Minnesota has endured unrest before, but this looks and feels different. Battalions of armed federal agents are moving through neighborhoods, transit hubs, malls and parking lots and staging near churches, mosques and schools. It feels like a military occupation.
Heavily armed and masked government agents are prone to confront any American they encounter in the street, but especially people of certain colors, accents or styles of dress. The encounters are often violent. The federal agents operating under the insignia of Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the Department of Homeland Security, largely anonymously, have disrupted the life of large swaths of a state.
The occupation of Minnesota by ICE cannot stand.
In December, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced “Operation Metro Surge,” describing it as an effort to expose corruption tied to Minnesota’s documented welfare fraud scandal.
That is not what Minnesotans are experiencing. What we are witnessing is the storming of the state by the federal government.
Fraud investigation and immigration enforcement in Minnesota have become a pretext for a sweeping federal show of force that bears little relationship to the problem it claims to address. Noncitizen immigrants without legal status make up roughly 1.5% of Minnesota’s population — less than half the national average. Nothing about that figure justifies the scale, posture or tactics now widely deployed.
Enforcement carried out without restraint, transparency or proportionality does not strengthen the rule of law. It corrodes it.
The fatal shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good, an American citizen and Minneapolis resident, by an ICE agent on Jan. 7 brought into brutal focus an enforcement strategy that erodes trust and often puts innocent people and lawful protesters in extreme danger. Her death was the foreseeable outcome of government overreach that seems to prioritize volume and spectacle over judgment and care.
In an interview with the New York Times, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara warned that the behavior of federal agents has undermined the fragile public trust his department has worked tirelessly to rebuild since 2020. “It’s not necessarily about which laws are being enforced,” O’Hara said. “It’s about how that enforcement is happening.”
That distinction matters.
ICE was created in the aftermath of 9/11 with a narrow mandate tied to national security, border control and public safety. That mission remains legitimate. What is unfolding in Minnesota, however, resembles something else entirely: a form of militant policing designed to intimidate rather than enforce, to provoke rather than stabilize.
ICE will not likely be abolished. But, at minimum, it must be reformed. It must be structured to operate within the same constitutional norms that govern other law-enforcement bodies. Training must be rebuilt, not lightly adjusted. Rigorous de-escalation training and understanding of community impact must be prioritized.
Oversight must also have teeth: independent review, transparent reporting and real consequences for misconduct. ICE should meet the same standards expected of other police agencies, especially as it relates to the identification of agents and use-of-force guidelines.
Public protest and civil disobedience remain essential and foundational tools in a democracy. They must remain peaceful and focused on reform. To date, Minnesotans have shown remarkable restraint in the face of disruption and loss. But how long before there is a breach in the face of willful provocation?
The central question ahead is not whether immigration enforcement will continue, but whether it can credibly continue under the current structure of ICE. If battalions of militarized federal agents can occupy American cities under the pretext of combating fraud, arresting undocumented felons and targeting any American seemingly at will, then no state is immune.
It is currently happening in Minnesota. It’s wrong, and it must be stopped.