ST. PAUL — The escalation of immigration enforcement in Minnesota since Dec. 1 has drawn national scrutiny after the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in January — yet basic information about the operation remains unclear.
State, federal and watchdog accounts frequently conflict, sowing skepticism about the scope, conduct and transparency of Operation Metro Surge and the state of Minnesota’s response.
Here is a look at what is known about the federal operation in Minnesota, as well as where gaps in information remain.
The Department of Homeland Security has arrested over 10,500 “criminal illegal aliens,” since President Donald Trump took office, and 3,500 since Operation Metro Surge began, an agency spokesperson said in a Jan. 30 statement to Forum News Service.
Seventy percent of all ICE arrests nationwide are of undocumented immigrants charged or convicted of a crime in the U.S.,
In a visit to Minnesota on Oct. 24, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said the agency’s efforts in Minnesota resulted in the removal of 4,300 individuals “off of our streets.”
Those estimates, paired together with the newest arrest counts from DHS, could mean DHS would have had to arrest roughly 2,700 people between Oct. 24 and Dec. 1 when the operation began — that’s about 70 arrests per day.
At a
hearing before Minnesota senators on ICE
on Thursday, Jan. 29. John Boehler, policy counsel with the ACLU of Minnesota, said he and his colleagues don’t have access to the information behind the numbers DHS is citing. State and city leaders also have been unable to confirm the number of arrests when asked.
“They say they have arrested 10,000 immigrants with criminal records. We have no reason to believe that number is accurate,” Boehler said. “There’s no comprehensive list of names, records, immigration status, criminal history or present detention status has been provided.”
It’s also not clear how many of these people are detained in Minnesota or have been transferred to another state, or out of the country.
Federal and local cooperation discrepancies
In a Jan. 19 news release, DHS claimed that Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey have
they have not honored for undocumented immigrants “in the custody across all jurisdictions in Minnesota.” It’s not clear how many of the 1,360 detainers are for individuals in state prisons or jails.
The Minnesota Department of Corrections (DOC) has spoken out since the beginning of the Operation Metro Surge, disputing claims from federal agencies that the state fights
Minnesota law requires DOC to notify ICE when someone committed to a DOC facility is not a U.S. citizen. The DOC says it complies with this requirement and honors detainers, even though state law does not require detainer compliance.
The DOC also says that ICE alone determines whether to place a detainer and is in charge of arranging pickup.
In 2025, ICE placed detainers on 83 people being released from prison, which the DOC honored and transferred to ICE, according to the DOC. In 2026 so far, ICE has had detainers on nine people that the DOC has also transferred to ICE custody, according to the DOC.
On a state level, the DOC cooperates with ICE. However, certain cities, including Minneapolis and St. Paul, as well as counties such as Hennepin, do have separation ordinances or individual sets of rules on cooperation with federal partners.
For example, Olmsted, Wabasha and Goodhue counties do notify ICE if a person who has an ICE detainer is booked into their jails. But there are limits and separate policies for how long each jail can hold a detainer, the
Rochester Post Bulletin reported.
White House border czar
Tom Homan said on Wednesday, Feb. 4,
that he is now seeing an “unprecedented” amount of cooperation from Minnesota counties, and thanked the state for their already existing cooperation. He clarified that he is not asking jails to hold detainers longer than they normally would — just for notification.
“This is efficient. Requires only one or two officers to assume custody of criminal alien target, rather than eight or 10 officers going into the community and arresting that public safety threat,” Homan said. “This frees up more officers to arrest or remove criminal aliens, more officers taking custody of criminal aliens directly from the jails, means less officers on the street doing criminal operations.”
Another source of confusion is the Department of Homeland Security’s “Worst of the Worst” database. A note at the top of the website says the list highlights the “worst criminal aliens arrested by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”
As of Wednesday, Feb. 4, the database shows about 20,250 people who have been arrested, purportedly by ICE, around the country.
Searching by
“Minnesota,” there are almost 500
entries listed. Some of those people have charges, arrests or convictions listed: A man convicted of sex assault arrested in Moose Lake; a man convicted on a drug charge arrested in Bloomington; another convicted of mail fraud and arrested in Elk River.
At a Wednesday morning news conference, Homan listed some stats on who federal agents have arrested: 14 people with homicide convictions, 28 gang members,139 assault convictions and 87 sex offenses.
“Just to name a few, we’ve taken a lot of bad people off the street,” Homan said.
A review by the Rochester Post Bulletin found
that for the 18 people listed as arrested in Rochester
in ICE’s “Worst of the Worst” database, the charges don’t match the federal convictions that previously put some detainers in federal custody.
The DOC also reported that at least
claimed to have been arrested by ICE and listed on the “Worst of the Worst” were
handed over from DOC facilities,
several of the transfers occurring before Operation Metro Surge.
Tom Homan, who was appointed “border czar” by President Donald Trump, looks on as he speaks to the media outside the White House in Washington on Jan. 14, 2026.
Evelyn Hockstein / Reuters
“Minnesota DOC honors ICE detainers and coordinates custody transfers every day. Those transfers are documented, scheduled, and verifiable,” the state Department of Corrections said in a news release. “What is troubling is DHS taking credit for ’arrests’ which are, in reality, state-to-federal handoffs occurring at prison facilities after individuals complete their state terms of imprisonment, as has been the long-standing practice.”
Another analysis from the Post Bulletin found that of 64 people listed as DHS’s “Worst of the Worst,” most of those taken into custody in Rochester, were
federal prisoners transferred from border states to the Federal Medical Center.
There is also a handful of reports of U.S. citizens being
— including
— as well as several reports of
protesters or bystanders being detained
for impeding on operations and later being released without charges.
Boehler with the ACLU called the surge “one of the largest deprivations of constitutional protections in the history of our state,” and said the ACLU has tracked 500 reports of constitutional violations since the operation began.
How many federal agents are there in Minnesota?
The Department of Homeland Security has said there are approximately 3,000 federal agents in Minnesota, and that Operation Metro Surge is the “largest immigration operation ever,” ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons
when an extra surge of 2,000 agents was sent to Minnesota.
Homan announced on Wednesday that 700 federal agents would be pulled from the state “effective today.”
Before Operation Metro Surge, the status quo for
federal agents in the state was 80,
Sara Lathrop, attorney with the city of Minneapolis, said during a hearing for a lawsuit challenging the lawfulness of ICE’s operations in Minnesota.
Other states have seen a surge in the presence of federal agents, such as Illinois, Georgia and Tennessee, with Tennessee reporting
as many as 1,400 federal agents.
The total number of undocumented immigrants in Minnesota was estimated at approximately
, according to a 2025 analysis from Pew Research Center — considerably smaller than estimates for states like California, Texas and Florida which stand in the millions.
Minnesota has more undocumented immigrants than all of its bordering states but other Midwest states like Illinois and Michigan top Minnesota, at 550,000 and 200,000, respectively, according to the Pew estimates.
Walz said at a news conference on Tuesday, Feb. 3, that he spoke with Homan that morning and it’s his “expectation” that “we will see a dramatic shift in where this is at for the better for Minnesota, starting this week.”
“My expectation, not a demand, my expectation is, draw down these forces, get them all out of here, give us the ability to investigate the murders of our neighbors and stop the assault on Minnesota,” Walz said. “It would be my expectation, and it’s in their court.”
Homan on Wednesday said that his goal is to achieve a “complete drawdown” and “end this surge,” but that is contingent on continued local cooperation and a decrease in “the violence, the rhetoric and the attacks” against federal officers.