Minnesota Sues ICE Over Operation Metro Surge Abuses

Multiple federal lawsuits challenge Operation Metro Surge, the Trump administration’s mass immigration enforcement operation that deployed approximately 3,000 armed federal agents to the Twin Cities beginning in December 2025. The operation killed two U.S. citizens, resulted in documented racial profiling of Somali and Latino Minnesotans, shut down schools and businesses, and inflicted an estimated $610 million in economic damage on Minneapolis and Saint Paul. A federal judge found in March 2026 that ICE adopted an unconstitutional policy of conducting investigatory stops based on race and ethnicity — on at least 23 documented occasions.

The lawsuits span multiple plaintiffs and legal theories. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul filed the first case on January 12, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, Case No. 0:26-cv-00190, challenging the entire operation as unconstitutional. The ACLU and ACLU of Minnesota filed a separate class action, Hussen v. Noem, on January 15, 2026, targeting racial profiling and warrantless arrests. Additional lawsuits challenge ICE enforcement near schools, detainee due process rights, and evidence tampering at the scene of the second civilian killing. All five cases remain active as of May 2026.

Lawsuit Timeline and Updates

December 2025 — Operation Metro Surge Begins

In December 2025, the Trump administration launched Operation Metro Surge, deploying thousands of armed federal agents from ICE and Customs and Border Protection into the Twin Cities metropolitan area. DHS described the operation as targeting immigration enforcement and fraud related to the Feeding Our Future school food program, a major Minnesota fraud case that had been investigated since the first Trump administration.

Community members and local officials immediately reported aggressive tactics. Armed and masked federal agents conducted sweeps in residential neighborhoods, stopped people on the street, and targeted locations in predominantly Somali and Latino communities including the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis. Reports of racial profiling emerged within days. In one documented incident, an ICE agent told a detained individual: “I can hear you don’t have the same accent as me.”

January 7, 2026 — ICE Agent Shoots and Kills Renee Good

On January 7, 2026, ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old American citizen, in Minneapolis. Federal authorities stated that Good had tried to drive her car toward officers. Community witnesses, video footage, and subsequent accounts disputed that characterization. Good’s car was stopped sideways in the street when Ross approached, walked around the vehicle, and other agents joined. When Good briefly reversed and then moved forward, Ross fired. Good died at the scene.

The killing immediately intensified opposition to the operation. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey announced the city would investigate, and the Minneapolis Police Department began tracking overtime costs linked to the surge. By January 9, MPD officers had already accumulated more than 3,000 hours of surge-related overtime, at an estimated cost exceeding $2 million for a four-day period.

January 12, 2026 — State and Cities File Federal Lawsuit

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, joined by Minneapolis and Saint Paul, filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota on January 12. The complaint alleged that Operation Metro Surge violated the First Amendment, the Tenth Amendment, the Constitution’s equal sovereignty guarantee between states, and the Administrative Procedure Act’s prohibition against arbitrary and capricious agency action.

The plaintiffs argued the operation was not primarily about immigration enforcement but was a form of political retaliation against Minnesota. They noted that Minnesota’s non-citizen undocumented immigrant population — roughly 1.5% of the state — is less than half the national average. States like Texas, Florida, and Utah have substantially higher undocumented immigrant populations but received no comparable surge of agents. The complaint quoted Trump directly: on January 9, he called Minnesota “corrupt” and “crooked” because its officials accurately reported election results that did not declare him the winner.

The lawsuit detailed the harm already documented: 76,000 residents too afraid to go to work or whose workplaces shut down; schools placed in lockdown; businesses reporting 50 to 80 percent revenue drops; local police spending thousands of overtime hours responding to surge-related incidents; emergency responders strained; and the fatal shooting of Renee Good by a federal agent five days earlier.

January 15, 2026 — ACLU Files Class Action on Racial Profiling

Three days later, the ACLU and ACLU of Minnesota, along with Covington and Burling LLP, Greene Espel PLLP, and Robins Kaplan LLP, filed a class action lawsuit in federal court on behalf of three named Minnesotans and a class of similarly situated people. The case, Hussen v. Noem, challenged ICE and CBP’s practice of conducting suspicionless stops, warrantless arrests, and racial profiling — arguing these violated the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection guarantee.

