As federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have flooded into Minnesota, public scrutiny has grown amid allegations of widespread constitutional violations that have coincided with two fatal shootings, mass protests and repeated defiance of federal court orders by the agency.
The Trump administration sent roughly 3,000 ICE, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents to Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, in December 2025 to carry out “Operation Metro Surge.”
The operation involves ICE agents conducting militarized raids and making arrests in efforts to enforce immigration laws. According to the DHS, the operation only targets “the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens” living in Minnesota. The force—nearly five times the size of the Minneapolis Police Department—has made over 3,400 arrests across the Twin Cities area.
Renée Good, a 37-year-old woman and Minnesota resident, was shot and killed in her car by an ICE agent earlier this month. An ICE agent shot Good after claiming she attempted to ram him with her vehicle. In a statement following the shooting, ICE said the agent acted in self-defense. An analysis of a verified video from ABC News, however, shows Good steering the wheel to the right, away from the ICE agent who shot her seconds later.
The footage of Good’s death has circulated widely, with a poll from Quinnipiac University finding that more than eight in 10 U.S. voters have seen the video. Following Good’s killing, tens of thousands of people flooded Minneapolis streets and beyond in subzero temperatures, many chanting for ICE to be abolished.
In the wake of these tensions, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz vehemently criticized federal enforcement in a public address.
“Let’s be very, very clear: This long ago stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement,” Walz said. “Instead, it’s a campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota by our own federal government.”
Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse from Minneapolis, is believed to have joined protests after Renee Good’s death. Multiple videos, including a verified analysis from BBC News, show Pretti filming ICE agents with his phone as he stood between an agent and a woman they pushed to the ground. In the moments before he was shot, a video shows agents pepper-spraying him and wrestling him to the ground. Less than a second later, the agents fired a total of 10 shots, killing Pretti on the scene.
Just hours after Pretti’s name was confirmed to the public, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller took to X to call Pretti a “would-be assassin” who “tried to murder federal agents.”
John Boeler, policy counsel for the ACLU of Minnesota, said the use of force in both shootings reflects a broader pattern
“We’ve seen escalating tactics from ICE and CBP against observers—pepper spray, pepper balls, tear gas—often deployed against people who are simply recording,” he said. “And when those chemical irritants are used in residential neighborhoods, they affect everyone who lives there.”
The ACLU of Minnesota filed a federal lawsuit late last year to protect the First Amendment rights of people observing and recording ICE activity. Even with a preliminary injunction barring agents from using chemical irritants against individuals engaging in constitutionally protected activity like protesting, ICE has continued to circumvent judicial authority.
Judge Patrick Schiltz, chief judge on Minnesota’s federal bench, estimated that ICE violated court orders from Minnesota judges 96 times in January alone.
“That’s more violations in one state in one month than some agencies commit in their entire existence,” Boeler said.
Beyond defying court orders, Boeler added that ICE’s actions raise sweeping constitutional concerns, from unlawful detentions to intimidation of individuals exercising free speech rights.
“We’re seeing violations of the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Tenth Amendments—about 60 percent of the Bill of Rights,” he said. “Threatening arrest for exercising free speech is itself a First Amendment violation. Even if no arrest happens, that threat chills speech.”
The ICE-related deaths also come as immigrant communities across Minnesota report widespread detentions, including of U.S. citizens and people with legal status.
In one case that has drawn national attention, Liam Ramos, a five-year-old preschooler, was taken into ICE custody with his father as he returned home from school. The school’s superintendent, who drove to the Ramos household after she heard the news, described an agent leading Liam from his father’s car to the front door and directing him to knock on the door.
“In order to see if anyone else was home—essentially using a five-year-old as bait,” said the superintendent in a statement.
The attorney over their case, Marc Prokosch, shared that the Ramos family had an active asylum case in which the father and son legally entered the U.S. through an official port of entry.
Boeler said the case reflects a broader enforcement tactic where families are separated and transferred out of state, usually to Texas, with little warning. Detainees are often moved far from legal counsel and support networks to complicate their ability to challenge their detention.
Since opening a public portal to report civil liberties violations six weeks ago, the ACLU of Minnesota has received more than 500 reports of alleged constitutional violations. Boeler noted that those reports likely represent only a fraction of what is occurring throughout the state, particularly in rural areas where people are detained without public documentation.
Boeler said the enforcement surge and ensuing civil liberty violations have destabilized entire communities.
“School attendance and workforce participation have dropped. Immigrant-owned businesses—and businesses that employ or primarily serve immigrant communities—are falling apart,” Boeler said. “We expect evictions to skyrocket, and we’re hearing from families who are struggling to pay rent because they haven’t been able to go to work. It’s devastation throughout our communities.”
Tensions escalated further this month when ICE protesters organized a protest during a Sunday service at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, targeting the church’s pastor over his alleged involvement with ICE.
Civil rights leader Nekima Levy Armstrong, alongside other protestors, believed that the church’s pastor, David Easterwood, is a high-ranking ICE official whom they believe to be directing agents into the community. Easterwood’s name had reportedly appeared in a class-action complaint previously filed by individuals asserting ICE had violated their constitutional rights.
“David Easterwood is a pastor here. He is also the director of the field office for ICE in St. Paul. So, someone who claims to worship God, teaching people in this church about God, is out there overseeing ICE agents,” Armstrong said.
President Donald Trump condemned the protest as he referred to the protestors as “agitators” and “insurrectionists.”
“They are highly trained to scream, rant and rave, like lunatics, in a certain manner, just like they are doing. They should be thrown in jail or thrown out of the country,” Trump said.
In response to the event, the Department of Justice also initiated a civil rights investigation. Subsequently, three individuals involved in the protest, one of whom is a civil rights attorney, were arrested. Officials such as the director of litigation for True North Legal, Doug Wardlow, have reaffirmed the justice department’s course of action.
“The U.S. Department of Justice acted decisively by arresting those who coordinated and carried out the terrible crime,” Wardlow said.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the state against the Department of Homeland Security. The lawsuit demands that DHS agents end the surge, arguing that their actions are both unlawful and unconstitutional.
While defendants in the claim, including Kristi Noem, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, contend that the surge is a necessary measure to combat fraud, the plaintiffs argue that these enforcement tactics endanger public safety, health and welfare of the state’s residents.
A federal judge denied a request by the state to end the operation late last month. While the judge agreed that the operation has had a profound and even heartbreaking impact on the state, the ruling was ultimately based on whether or not the administration violated the 10th Amendment.
For the foreseeable future, ICE will remain in the state, though Ellison contends that he is “fighting on.” For Boeler, however, the most immediate constraint on ICE’s actions has not come from courts or legislators, but from public visibility.
“The litigation moves slowly. Legislation moves even slower,” he said. “What moves quickly is public opinion.”
Boeler praised the unity of Minnesotans even in this tumultuous time. He pointed to neighbors escorting one another to work, running errands for families afraid to leave their homes and standing outside schools and daycares in freezing temperatures to warn of ICE presence.
“The documentation—the videos, the images—that’s what changes people’s minds,” Boeler said. “And it only exists because people are willing to stand there and bear witness.”
Copy edited by Kennedi Bryant
