Did Minnesota Protests Actually Force ICE Out? Measuring Impact
Protesters forced the federal government to back down in Minnesota—or at least that’s what community leaders say happened. Federal immigration enforcement chief Tom Homan announced that Operation Metro Surge would be concluding in Minnesota, framing it as a victory—evidence of successful enforcement that had made the state “less of a sanctuary for criminals.” Community leaders in Minneapolis told a different story. They argued that sustained public resistance had made it impossible for the federal operation to continue: a 50,000-person march in subzero temperatures, coordinated business closures costing an estimated $81 million, the arrest of over 100 religious leaders, and relentless legal challenges that exposed systematic constitutional violations.
The question of whether Minnesota’s protests forced the federal government’s hand remains contested. Operation Metro Surge exposed deep conflicts between federal enforcement power and local democratic resistance, creating a month-long movement that combined tactics from civil rights history, labor movements, and immigrant rights organizing.
The Scale of What Happened
Operation Metro Surge began in December 2025 as an intensive federal immigration enforcement campaign targeting the Twin Cities. At its peak, the operation deployed around 3,000 federal agents—a force exceeding the combined number of Minneapolis and Saint Paul police officers—making it the largest immigration enforcement operation ever conducted, according to federal officials.
The resistance started because federal agents used increasingly aggressive tactics and because of the fatal shootings of two American citizens by federal immigration agents.
On January 7, ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renée Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, as she sat in her car on Portland Avenue in Minneapolis. Videos analyzed by major news organizations showed Good was stopped sideways in the street when Ross, keeping his phone in his left hand, drew his gun and fired three shots at her departing vehicle in under one second. She was struck twice in the chest, once in the forearm, and once in the head. Good died at Hennepin County Medical Center eight minutes later.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed Good had “attacked” ICE agents and attempted to run them over—a story contradicted by video footage and disputed by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, Representative Ilhan Omar, and Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara.
Seventeen days later, Border Patrol agents Jesus Ochoa and Raymundo Gutierrez opened fire on Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse at a Veterans Affairs hospital. Multiple videos showed Pretti holding up his phone to document federal agents, assisting a woman who’d been knocked to the ground, and being tackled by agents who deployed pepper spray. As the struggle unfolded, agents shouted “He’s got a gun,” and Pretti—who possessed a legal firearm permit but whose weapon wasn’t drawn—was struck by around ten bullets and killed.
Federal officials claimed Pretti had violently resisted arrest and that agents feared for their lives. The videos told a different story: Pretti was armed only with a phone when gunfire began. The Justice Department later opened a civil rights investigation into Pretti’s death but declined to investigate Good’s killing—a distinction that made the community angrier.
The Response
On January 10, over 1,000 protesters gathered outside downtown hotels where ICE agents were believed to be staying. Minneapolis schools closed for the remainder of the week due to safety concerns.
The decisive moment came on January 23. Organizers coordinated what would become the largest protest of the resistance campaign, with an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 people gathering in downtown Minneapolis despite temperatures plummeting to minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit. The march proceeded from multiple starting points—including a morning protest at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport where nearly 100 religious leaders knelt in prayer before blocking roads and being arrested—converging on downtown for a massive rally at the Target Center sports arena.
The January 23 protest deliberately tried to hurt the economy. Around 700 small businesses, restaurants, and cultural institutions closed voluntarily, coordinating what organizers called an “ICE Out of Minnesota: Day of Truth and Freedom” economic boycott. Labor unions representing hospitality workers, transit workers, educators, public employees, and healthcare workers encouraged members to participate, with some workers calling in sick despite employment risks.
According to Minneapolis city officials’ later assessment, January 2026 revenue losses for small consumer-facing businesses reached at least $81 million. Restaurant and small business losses totaled around $81 million, lost wages for workers afraid to leave home hit $47 million, and hotel cancellations extending through summer generated $4.7 million in revenue loss. By February 13, Minneapolis city officials released impact assessments estimating Operation Metro Surge’s total cost at $203.1 million across livelihood, shelter, food security, and mental health impacts.