The lead plaintiff, 20-year-old Mubashir Hussen, is a U.S. citizen of Somali descent. He was detained by masked ICE agents who refused to look at his U.S. passport card until after they had him in detention. He was also pepper-sprayed for recording federal agents as they drove past him. A second plaintiff, a Latino man, was tackled by Border Patrol agents, driven around in their vehicle, and left sobbing on the ground in a Walmart parking lot after agents finally examined his passport. A third Somali Minnesotan was detained along with his mother while he worked to shovel his car out to get to his overnight job as a personal care assistant.

January 24, 2026 — Second U.S. Citizen Killed: Alex Pretti

On January 24, 2026, a second American citizen, Alex Jeffrey Pretti, was fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis. The killing occurred amid ongoing enforcement activity and further escalated public outrage. A third shooting involving a Venezuelan man, Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, had also occurred on January 14, after the FBI revealed that ICE had initially pursued him due to mistaken identity.

By late January, massive protests had swept Minnesota. On January 23, tens of thousands of Minnesotans demonstrated in subzero temperatures across the state. Hundreds of businesses closed in solidarity. A broader general strike movement emerged. President Trump announced the formal drawdown of Operation Metro Surge on February 12, 2026.

January 31, 2026 — Court Denies Preliminary Injunction in State Case

A federal judge denied the state and cities’ request for a preliminary injunction to immediately halt Operation Metro Surge on January 31, 2026. AG Ellison acknowledged the setback but was direct: the case was continuing. “This case is in its infancy and there is much legal road in front of us,” he said. The court found plaintiffs had made a showing of racial profiling and unconstitutional tactics but concluded that plaintiffs had not demonstrated the ongoing and imminent harm necessary for emergency injunctive relief, given the evident drawdown of federal agents.

February 12, 2026 — Operation Metro Surge Officially Ends

Trump administration border czar Tom Homan announced the formal end of Operation Metro Surge on February 12, 2026. ICE sightings by community monitors declined sharply in the weeks that followed. Enforcement activity continued in communities outside Minneapolis at a reduced pace, and enforcement flights decreased. The operation had resulted in the deaths of two American citizens, the shooting of a third man through mistaken identity, and the traumatization of an entire metropolitan region.

March 10, 2026 — Judge Finds ICE Adopted Unconstitutional Racial Profiling Policy

Federal Judge Eric Tostrud issued a landmark 110-page ruling in the Hussen v. Noem class action on March 10, 2026. His conclusion was clear: “I conclude that Plaintiffs have made a clear showing that Defendants have adopted a policy authorizing federal immigration officers to conduct investigatory stops based on ethnicity or race without reasonable suspicion that the individuals were violating immigration laws. The evidence from individual encounters is compelling and troubling.”

Tostrud reviewed 34 documented cases in which U.S. citizens and legal immigrants alleged racial profiling. He found that agents acted on legitimate other evidence in five cases. On 23 occasions, the evidence showed detention based solely on race or ethnicity. Among the documented incidents was one involving former Operation Metro Surge commander Greg Bovino, who was present when ICE detained two Americans — including a 17-year-old Hispanic boy — at a Target store in Richfield. The judge found that teenager was detained only because of his ethnicity.

The federal government provided almost no rebuttal witness testimony, which the judge noted “leaves almost all of Plaintiff’s declaration testimony undisputed.” Despite the finding, Tostrud declined to issue a preliminary injunction, concluding that plaintiffs had not shown a substantial risk of future harm given that most named plaintiffs had not been arrested a second time and the surge had wound down. The ACLU’s legal team called the ruling significant: a court-issued finding that ICE ran an unconstitutional racial profiling operation in Minnesota.

