Did Minneapolis Actually Win? Measuring the Metro Surge Withdrawal
Federal immigration officers withdrew from Minnesota in mid-February after more than two months of intensive operations—but whether the protest movement that opposed them won depends on how you measure victory.
On February 12, White House Border Czar Tom Homan announced the withdrawal of federal officers from Minnesota, concluding Operation Metro Surge. The announcement came after sustained protests that brought together an estimated 300 organizations nationally and drew crowds between 50,000 and 100,000 in Minneapolis alone.
Operation Metro Surge
Operation Metro Surge began December 1, 2025. Federal officials called it the largest immigration enforcement operation ever carried out by the Department of Homeland Security. The operation deployed about 3,000 federal officers—including ICE personnel and Customs and Border Protection staff—to the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metro area.
Federal officials justified the deployment by targeting what they described as criminal aliens. They cited arrests of individuals with convictions for murder, sexual offenses, and gang activity. The Trump administration framed Minneapolis as a “sanctuary city” requiring federal intervention.
The surge disrupted community life immediately. Schools transitioned to remote learning after reports of ICE personnel stopping people near educational institutions. Arrests rippled through the economy as undocumented workers and their families stopped going to workplaces out of fear.
Two Fatal Shootings
Two fatal shootings by federal officers ignited organized resistance. On January 7, ICE officer Jonathan Ross fired three shots into the vehicle of Renée Good, a 37-year-old Minneapolis resident and mother of three. Good was killed while her car was stopped. Eyewitness and video evidence showed Ross drew his gun and fired at her departing vehicle in less than one second.
Federal officials called it an attack on law enforcement. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem claimed Good had “attacked” officers and “attempted to run them over.” Journalists and Democratic lawmakers documented that Good had been serving as a legal observer of ICE activity, not engaged in violence.
Seventeen days later, Border Patrol officers opened fire on Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse at a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital. Identified officers Jesus Ochoa and Raymundo Gutierrez shot Pretti multiple times after he tried to help a woman who had been knocked to the ground by federal officers.
These deaths—of American citizens shot by federal officers during operations—showed Minneapolis residents that federal action carried life-or-death consequences even for people not subject to deportation.
The Resistance Campaign
Activists built a campaign that combined protests, legal action, institutional mobilization, and community defense infrastructure. Rather than organizing a single large march, they sustained their efforts over weeks.
Nightly Hotel Disruptions
Beginning almost immediately after Renée Good’s killing, protesters organized nightly demonstrations outside hotels where ICE officers were housed. Over 1,000 protesters gathered outside the Canopy by Hilton in downtown Minneapolis on January 9. Police described it as a “noise protest” intended to disrupt those inside.
This pattern repeated on subsequent nights, with protesters targeting multiple hotels throughout Minneapolis. The tactic made things harder for federal officers: they couldn’t rest undisturbed, local police resources were tied up managing protests, and hotels faced pressure regarding their contracts with federal agencies.
Community Warning Networks
Building on earlier ICE Watch models used elsewhere, Minneapolis organizers built networks designed to document and warn community members about ICE activity. Legal observers trained in documentation techniques positioned themselves at potential sites, particularly near schools and community spaces.
When ICE officers were spotted, information flowed through secure messaging apps and social media to alert residents in targeted neighborhoods. These networks operated continuously over weeks, requiring volunteers to work continuously to protect community members from arrest.
The General Strike
More than 700 small businesses and several cultural institutions closed as part of an economic protest and general strike on January 23. Organizers estimated 50,000 people attended associated protests that day despite subzero temperatures. Hundreds of clergy members protested at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, with around 100 clergy arrested as part of the action.
The Minnesota AFL-CIO endorsed the strike, representing over a thousand labor unions. Schools and religious institutions adopted policies to limit how much they’d help ICE.
National Coordination
Weekly actions expanded to national coordination. Organizers coordinated what they termed a “National Shutdown” on January 30, calling for people nationwide to stop working, stop attending school, and stop shopping.
The next day, a coalition including the 50501 movement and Women’s March organized over 300 “ICE Out of Everywhere” protests. Media accounts described “massive crowds of protestors marching across the nation,” with Minneapolis organizers claiming around 50,000 people participated in their city’s demonstration.
The 50501 coalition, which emerged in response to this moment, described itself as a “non-violent, grassroots movement that organizes mass protests and mutual aid democracy against fascism.” It included labor unions, racial justice organizations, immigrant rights groups, religious organizations, and community-based mutual aid networks.
Legal Pressure
At the same time as street protests, elected officials pursued legal challenges. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, along with the cities of Saint Paul, filed federal lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security. They argued that Operation Metro Surge violated the First Amendment, Tenth Amendment, and the principle that states should be treated equally.
