back to life. The lives of their loved ones are not made whole again. Thousands of people will remain disappeared, relatives scattered, families broken. This story does not have a happy ending, and I can assure you the villains do not get punished in the end. If that is your motivation, try again, start over.

Local journalist Anna Simonton also described her experiences and those of her neighbors for the nonprofit news site Prism. “We don’t just want ICE out. We want our city back, and all of the people who call it home,” she concludes.

Bad news Wolves fans. Are you aware of Blue Owl Capital? As this story from eyeblack reports, the investment company is a minority owner in the Minnesota Timberwolves. Blue Owl is also profiting off the Trump administration’s drive to create a national network of concentration camps—a fund that it managed sold a 1.3 million-square-foot vacant warehouse in Tremont, Pennsylvania, to DHS for about $120 million. “We know nothing about it,” an NBA spokesperson told eyeblack. Damn, this is starting to make A-Rod, or hell, even Glen Taylor, look like comparatively decent guys. 

***

Ramadan Mubarak, friends. Today CNN looks at the beginning of the Muslim holy month in Minneapolis. “As the federal surge draws down, Minneapolis’ Muslim community is hopeful Ramadan will inspire its road to recovery,” the headline reads, though the story isn’t quite that sunny. 

CNN covers the Ramadan feast at Karmel Mall and speaks to mall owner Basim Sabri, who says, “We’re very fortunate to be in Minnesota, and very fortunate to be in America, and Trump is trying to make it difficult for people to even think that they are American.”

Speaking to MPR News, Imam Hassan Jama, who leads Alhikma Islamic Center in south Minneapolis, is concerned that much of his congregation will pray at home. “We will like to have our normal life with no fear, with no carrying our passports, with no thinking if I go to the mosque, maybe I got stopped, maybe I get detained,” Jama says, but he’s not sure we’re there yet.

What, the GOP admits fault? Never. We all know that the Trump administration used Nick Shirley’s fucked-up propaganda vids as a pretext for unleashing its goons on our non-white neighbors. And we know that state Republicans were Shirley collaborators. But according to NPR, two candidates for governor—House Speaker Lisa Demuth and businessman Kendall Qualls—still claim that Shirley’s videos were a good thing. Follow-up question to both candidates: Don’t you think the huge exodus from the District of Minnesota’s U.S. Attorney’s Office will hobble fraud investigations?  

Love this story from Nicole Froio at The Flytrap about nail art becoming a tool of solidarity against ICE in places like r/RedditLacqueristas. The movement began with people writing “FUCK ICE” on their nails and blossomed from there. Writes Froio, “The owner of the pink claws that grabbed [neo-Nazi instigator] Jake Lang has become an icon on the sub, with members of the community seeking similar shades since the photo dropped on social media. On the sub and beyond, the shade is being called ‘resistance pink.’" 

A good idea that Bring Me the News had? Using screengrabs from the invaluable site ICEOut.org to track DHS action in the Twin Cities every day. As you can see here, yesterday was a busy day. The big headlines may no longer be out there, and some the action may have moved outstate, but this ain’t over yet. 

“We are all Minnesotans now,” declares reformed (?) neocon Bill Kristol. Man, 2026 is weird as hell. Forgive my long memory, but it’s a little discomfiting to find yourself on the same side as the guy who cheerled for the Iraq invasion and helped tank the Clinton health-care plan. “My main takeaway was less the specialness of Minnesota, and more that the rest of us need to follow in Minnesota’s footsteps,” Kristol writes. He’s in town for a panel discussion at Pantages Theatre Thursday night organized by his Never Trumper publication The Bulwark.

TUESDAY 2.17

Federal forces may be slowly trickling out of Minnesota, but the impact of this monthslong invasion, during which thousands of immigrants have been detained or deported, will be ongoing. Take American Pie Pizza in Richfield, which was purchased by brothers Roberto Alvarado Mendoza and Diego Alvarado in January 2025. Shortly after the restaurant relaunched in November, KARE 11 reports, Diego was detained while delivering pizzas and deported to Mexico, leaving behind a wife and four children. "He had a permit to be here. He's been here for a long time. No criminal record, no nothing," Roberto says. "Thirty-five years working hard, raising kids. All those 35 years and in two minutes they're down." 

What Operation Metro Surge? “Minnesota House Republican leaders don’t want to talk about immigration enforcement,” writes the Minnesota Reformer’s Michelle Griffith. GOP legislators held a press conference Monday to discuss their priorities for the upcoming legislative session. Said priorities include fighting fraud, affordability, and expanding mining. ICE’s presence in Minnesota? Its aftermath? Immigration more broadly? Didn’t really come up!

Should Minnesota say “thank you” for the DHS operation? Total chud Tom Homan thinks so!

