What Minnesota Really Thinks Of The End Of Trump’s ICE Surge

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Border czar Tom Homan delivered the news on Thursday that Minnesotans living under federal occupation have been desperately waiting for: the end of the Trump administration’s massive surge of immigration officers in the state.

On its face, it looks like a full-blown retreat by Washington, one that Twin Cities residents would be celebrating in the streets like it’s Mardi Gras after demanding “ICE out.” They’ve been fighting for this outcome since December, when President Donald Trump first deployed thousands of federal agents to carry out his mass deportation agenda. Since then, agents have waged a campaign of terror on immigrant communities, indiscriminately grabbing Black and brown people on the streets and circling elementary schools looking for children to nab. They’ve responded to peaceful protesters with violence, and even killed two Americans, Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

Homan’s announcement appears to signal the end of a “dystopian nightmare,” as a resident put it, one that has left an unknown number of families torn apart, communities shattered, and countless bystanders injured. But some of the people who have been on the front lines of protecting their immigrant friends and neighbors from ICE aren’t ready to call this a win, yet. They’ve seen this before, when top Trump officials declared last week they would be easing operations ― and then nothing changed. Minnesotans are showing no signs of backing down either. If anything, they said they will continue to find ways to fight back.

“We’ll believe it when we see it,” said Nick Benson, who monitors Immigration and Customs Enforcement flights out of Minneapolis, feeding real-time data to the community. “None of us trust DHS/ICE, nor should anyone else.”

“The ‘drawdown’ didn’t lead to any tangible change in the field,” he said. “This is a tactic to throw the attention of the press off the scent of what’s happening on the ground in Minnesota.” Like most other federal agencies, ICE has a permanent presence in Minnesota through field offices.

Nate, a Minneapolis real estate agent who requested giving only his first name out of fear of retribution by the government, said he’s hopeful Homan is telling the truth. But even during his announcement, he said the border czar lied when he said ICE agents haven’t been targeting churches, schools or hospitals.

“This is a good day for sure, but I don’t trust the fuckers lol,” he said in a message.

Just a day earlier, Nate said, ICE officers detained people by a grocery store. And in a separate incident, ICE tased a legal observer while they were driving away.

“They have still been targeting people based on appearing to be an immigrant,” he said. “So we will know it’s over when kids are back at school, families don’t have to stay in hiding and people can work, and those unlawfully detained are home.”

Homan made a point during his announcement to thank Gov. Tim Walz and Mayor Jacob Frey for helping ICE to coordinate with county prisons and local law enforcement for detentions of people who are criminals in the country illegally. That, too, has made some residents uneasy about possible deals that state and local leaders may have cut with Homan to reduce the surge.

One community that ICE officers have been relentlessly harassing is Columbia Heights, a heavily Latino Minneapolis suburb. This is where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos goes to school, along with at least five other children who have been detained by federal agents sent to a squalid ICE detention center in Texas. Ramos was recently released, but at least two other children from Minnesota are still being held alongside hundreds of other children.

Families and school officials said federal agents have been intentionally intimidating them — driving onto school properties and parking their cars by classroom windows, in plain view of the kids and teachers inside. They regularly park their cars outside the homes of school officials such as Mary Granlund, a member of the Columbia Heights school board.

She was in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, hours before Homan’s announcement, where we spoke in person. She had just checked her phone and discovered ICE officers were sitting outside of her house, again.

“I was like, joke’s on them, fuckers, because I am not there,” she said with a laugh. “This is not the first time. This is not the second time at my house. I mean, one day they had both doors covered. Both doors had one car out front, one car out back.”

Granlund, too, is skeptical that this is the end of the brutal crackdown by the Trump administration.

“The last time Homan said they were going to tone it down, we saw an increase in agents, abductions and terror. Even if they somehow miraculously leave tomorrow, we will still be here ― continuing to clean up the mess of broken doors, broken trust and broken hearts. We will still have students and families that are spread out away from family and community,” she said. “We will be cleaning up the mess this administration has made in our communities for years to come.”

If there is a silver lining to ICE’s occupation, it’s that the federal invasion brought the community together, said Peg Nelson, a teacher at Ramos’ elementary school. She’s one of several teachers who volunteer to do grocery runs for immigrant families too scared to leave their homes, leaving food on their front steps.

That communal spirit goes both ways, too. Nelson, who is white, said she was stunned last week when the immigrant parents of one of her students told her they were proud of her for speaking up for people like them, but also they worry for her because “white people are getting shot in the face.”

“I was like, are you kidding me?” Nelson said, choking up as she spoke. “‘You’re worried about me?’ I said, ‘I’m going to be fine. It’s OK. I need to keep talking about this because it needs to stop.’

“It was really powerful because I thought, these are amazing families and ― then it just makes it worth it for me,” she said. “I’m not going to shut up now.”