March and April 2026 — New Lawsuits, Amended Complaints, $610M Economic Damage

The state of Minnesota filed an amended complaint on April 20, 2026, expanding the legal theory to ask a court to declare Operation Metro Surge itself unlawful — not just specific conduct within it. The amended complaint reiterated Tenth Amendment violations, argued the surge was retaliatory political targeting of a Democratic state, and documented the full scope of economic harm.

According to the amended complaint, Operation Metro Surge caused combined business losses of $610 million in Minneapolis and Saint Paul: over $440 million in Minneapolis and more than $165 million in Saint Paul. The filing documented approximately $243 million in lost wages across the two cities, with $189 million in Minneapolis alone. Minneapolis police racked up over $6 million in overtime between January 7 and the end of March. Saint Paul police spent nearly $5 million directly tied to federal immigration activity between November 2025 and February 2026.

Separately, two Minnesota school districts — Duluth Public Schools and Fridley Public Schools — and the Education Minnesota teachers union filed suit in February 2026 challenging Trump’s 2025 policy change allowing immigration enforcement at K-12 school grounds. A federal judge declined on May 6 to immediately halt school-zone enforcement, but the case continues. A third additional lawsuit was filed by The Advocates for Human Rights on behalf of detainees at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, alleging Fifth Amendment due process violations including denial of phone calls, attorney access, and improper transfers. That case secured preliminary injunctions in February and March 2026; a pretrial conference is scheduled for May 18, 2026.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension also sued federal officials over evidence tampering, alleging federal agents denied BCA investigators access to the scene of the second civilian killing, allowed potential evidence to be spoiled, then removed evidence and took it with them. Defendants had until May 21, 2026 to respond to that complaint.

What the Lawsuits Allege

The state and cities’ lawsuit rests primarily on three constitutional theories. First, the Tenth Amendment: the operation commandeered state and local law enforcement resources by forcing them to spend thousands of hours on surge-related public safety responses — policing the chaos created by federal agents rather than their normal duties. The Tenth Amendment reserves police powers to the states, and the plaintiffs argue the federal government cannot conscript state resources for federal enforcement without consent.

Second, equal sovereignty: the Constitution requires that states be treated equally by the federal government. The administration targeted Minnesota — with its below-average undocumented immigrant population — while leaving states with far higher percentages of undocumented residents untouched. Plaintiffs argue this disparity, combined with Trump’s explicit statements about Minnesota’s electoral outcomes, proves the operation was retaliatory rather than neutral enforcement.

Third, First Amendment retaliation: targeting a state because of how its officials exercised their constitutional duties — accurately certifying election results, advocating for immigrants’ rights, criticizing federal immigration policy — violates the First Amendment’s prohibition against viewpoint-based retaliation by the government.

The ACLU class action adds Fourth and Fifth Amendment claims. Warrantless arrests without probable cause violate the Fourth Amendment. Detention based solely on race or accent, without reasonable suspicion of any immigration violation, violates the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection guarantee. Judge Tostrud’s March ruling confirmed on the evidence that this is precisely what occurred.

Who Was Targeted and How

The pattern of enforcement documented in court filings and the Tostrud ruling is consistent. Federal agents stopped people based on how they looked and how they sounded. The Somali community in Cedar-Riverside — Minneapolis’s largest Somali neighborhood — was disproportionately targeted. ICE agents detained men who were on their way to work, shoveling their cars, shopping at Target, or walking on the street. Several were U.S. citizens. Several were legal permanent residents. Several had no criminal history whatsoever.

In documented cases, agents refused to look at U.S. passports until after putting people in detention. Agents pepper-sprayed people for recording them in public. A teenage boy was detained at a retail store while shopping. The stated justification for the surge — the Feeding Our Future food fraud investigation — has been undermined by the resignation of six federal prosecutors from that case, including its lead attorney, in the aftermath of the civilian killings.

The Killing of Renee Good

Renee Good’s death on January 7 became the defining event of the entire Operation Metro Surge controversy. She was 37 years old, an American citizen, stopped in her car in a Minneapolis street. ICE agent Jonathan Ross drove past, then walked back around the vehicle. Other agents joined. One leaned through Good’s open window. After she briefly reversed and began to move forward, veering toward oncoming traffic, Ross fired. She died at the scene.

