Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
It's a Start?
On Wednesday morning, the Star Tribune published a story about how federal agents are "downshifting" their "aggressive tactics." Hours later, border czar and noted bribe-taker Tom Homan announced that 700 federal agents will leave Minnesota following “significant progress” between state and federal officials.
All of which would be great, except that... well, the photo that accompanies that Strib story about the "downshift," taken just one day earlier, shows a violent interaction between federal agents and protesters; those are ongoing. And even if/when those 700 agents leave, there will be, what, 2,000-some-odd agents in the state, give or take? More than enough masked freaks to continue driving around sowing fear and causing chaos in our communities—which, yes, of course, they were out doing today.
"While Tom Homan was trying to grab headlines this morning ICE was again circling our schools," Minneapolis City Council President Elliott Payne wrote on social media. "They’ve been out all morning and no 'drawdown' is enough until every single one of these agents is out of our state and DHS is abolished."
Meanwhile, a coalition of local labor and faith leaders are blasting Homan’s drawdown talk as a “political stunt.” “This sudden shift in language is not accidental," they write in a joint statement. "It comes as federal agencies face budget negotiations and mounting public scrutiny. Rebranding mass enforcement as ‘prioritized’ enforcement is an attempt to preserve funding, not to protect communities.”
The Greater MN ICE Resistance
Jon Collins of MPR News, who's been doing tremendous work over there since Operation Metro Surge began, is back with a banger from the 'burbs.
Collins spoke with suburban ICE observers about the specific dangers and fears associated with chasing the feds outside of the Twin Cities. There, encounters are much more likely to take place on multi-lane highways or in more isolated communities, each of which present their own challenges.
"Footage of residents opposing federal agents while blowing whistles and honking car horns has become a common sight for Minnesotans," Collins writes. "But most of the videos that have gone viral come from the state’s urban centers of Minneapolis and St. Paul, where people live closer together and can react more quickly."
And yet, like brave observers everywhere, they remain resolved:
I think one thing people outside Minnesota don't understand is that after Good and Pretti were killed by feds while observing, the most normal people you could imagine have made peace with the fact that they could be next, and they are still out there because they say it's the right thing to do.
— Jon Collins (@jcollins.bsky.social) 2026-02-04T16:30:44.936Z
MN Restaurants (and Restaurant Workers) Are Suffering
You may have already seen this piece being shared around your social networks—it's getting the recognition it rightfully deserves—but if not, let me be the one to enthusiastically recommend Justine Jones's latest piece for Mpls.St.Paul Mag: "An SOS from Restaurants in Federally Occupied Minnesota."
Jones spoke with roughly 20 owners, staffers, and managers, all of them anonymously, and what emerges is a picture of an industry under an untenable amount of stress. And not just financial stress, though that is part of it, but so many different types of stress. The restaurant industry is upheld by immigrants, and many now go to work looking over their shoulder, fearing the brutality of an ICE arrest, or bearing the sadness that comes with having friends and family members who have recently been detained or deported.
Plenty of passages will stick with you. Here's the one that got to me:
When I say that restaurants are our front lines, here is what I mean. I mean that one owner told me he drives around with a “safety blanket” in his back seat to cover up his staff if they’re pulled over on an early-morning ride to work. I mean that nearly every restaurant I contacted is significantly short-staffed because many of their workers, both those with legal status and not, are sheltering in place. I mean that ICE agents drove west to Willmar, Minnesota, dined at El Tapatio Mexican Restaurant and, in an act as malicious as it was ironic, returned hours later to detain its owners and dishwasher. I mean that one Latina business owner told me she hasn’t seen most of her regulars—the same families that have dined at her restaurant for generations—in months. When one old friend did come in for takeout, ICE whisked him away as soon as he walked out the door.
How to Help: The Salt Cure
As Jones writes in the story above, "The optics are changing but the reality is not. We don’t know when it will end." So, along those lines, we'll use today's Flyover "How to Help" block to highlight The Salt Cure Restaurant Recovery Fund, which was started by a collective of Minnesotans who want to support restaurant workers and owners "during this impossible situation."
You can donate here via the Minneapolis Foundation (making your donation tax deductible, if you care about that kinda thing), and soon applications will open for folks to request aid. According to an Instagram post, more than 2,000 people around the country have already donated to the fund.