The Religious Leader Arrests
The clergy arrests on January 23 sent a powerful message and had legal effects. Over 100 clergy members from Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopal, Jewish, and other faith traditions knelt in prayer outside the airport terminal in minus 21-degree weather, deliberately obstructing roads and refusing to disperse. Police officers “arrested them respectfully,” according to participant accounts—contrasting sharply with the aggressive federal tactics that had characterized earlier protests.
The clergy members said they were motivated by their faith and what they felt was right rather than partisan politics. Reverend Katherine Lewis of St. David’s Episcopal Church in Minnetonka, Reverend Daniel Ruth of Lutheran Partners in Global Ministry, and Reverend Amanda Lunemann of Grace United Methodist Church in Burnsville represented hundreds of other clergy who felt a personal calling to participate, describing the action as fulfilling religious obligations to protect strangers and immigrants.
Who Built This Coalition
The resistance emerged through a broad coalition combining labor unions, faith organizations, community-based immigrant rights groups, and informal networks of concerned Minneapolis residents. The organizing drew on decades of activist networks in the Twin Cities.
Labor unions played a central organizing role. Affiliates of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the Communications Workers of America (CWA), UNITE HERE (hospitality workers), the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), and others formally endorsed and helped people participate. The Minneapolis Federation of Educators, though their contracts prohibited strikes, found creative workarounds—union leaders organized a “grading day” that coincidentally occurred on January 23, allowing teachers to opt to grade remotely, while union leadership prominently participated in the march.
Faith organizations proved equally central. Religious institutions provided moral weight and religious reasons that reached people beyond typical protest demographics. This religious participation drew on a tradition extending back to the 1980s Central American sanctuary movement and to the Civil Rights Movement’s reliance on black churches as organizing anchors.
Community-based immigrant rights organizations including Navigate Minnesota (formerly MIRAC), ISAIAH, Comunidades Latinas Unidas En Servicio (CLUES), Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en Lucha (CTUL), and the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota did the ground-level organizing work. These organizations brought decades of experience organizing immigrant communities affected by deportation.
Minneapolis City Council Member Jason Chavez emerged as a prominent political voice, crediting community residents and organizers with forcing the federal retreat. His messaging emphasized that the withdrawal resulted from popular pressure, not from political negotiations or administrative cooperation.
What Created Pressure
Tom Homan’s February 12 announcement characterized the operation’s conclusion as arising from its success, stating that “as a result of our efforts here Minnesota is now less of a sanctuary state for criminals” and praising both the Trump administration’s record and “unprecedented levels of coordination we have obtained from state officials.” This version of events claimed victory for federal immigration enforcement, not retreat in response to popular pressure.
Homan announced that a “small footprint” of 2,300 ICE agents would remain in Minnesota (down from 3,000), that the drawdown would continue over the next week, and that state and local officials had agreed to greater cooperation in accessing individuals held in county jails.
Community leaders and local officials expressed skepticism. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey stated that “Operation Metro Surge has been catastrophic for our residents and businesses” and that while the drawdown and deployment of body cameras represented steps in the right direction, “2,300 ICE officers still here is not de-escalation.” City Council Member Jason Chavez cautioned that “people will assume that they are safe with around 700 agents off the streets here in Minneapolis and Minnesota,” warning that “we will not rest until ICE is no longer here in this state.”
This tension between the federal government claiming success and local communities maintaining that the campaign remained incomplete reflects ambiguity about causation. Did the Trump administration withdraw because Operation Metro Surge had achieved its goals, or did political pressure make continued operations impossible?
Several tactics put pressure on the federal operation.
Economic Disruption. Business closures on January 23 hurt the economy in measurable ways and changed the conversation from immigration enforcement to questions of whether the federal operation itself was generating public safety and economic harms. Minneapolis city data documenting over $200 million in economic impact over one month provided hard numbers showing that federal enforcement was damaging the city’s economic functioning. The decision by both immigrant-serving businesses and mainstream corporations to close showed that opposition went beyond activist networks to mainstream commercial and institutional actors.
Media Coverage and Reputational Damage. The fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by federal agents got ongoing national media attention, making federal agents look not like law enforcement responding to crime but as armed federal personnel killing Americans. PBS NewsHour, local Minnesota media, and national outlets documented not only the shootings but also subsequent federal operations—including reports of agents entering homes with battering rams based on administrative warrants, conducting warrantless searches, using tear gas against peaceful protesters, and allegedly targeting individuals based on ethnicity and accent rather than immigration status.