Federal authorities characterized Good as a threat who tried to weaponize her vehicle against officers. Administration officials falsely described her as a domestic terrorist. Community members and witnesses disputed the federal account. Videos circulated online showing the encounter. Democratic politicians and civil rights groups demanded accountability. Jonathan Ross was not arrested, charged, or publicly disciplined. The lead prosecutors on the Feeding Our Future fraud case — the stated justification for Operation Metro Surge — subsequently resigned, with six attorneys departing that prosecution in the weeks following the killing.

The Hennepin County Attorney’s office opened a probe into 17 possible criminal incidents by federal agents during the surge. The killing of a second American citizen, Alex Pretti, on January 24 further intensified demands for accountability.

Economic Damage to Minnesota

The $610 million economic damage figure documented in the state’s April 2026 amended complaint captures only part of the surge’s economic impact. It covers business losses in Minneapolis and Saint Paul from the January through March 2026 period. It does not include the full costs to surrounding metro area communities, statewide economic ripple effects, or the long-term harm to affected businesses that permanently closed.

The mechanism of harm was fear. When thousands of armed federal agents in military gear swept neighborhoods without warning, hundreds of thousands of residents stopped going to work, to stores, to school. Employers lost workers. Businesses lost customers. Schools lost students. Minneapolis police canceled 1,000 vacation days and extended 500 shifts to manage surge-related calls, at a cost exceeding $6 million in overtime. Saint Paul police spent nearly $5 million managing federal immigration activity over four months. Those costs fell on city taxpayers, not the federal government that created them.

The Administration’s Defense

The federal government’s defense across all five lawsuits follows a consistent pattern. On the constitutional claims, DOJ argues that immigration enforcement is a federal prerogative that states cannot limit through litigation. Federal agents have the authority to enforce federal immigration law regardless of state objection. The political retaliation claims are denied: the administration characterizes Operation Metro Surge as legitimate law enforcement related to the Feeding Our Future fraud.

On the racial profiling claims, the government provided almost no witness testimony at the Hussen v. Noem hearings — a gap Judge Tostrud explicitly noted in his ruling. The administration described congressional oversight visits to Minneapolis ICE facilities as “circus-like publicity stunts” and challenged the legal standing of community organizations to sue. It has consistently framed all opposition to the surge as obstruction of lawful immigration enforcement.

The administration’s preemption argument on the school-zone case succeeded in defeating the preliminary injunction. The court found the Trump administration’s 2025 policy change reversing Obama-era protections for schools was within executive authority, even if its practical effects were severe.

What This Lawsuit Teaches Consumers

The Minnesota ICE lawsuits present a picture of what happens when federal enforcement power operates without adequate constraint, oversight, or accountability. Two American citizens were killed. A court found that federal agents ran a racial profiling operation that detained people based on how they looked and sounded. A major metropolitan economy lost more than $600 million in productive activity because residents were afraid to leave their homes. And the stated justification for the entire operation — the Feeding Our Future fraud case — lost six of its prosecutors in the aftermath of the civilian killings.

The pattern is familiar. Federal power deployed at speed, without clear targeting criteria, in communities selected at least in part for political reasons. The harms fall disproportionately on people who have the least ability to defend themselves: immigrants, communities of color, people without documentation who cannot safely report abuse. And the legal remedies available — civil rights lawsuits filed months after the harm occurred — cannot undo the deaths, the economic disruption, or the persistent trauma in affected communities.

What the litigation can do is establish an evidentiary record, hold officials accountable in court, and push toward legal standards that constrain future operations. Judge Tostrud’s racial profiling finding is exactly that kind of record. It documents, under oath, with cross-examination, that federal agents stopped people because of how they looked — not because of any evidence of wrongdoing. That finding will follow the administration into future enforcement debates, congressional oversight hearings, and any litigation that challenges similar operations elsewhere. For related context on how federal courts have navigated the boundaries of executive immigration enforcement authority, see our coverage of the ICE facility notice requirement lawsuit and the Pima County Sheriff ACLU case.