Just a crushing, heartbreaking story from KARE 11: A 59-year-old Minnesota woman is readying to self-deport after the death of her partner Chila, who, fearing ICE, stopped seeking medical treatment for her stage 4 ovarian cancer. Nayo and Chila came to the U.S. from Mexico in the late ’90s, but were repeatedly told by lawyers that without children, there was little they could do to obtain citizenship. Nayo is also battling cancer; there’s a GoFundMe here to help support her. 

Literally do not watch the interview with Nayo embedded below unless you’re currently able to have a good cry. 

Residents have been, to use a technical term, “donating like fucking crazy” to keep their neighbors fed and housed throughout the federal occupation. Hyperlocal newsletter Longfellow Whatever takes you inside the neighborhood’s largest mutual aid fund, The Greater Longfellow Neighbor Relief Fund, to learn how the funds come in and how members make decisions regarding their distribution.

MONDAY 2.16

Warrants—you gotta get ’em. That’s the message U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank gave to immigration officials in his courtroom today when he freed 18-year-old Junior de Jesus Herrera Berrios. If that name doesn’t sound familiar to you, you’re probably familiar with Herrera Berrios’s arrest—he was nabbed after a dramatic chase through the Hennepin County Government Center last week, with the county Sheriff’s office running interference for the feds. Herrera Berrios had a court date “for a hearing on drug charges over allegedly driving a car with 57 pounds of methamphetamines,” the Strib reports.

What deals, if any, were negotiated with the Trump administration to ensure the end of Operation Metro Surge? Unreliable narrator/"border czar" Tom Homan appeared on Face the Nation Sunday to say, “I’ve gotten agreements in Minnesota I never thought we’d be able to get.” 

Notably, Homan praised Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for dismantling the traffic blocks that were “unsafe for our officers [driving 75+ mph down Cedar Avenue].” 

Frey denied any capitulation to Homan’s demands. “The position that I have had for months is exactly the position that we have as a city today, and that position is the following: We do not enforce federal immigration law, period,” he said.

Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt, last seen in the New York Times  “agoniz[ing] over her role,” also denied any deal. "Our policies did not change and I was not pressured, as some have said, to change them. Was I asked? Absolutely," she told reporters. 

Homan also claims that 1,000 agents have already been withdrawn from Minnesota, and that “several hundred more” will later leave. However, he also said a “small security force” will hang around to "respond to when our agents are out, and they get surrounded by agitators and things get out of control." How many DHS troops does that leave in Minnesota? And what was with the new vehicles headed into Whipple that Mercado Media spotted over the weekend?

However many or few DHS forces remain in town, we can be sure that they’re just going to get sneakier. Watch here as ICE agents knock on a family’s door on Thursday afternoon, pretending to be an ordinary non-evil human being in need of help with her vehicle. When Jesus Flores leaves his home, they abduct him. That’s some foul shit right there. There’s a GoFundMe for the Flores family here. 

New legal filings appear to confirm what we’ve been hearing all along—that DHS goons have been indicating that they know where observers live in order to intimidate them. Jonah E. Bromwich collected several such stories Friday in the New York Times of veiled and not-so-veiled threats. Tricia McLaughlin, spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, said DHS “does not use force against peaceful protesters or stop cars without reasonable suspicion of a crime,” thus essentially confirming these allegations because she always lies. 

The coverup is official: The FBI will not share evidence related to the killing of Alex Pretti with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty says this just shows that the feds are “not confident in their agents’ actions or their immediate response.” The FBI is also denying the BCA access to evidence related to the killing of Renee Good.  

Farmers and farmworkers? Also screwed over by the ICE invasion. As Emma Nelson and Trey Mewes report for the Star Tribune, many Minnesota farms find themselves in a precarious position as immigration forces snatch up workers or send them into hiding. There have already been fewer workers available since Trump was re-elected; the trend has just accelerated. And not all of them are undocumented, of course; there are also H-2A visa holders. “They’re detaining citizens. They’re killing people with papers,” one undocumented worker tells the Strib in Spanish. “Imagine what could happen to us.”

Here’s a nice feature in the Guardian about how the American Indian Movement provided a blueprint for the neighborhood patrols response to ICE. It also discusses the participation of Indigenous Minnesotans in protecting their neighbors, and of mutual aid efforts centered in Minneapolis's Pow Wow Grounds cafe. “We’re having so much anxiety because it’s in our bones,” says Jolene Jones, an organizer with the Native American Community Development Institute. “We were still being chased, we’re still being snatched from our homes, our children are being snatched. It’s very triggering.”

Better late than never? Barack Obama, who has signed off on a deportation or two in his day, had some supportive words for the people of Minnesota and criticisms of ICE activity in the Twin Cities. As he told YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen:

It is important for us to recognize the unprecedented nature of what ICE was doing in Minneapolis, St. Paul, the way that federal agents, ICE agents were being deployed, without any clear guidelines, training, pulling people out of their homes, using five-year-olds to try to bait their parents, all the stuff that we saw, teargassing crowds simply who were standing there, not breaking any laws.