The lawsuit characterized the operation as unconstitutional federal overreach motivated by political retribution rather than law enforcement. Federal judge Katherine M. Menendez issued a court order on January 16 blocking officers from retaliating against peaceful protesters. A higher court later put this on hold.
The Withdrawal
By mid-February, facing sustained pressure, the Trump administration signaled a shift. Homan announced the immediate withdrawal of 700 officers from the Twin Cities on February 4, reducing total deployment to 2,000. One week later, on February 12, Homan appeared at a press conference in Minneapolis and announced that “this surge operation” would “conclude.”
But Homan’s announcement included significant caveats. He stated that “a small footprint of personnel will remain for a period of time to close out and transition full command and control back to the field office as well as to ensure agitator activity continues to decline.”
When pressed on CBS News, Homan indicated that the final troop levels would “get back to the original footprint.” Governor Walz had stated this was around 150 officers covering state activities. This suggested that while the surge was ending, remaining immigration officers would stay.
Measuring Against Stated Demands
Organizers demanded “the immediate withdrawal of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection officers…from Minnesota.” Partial outcome: Large-scale withdrawal occurred, but remaining officers stayed. Complete withdrawal wasn’t achieved.
Organizers demanded “criminal prosecution and legal accountability for officers involved in the deaths of Good and Pretti.” Outcome: As of mid-February, no criminal charges had been filed against either Jonathan Ross (who killed Renée Good) or the two officers (Jesus Ochoa and Raymundo Gutierrez) who killed Alex Pretti. The FBI and DOJ Civil Rights Division opened civil rights investigations, but federal prosecutors within the DOJ resigned in protest, claiming the administration was refusing to investigate in good faith.
Organizers demanded that “ICE be abolished.” Outcome: Not achieved. ICE remained fully operational. While the broader Abolish ICE movement gained momentum in public discourse, no legislative steps toward dismantling the agency occurred.
Organizers demanded an end to activities “at schools, hospitals, places of worship, courthouses, playgrounds, funerals, and weddings.” Outcome: Some protections were established. In February, federal courts issued injunctions blocking warrantless ICE activities at certain churches, protecting specific Baptist, Lutheran, and Methodist congregations’ properties. However, this represented protection for specific religious institutions, not the ban demanded.
Organizers demanded “federal officers to be equipped with body-worn cameras” and required identification. Outcome: DHS announced all federal officers would receive body cameras, beginning in Minneapolis. This represented a partial concession. However, acting ICE director Todd Lyons testified before Congress that despite this announcement, “nearly 80% of ICE officers still do not wear cameras” as of mid-February.
Of the core demands, one was substantially achieved (body cameras announced, though implementation lagged), one was partially achieved (substantial but not complete withdrawal), and two weren’t achieved (criminal accountability, abolition of ICE).
Did the Protests Cause the Withdrawal?
That federal officers withdrew from Minnesota is factually documented. But determining whether protest pressure caused the withdrawal requires examining other possible reasons.
Federal Officials’ Explanation
Asked whether Metro Surge was always planned as a limited operation, federal officials offered varying characterizations. Homan claimed it was a success because “arrests illegal aliens with a focus on criminals. Over 4,000 arrests, done.” This framing suggested Metro Surge had achieved its goals and was being concluded as planned, not as a concession to protest pressure.
However, Homan also stated that sustained protest and violence required continued federal presence. He suggested that if protest activity declined, withdrawal could accelerate. The federal government’s statement that the withdrawal was contingent on cooperation from state and local officials suggested that this—not street protest—drove the decision.
Congressional Pressure
The DHS faced a partial government shutdown over ICE funding. Senate Democrats refused to advance appropriations bills without limits on what ICE could do. Congressional pressure may have influenced administration calculations more than street protests. Other federal agencies (TSA, FEMA, Coast Guard) were affected by the DHS shutdown, creating pressure from other agencies’ constituencies.
Public Opinion Shifts
Polling shows significant shifts in public attitudes toward ICE. A Marist Poll from February found that 65% of Americans said ICE’s actions had “gone too far” in enforcing laws, up from 54% in June 2025. Sixty-two percent said ICE actions were making Americans “somewhat less safe or much less safe.”
Nearly six in ten Americans (59%) believed anti-ICE demonstrations were “mostly legitimate protests.” These shifts occurred as Metro Surge was occurring and protests intensified, suggesting the campaign influenced public opinion. However, Republican support for ICE remained strong at 73% approval.
Reputational Damage
The shootings of two American citizens and widespread accusations of excessive force created reputational damage. The killing of Renée Good became what some observers called a “watershed moment”—visible evidence that federal activities carried life-or-death consequences even for citizens not subject to deportation.