Federal judge Patrick Schiltz issued a finding that ICE had violated at least 96 court orders in January 2026 alone—more than some federal agencies violate in their entire existence—and authorized the enforcement of restraining orders against federal agents’ use of pepper spray and nonlethal projectiles against peaceful protesters. These criticisms from judges, combined with media documentation of federal overreach, made it look like federal agents were acting without legal constraint and violating constitutional rights at scale.
Political Pressure from Democratic Officials. Minnesota’s Democratic governor, senators, congresspeople, and local officials publicly demanded ICE withdrawal and criticized federal tactics. While the Trump administration dismissed these critiques, sustained opposition from elected officials at multiple levels created political opposition beyond the protests. Federal judge Katherine M. Menendez, a Biden appointee, issued preliminary injunctions against the operation. The Justice Department’s investigation into Pretti’s killing created separate federal investigations that may have made it harder to continue the operation.
Sustained Resistance Over Time. The resistance didn’t dissipate after initial protests but sustained itself through a month, maintaining legal observers, documenting federal abuses, keeping the story in the news, and continuously challenging the federal operation. Unlike movements that generate a single dramatic confrontation and then lose momentum, Minneapolis kept up visible resistance even as media attention came and went.
Measuring Against Stated Goals
The movement stated clear, specific goals that can be measured against February 2026 outcomes.
Goal 1: Force ICE Withdrawal from Minnesota. The federal government announced 700 of 3,000 agents would withdraw, leaving 2,300 agents in Minnesota. This represents a 23 percent reduction. Community leaders and legal observers remained skeptical whether this withdrawal would be sustained or whether agents would soon redeploy. As of mid-February 2026, the physical departure of agents hadn’t been independently verified. The result: Partial success, but many doubts remain about permanence.
Goal 2: Criminal Prosecution of Officers Involved in Shootings. As of February 14, 2026, no charges had been filed against Jonathan Ross (who killed Renée Good) or Jesus Ochoa and Raymundo Gutierrez (who killed Alex Pretti). The Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation into Pretti’s death but declined to investigate Good’s killing. Minnesota state officials faced barriers in accessing federal evidence needed to prosecute state charges. The result: Not achieved; ongoing investigations but no prosecutions.
Goal 3: Permanent ICE Withdrawal from Minnesota. The movement demanded complete and permanent withdrawal. The federal government announced a continuation of ICE operations with a reduced footprint. The result: Not achieved.
Goal 4: Agency Reform. Demands for ICE abolition or reform haven’t been met. The federal government deployed body cameras for agents as a concession, but this represents a small change rather than reform. The result: Not achieved.
The movement achieved a partial outcome: federal admission that the scale of operations had become politically costly, resulting in a reduced footprint, but without achieving prosecution, permanent withdrawal, or reform.
What History Teaches About This Moment
The Sanctuary Movement Precedent
The closest historical comparison is religious sanctuary for Central American refugees in the 1980s. Beginning on March 24, 1982, when Reverend John Fife declared Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson a public sanctuary for Central Americans fleeing persecution, churches across the country created physical refuges where undocumented immigrants could remain without fear of deportation. By 1985, around 500 churches and synagogues participated in the sanctuary movement.
The Reagan administration responded by prosecuting movement leaders, but widespread public sympathy contributed to policy shifts allowing Salvadoran and Guatemalan refugees access to Temporary Protected Status. The sanctuary movement set examples: religious institutions could legally resist federal immigration enforcement, faith leaders could mobilize congregations to protect vulnerable people, and sustained moral presence could influence public opinion and policy.
However, the sanctuary movement protected people by hiding them in church buildings, whereas 2026 Minneapolis resistance occurred in public spaces through visible, confrontational tactics.
Civil Rights Movement Tactics
The civil rights movement demonstrated that combinations of nonviolent direct action, economic pressure, and moral authority could force federal intervention against state-level oppression. The Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-1956) kept up economic pressure for 381 days of nearly complete participation, forcing integration. The Birmingham Campaign (1963) combined mass marches, sit-ins, and jail-filling with strategic economic boycotts of downtown businesses, creating dramatic images of police violence against protesters that changed national public opinion and shifted federal government position.
Key elements of successful Civil Rights Movement campaigns included clear, achievable demands; sustained participation over time; use of moral authority (particularly religious leaders); tactics designed to get sympathetic media coverage; and power over decision-makers through economic or political pressure.
Minnesota’s 2026 resistance included most of these elements—religious authority, sustained participation, clear demands regarding prosecution and withdrawal, and economic disruption.
What Research Says About Effectiveness
Academic research by Erica Chenoweth, Maria Stephan, Sidney Tarrow, and others provides research-backed analysis of what makes movements effective. Between 1900 and 2006, campaigns of nonviolent resistance were twice as effective as violent campaigns, with research suggesting that around 3.5 percent population participation can overcome most regime resistance.
The Minneapolis January 23 march of 50,000-100,000 represented around 2-3 percent of the Twin Cities population, approaching the threshold where research on nonviolent resistance suggests movements can succeed.
Research also identifies no-win situations—nonviolent tactics that put authorities in a “lose-lose” situation where any response damages their reputation—as effective for shifting public opinion. Religious leader arrests showed this tactic: authorities arresting over 100 faith leaders created sympathy for the religious leaders and skepticism toward federal enforcement, while allowing arrests to proceed without interruption hurt their public image.
Strategies for Winning More
Maintain a Constant Presence at Federal Detention Facilities
Organize an ongoing, visible presence at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building and other federal detention facilities where ICE holds detainees. This would involve peaceful, legal takeover of public spaces with people taking turns to document conditions, provide legal support to detainees, and watch and document federal detention operations.
The Occupy Movement (2011) showed the power of camping out long-term in maintaining media attention and forcing decision-makers to confront visible dissent. Civil rights sit-ins (1960) occupied lunch counters until businesses gave in to desegregation demands.
Federal judges have acknowledged that ICE is violating court orders and failing to provide adequate legal access to detainees. A permanent civil presence could document conditions and abuses, keep the story alive when media attention cycles to other stories, provide support to detainees, create legal challenges through collected evidence, and keep up moral pressure by being visibly there.
Coordinate National Campaign for 77-City Solidarity Actions
The fact that 77 percent of people arrested during Operation Metro Surge had no criminal records suggests that federal agents are doing sweeping arrests rather than targeting specific criminals. Organizers could coordinate with immigrant rights movements in 77 major cities to simultaneously take over federal buildings, demand release of non-criminal detainees, and pressure federal contractors to cease cooperation with ICE.
The 2006 Day Without Immigrants coordinated simultaneous demonstrations in hundreds of cities. The January 30, 2026 “National Shutdown” involved organizing over 300 “ICE Out of Everywhere” protests across the country, building on Minneapolis momentum.
The federal government has limited resources. Simultaneous pressure in 77 cities creates operational impossibility for the federal government and takes over national news coverage. Immigration reform requires national political attention; Minnesota alone can’t achieve it, but a coordinated national campaign could.
Build Parallel Legal Defense Network
Rather than fighting ICE individually, work together on a legal plan in which immigration attorneys, civil rights lawyers, and community legal workers file similar cases in multiple federal courts. Each case would challenge a specific element of Operation Metro Surge—warrantless searches, racial profiling, illegal detention, denial of due process—working toward a national court decision that limits ICE authority everywhere.
The NAACP Legal Defense Fund pursued the planned legal campaign that ended in Brown v. Board of Education, carefully choosing cases that would lead toward constitutional protection. Minnesota’s federal judges have signaled receptiveness to challenges of ICE operations—Judge Schiltz found 96 court order violations in January. A coordinated national campaign could take advantage of regional differences in judges’ perspectives, getting stronger through wins in friendly courts.
Demand Neighborhood-Level Community Control
Rather than demanding ICE complete withdrawal nationally (which faces deep-rooted opposition), organize neighborhoods to pass local laws requiring: warrants based on specific criminal investigations (not general immigration sweeps); 48-hour advance notice to immigration attorneys before deportations; neighborhood boards that must approve any operations; and local law enforcement refusal to cooperate with ICE except in specific circumstances.