Historical Context
The 1980s Sanctuary Movement
Beginning in 1982, churches across the United States declared themselves sanctuaries for Central American refugees fleeing political violence, knowingly breaking federal immigration law. Participants provided housing, legal support, and moral witness to undocumented Central Americans. Over 500 congregations participated by 1985.
Federal authorities prosecuted participants, conducting trials in Texas and Arizona that generated national controversy. Organizers didn’t achieve their primary goal of changing federal policy toward Central Americans. The Reagan administration maintained policies that made it harder to get asylum throughout the 1980s, and deportations continued.
However, participants created networks and systems, set examples that courts could follow later, and built relationships between faith communities and immigrants that persisted for decades. In some cases, cooperating local governments protected sanctuary organizers from federal prosecution. The effort also influenced broader debates, helping establish the concept of sanctuary as an organized response.
2017 Airport Protests and Occupy ICE
When President Trump issued an executive order restricting travel from Muslim-majority countries in January 2017, organized protests erupted immediately at major airports. Thousands of Americans—many participating in their first protest action—converged at airports nationwide, including Minneapolis-Saint Paul.
These actions generated significant media attention but didn’t prevent implementation of the ban (which was modified but ultimately upheld by courts). However, they established infrastructure and networks that persisted: organizers who came together for airports in 2017 reappeared in subsequent campaigns, including Metro Surge resistance.
In 2018, following Trump’s family separation policy, activists in Portland, Oregon and other cities established “Occupy ICE” encampments outside ICE detention facilities, physically blockading buildings and demanding closure. Federal authorities and municipal governments ultimately evicted encampments, and facilities remained operational. No ICE detention facilities were permanently closed as a direct result of Occupy ICE actions.
Yet the campaign helped make abolishing ICE a more mainstream idea when Democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made ICE abolition a central campaign issue.
The Pattern
The three closest historical parallels to Minneapolis—the sanctuary effort, 2017 Muslim ban protests, and Occupy ICE—show that protest movements against federal action frequently fail to achieve their immediate policy demands but sometimes succeed in shifting political terrain and building infrastructure.
The sanctuary effort didn’t change asylum policy but established organizational frameworks. The Muslim ban protests didn’t prevent the ban but created networks. Occupy ICE didn’t close detention facilities but helped make abolishing ICE a more mainstream idea.
Research on Protest Effectiveness
Research by Erica Chenoweth and colleagues examining peaceful protest movements across the twentieth century found that campaigns that got 3.5% of the population to participate had never failed to achieve their stated objectives. This finding, sometimes called the “3.5% rule,” suggests the Minneapolis campaign’s scale (with claimed 50,000 in local events from a metro population of around 3 million, or roughly 1.67%) fell short of the threshold historically associated with guaranteed success.
However, Chenoweth’s research also emphasizes that nonviolent resistance succeeded “about twice as often as violent uprisings.” It identified multiple success pathways beyond raw numbers. Choosing the right targets, getting different kinds of people involved, and alignment with institutional power were also important.
Brookings research on successful protest movements in American history identified four factors: clear strategic goals, broad coalition-building, enlisting powerful allies, and connection to electoral mobilization. The Minneapolis campaign demonstrated the first three: clear goals (end Metro Surge, prosecute officers, abolish ICE), broad coalitions (labor, faith, immigrant rights, community groups), and powerful allies (mayor, attorney general).
What remained ambiguous was the fourth factor—electoral mobilization strategy. The campaign didn’t appear explicitly connected to electoral organizing, though it potentially influenced upcoming elections by changing public opinion on ICE.
Strategic Options for Future Organizing
Institutionalize Community Defense
Rather than maintaining ICE Watch as volunteer-based activist infrastructure, move toward turning community defense into official city policy. This would involve city legislation requiring public notification whenever federal officers enter sensitive locations, having the city pay for and organize legal observer training, and city funding for rapid legal response networks.
The sanctuary effort of the 1980s involved churches but also engaged sympathetic city governments—San Francisco, Los Angeles, and other cities implemented official policies protecting immigrants and limiting law enforcement cooperation. These municipal endorsements both protected organizers from prosecution and created ways city governments could make it harder for federal officers to operate.
Formalizing what was created as grassroots infrastructure gives it permanence and makes it harder for future administrations to ignore. Federal officers would face continuous friction in any city with strong, municipally-backed community defense infrastructure.
Target Federal Contractors
Research and publicize federal defense contractors and large corporations that hold government contracts and benefit from ICE budgets. Organize campaigns pressuring these companies to adopt corporate policies refusing collaboration with ICE, conditioning federal contracts on minimal involvement, or threatening to withdraw their services.
Labor movements have successfully leveraged corporate dependencies to achieve worker gains. The United Farm Workers movement, facing intransigent growers, shifted to consumer boycotts targeting supermarket chains carrying grapes, compelling major retailers to stop purchasing from struck farms.