The sanctuary city movement showed that local governments can limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. Police reform movements have created civilian review boards that limit police power. National policy change faces intense opposition from the Trump administration. But local ordinances are easier to do. If Minneapolis makes it work, it could show that it can work so other cities replicate.
Organized Pressure Campaign Against ICE Contractors
Identify corporations and companies providing services to federal detention facilities—food service, medical providers, security contractors, private prison companies, transportation companies. Organize targeted pressure campaigns (boycotts, campaigns targeting shareholders, worker organizing, public pressure) against corporations profiting from immigration detention. Force corporations to publicly commit to not contracting with ICE.
United Farm Workers boycotts of table grapes (1965-1970) and lettuce (1970-1971) forced major agricultural companies to recognize unions through coordinated consumer pressure. ICE operations depend on private contractors. Corporations care about their reputation and shareholder value. A coordinated campaign against corporations forces them to choose: accept harm to their reputation and consumer/worker campaigns, or cease ICE contracts.
What Comes Next
As of mid-February 2026, the Minnesota resistance movement faces both victory and unfinished business. The announced drawdown shows the federal government backing down, yet 2,300 agents remain in Minnesota, no prosecutions have been filed, and federal officials keep claiming success instead of acknowledging community pressure.
Community organizations have made clear they’re not accepting the partial withdrawal as resolution. Minneapolis City Council Member Jason Chavez stated that organizers “will not rest until ICE is no longer here in this state,” emphasizing that the struggle continues. Organizers are planning to “expand pressure to other cities,” suggesting Minnesota could be a model for national campaign.
Legal challenges continue, with multiple federal courts having shown they’re willing to limit ICE authority. Judge Patrick Schiltz’s finding of 96 court order violations in January gives judges reasons to keep intervening. The Justice Department investigation into Alex Pretti’s killing remains active, offering potential for federal prosecution, though the administration’s declining to investigate Renée Good’s death makes people less hopeful about accountability.
Federal government response remains uncertain. The Trump administration could continue withdrawing agents if pressure mounts, could hold at current levels, or could attempt reescalation if it determines political cost has declined. Tom Homan’s framing of the operation as successful gives the administration wiggle room—they could claim victory and maintain reduced presence indefinitely, or could describe further withdrawal as unnecessary since the threat has been addressed.
The movement faces questions about keeping people engaged when the immediate crisis has partly passed. Historical research on social movements shows that movements often lose momentum after obtaining partial victories, when participants get tired after months of intense engagement. Keeping up pressure to win more changes requires keeping people engaged, which becomes more difficult as media attention fades and activists get exhausted.
Whether Minnesota protests “forced ICE out” depends on what “forced” means and what counts as “out.” If the measure is federal admission that the scale of operations created political costs, the answer is yes—ICE announced partial withdrawal. If the measure is permanent, complete ICE removal from Minnesota, the answer is no—2,300 agents remain and no federal official has committed to further withdrawal. If the measure is prosecution of officers who killed civilians, the answer is no—no charges had been filed as of mid-February 2026.
The evidence suggests that sustained resistance using multiple tactics—combining street protests, economic pressure, religious moral authority, legal challenges, and political pressure from elected officials—did limit federal operations. The January 23 protest of 50,000-100,000 people in subzero temperatures, the economic impact calculations totaling over $200 million in a single month, the arrest of over 100 religious leaders that created sympathetic media coverage, and the judicial findings of systematic court order violations together made it politically costly to continue the operation.
Whether this political price alone caused federal withdrawal or whether federal officials took the opportunity to declare victory and avoid continued pressure remains ambiguous. The Trump administration’s framing of events as successful enforcement rather than retreating under pressure suggests that the administration has narratives that let it claim victory regardless of what happened.
From the perspective of the movement, they applied pressure and the federal response showed weakness suggests that continued pressure could produce more concessions. The Minnesota resistance of January-February 2026 demonstrates that coordinated campaigns combining labor organizing, faith community organizing, immigrant rights advocacy, and street protest can force the federal government to back down.
Whether this represents a model for transforming national immigration policy or a temporary local success depends on what happens next and the movement’s strategy choices.
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.