Federal contractors depend on government relationships but also value corporate reputation. Investor pressure, worker organizing, and consumer campaigns create multi-dimensional pressure. Companies may find contracts less valuable than maintaining progressive corporate image.
Build State-Level Constitutional Litigation
Accelerate legal strategies based on the legal principle that divides power between federal and state governments. The Tenth Amendment reserves powers not delegated to the federal government to the states and the people. The state’s lawsuit against DHS raised these arguments but didn’t result in preliminary injunctions. However, there may be room to develop more sophisticated constitutional arguments: that unilateral federal deployment of law enforcement into states without state consent violates principles of federalism, that federal officers can’t force states to provide resources, that federal activities that go beyond what the Constitution allows require state permission.
If federal courts eventually recognize that unilateral deployment of law enforcement into states violates federalism principles, this creates a constitutional barrier to mass activities like Metro Surge. States could refuse to provide facility support, preventing federal detention infrastructure.
Create Cross-Border Sanctuary Networks
Develop regional coordination among multiple cities and states to refuse being “dumping grounds” for federal activities that relocate from more organized cities. Border Czar Homan explicitly stated that officers leaving Minneapolis would be “assigned elsewhere.” Rather than opposing local activities alone, develop networks ensuring that organized resistance emerges wherever activities relocate, making them costlier nationwide.
The sanctuary effort’s strength partly derived from it being a nationwide phenomenon—federal prosecutors had to pursue cases across multiple jurisdictions, using up time and money. If federal officers can’t relocate to “less organized cities” without encountering organized resistance, the cost increases nationally.
Leverage Electoral Accountability
Transform Metro Surge opposition into electoral power by ensuring that Democratic candidates commit explicitly to reform and anti-enforcement positions. Make policy a decisive factor in Democratic primary and general election campaigns. This involves voter registration drives, get-out-the-vote campaigns, and ways to hold candidates to their promises.
The civil rights movement succeeded partly through electoral politics—registering Black voters and making civil rights a decisive factor in national elections. Electoral power is what constrains federal executive authority. If Democratic electoral prospects depend on supporting immigrant rights and opposing mass action, Democratic-controlled branches of government (Congress, state governments) will constrain executive capacity.
Assessment
The Minneapolis Metro Surge withdrawal represents organizers achieving their immediate objective—ending a temporary federal operation—while remaining far from achieving their stated broader goals of criminal accountability, ICE abolition, and protection of immigrant communities.
The withdrawal represented neither a complete victory nor a complete defeat. It was a compromise where federal authorities concluded that the political and operational costs of maintaining Metro Surge exceeded the benefits of continuing it.
What remains unclear is whether the protests caused the withdrawal. Federal officials said the withdrawal happened because they had accomplished goals (4,000+ arrests). Congressional pressure and the DHS shutdown may have influenced timelines. The killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti created political problems that likely motivated some degree of de-escalation.
The sustained community mobilization—weeks of nightly demonstrations, legal challenges, institutional mobilization, and coordinated national protests—made things harder for federal officers. It created political pressure that almost certainly influenced the final decision. Isolated, protest pressure alone may not have moved the federal government. However, combined with congressional opposition, legal challenges, public opinion shifts, and reduced effectiveness, organizers made the situation costly enough for federal authorities to decide that withdrawing was preferable to maintaining the surge.
For future movements opposing federal activities, the Minneapolis campaign offers both lessons and cautionary tales. Organizers showed that large-scale sustained organizing against federal authority is possible. They demonstrated that coalitions across labor, faith, immigrant rights, and community organizations can act in concert. They proved that public opinion can shift significantly in response to visible violence and community mobilization.
Yet it also showed the limits of protest power against federal action. The Constitution gives the federal government considerable independence. Fundamental policy change requires not simply protest movements but electoral mobilization and institutional reform.
What matters for assessing the campaign is not whether Minneapolis “won” in a simple yes-or-no way. What matters is whether organizers have built infrastructure, relationships, and ability to plan and act effectively to continue struggles ahead. By that measure, the evidence suggests genuine movement-building occurred: networks were strengthened, thousands of people gained organizing experience, federal authorities learned that attempting mass activities in organized cities carries costs, and demands—from body cameras to abolition of ICE—became more mainstream.
Whether this translates into transformative change remains a question that future campaigns will answer. The withdrawal of federal officers from Minnesota represents one battle in a longer war over immigration policy in America. The infrastructure built, lessons learned, and public opinion shifted during those weeks in Minneapolis will shape what comes next—whether in the state or wherever federal activities next deploy.
This article analyzes protest and activism tactics for educational purposes. We aim to contribute to effective and ethical efforts across the political spectrum, and we present diverse viewpoints and ideas without endorsement.