Since the shooting of Renee Macklin Good, the Trump administration has escalated the federal immigration presence in Minneapolis, turning the city into a flashpoint for a new, more aggressive phase of immigration enforcement.
NPR reporters on the ground in Minneapolis have witnessed federal agents pulling people off the streets and out of their cars or questioning people of color on their immigration status.
In response, community members have protested, throwing snowballs at federal agents and blocking ICE vehicles. In turn, agents have deployed tear gas, tackled, or arrested those demonstrators.
Experts on immigration and policing say what is unfolding in Minneapolis reflects a broader national shift: federal immigration authorities are pushing the limits of their power, deploying to cities with little formal coordination with local officials — a move that is creating confusion, fear and mistrust.
The Trump administration, however, says this is what Americans want, and the actions of immigration in Minnesota are justified.
In a statement to NPR, Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin says, "President Trump and [DHS] Secretary Noem are delivering on the American people's mandate to deport illegal aliens."
McLaughlin continues, "70% of illegal aliens arrested by ICE have been charged with or convicted of a crime in the U.S. The American people, the law, and common sense are on our side, and we will not stop until law and order is restored after Biden's open border chaos flooded our country with the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens."
Data published by the University of California Berkeley's Deportation Data Project shows that in the first nine months of President Trump's second term, around 75,000 people arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not have a criminal record – over a third of all ICE arrests.
Shifting norms
The scenes in Minneapolis underscore how dramatically immigration enforcement has changed, says Nithya Nathan-Pineau, a policy attorney and strategist with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, an advocacy group that provides legal resources for immigrants
"These sort of established ways of working … really seem to have eroded and changed," she says, pointing to more physically aggressive tactics by agents when arresting individuals and in responding to protesters.
Just months ago, NPR published a guide explaining what is — and is not — legal during ICE encounters. Even then, legal experts warned it was "a very confusing time for lawyers and the public alike."
Since then, advocates say, federal authorities have pushed the boundaries of enforcement practices even further, making it harder for people to know their rights or trust they will be respected.
"There's always a fear of telling somebody, well, these are your rights, and then realizing that that officer might not, at that moment, recognize them," says Janice Iwama, a professor at American University in Washington, D.C., who studies immigration and policing.
A confusing collection of federal agencies enforce immigration law
On Thursday, the ACLU and its Minnesota chapter filed another lawsuit against the federal government on the behalf of three Minnesotans challenging "the administration's policy of racially profiling, unlawfully seizing, and unlawfully arresting people without a warrant and without probable cause."
More than 2,000 federal immigration agents are currently operating in Minnesota, a number that officials say is expected to increase.
In her statement to NPR, McLaughlin says that Operation Metro Surge, the name of the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, "is the largest DHS operation in history."
The Department of Homeland Security declined to get into specific resources or the number of personnel.
There's a patchwork of federal agents - all trained in different policing methods – carrying out immigration enforcement. Based on NPR reporter observations the deployment in Minneapolis includes agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and the Federal Bureau of Prisons – agencies typically focused on criminal investigations or running the nation's prisons rather than civil immigration enforcement.
Minneapolis isn't the only place this has happened. Agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives have been involved in immigration operations in other cities, according to analysis by the CATO Institute, a Libertarian think-tank based in Washington, D.C.
Nathan-Pineau said that in her 15 years working in immigration law, she has never seen operations "of this scale launched in so many locations in such a short period of time."
That's even considering former President Barack Obama's two terms in office, which were characterized by record-high deportation numbers. The American Immigration Council says from fiscal year 2009-2016, the U.S. saw more than 2.7 million deportations – at the time more people than any other president in U.S. history.
Former U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske agrees, "this is unique and different [from] anything that's ever been done."
Tensions arise over tactics and training
Former Commissioner Kerlikowske says immigration law is among the most complex areas of U.S. law, blending civil and criminal elements — and that most federal agents now participating in these operations have no background or training in it.
He says the same is true for policing dense, urban environments.
"The Border Patrol is called the Border Patrol for a reason, and they work best in these isolated areas along the border or within 25 miles of the border at checkpoints. Policing an urban environment is very, very different" and requires special skills and knowledge, he says.
Those training gaps, he says, are visible in videos from Minneapolis and other cities, including Los Angeles and Chicago, where federal agents have used pepper balls and tear gas in ways that violate standard policing practices.
In her statements to NPR, McLaughlin strongly defends the training and experience of agents on the ground and their tactics, explaining they are "subject to months of training," which includes de-escalation and arrest techniques, firearms instruction and conflict management.
But Kerlikowske says he sees officers that are " totally unprepared and incapable of handling these crowds," he said. "They're not only intense and aggressive – they're operating outside of any of the standard practices of a law enforcement agency."
He pointed to videos showing officers firing pepper balls directly at people or throwing tear gas canisters from moving vehicles — tactics he said no police department allows.
"They are totally unchecked," he says.
However, the Trump administration maintains agents are well-trained, but are dealing with aggressive protesters.
DHS tweeted about a Jan. 13 incident during which ICE arrested four people they call "illegal aliens." While officers made these arrests, "a significant crowd surrounded them and began impeding law enforcement operations — a federal crime. One agitator ignored multiple commands by an officer to move her vehicle away from the scene, she was arrested for obstruction," according to the post.
In response to criticism over training, assistant secretary McLaughlin says, "DHS law enforcement officers are trained to use the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve dangerous situations to prioritize the safety of the public and our officers."
Targeted operations are no longer the norm. What does that mean for residents?
Historically, immigration enforcement focused on targeted arrests of people with final orders of deportation or conducting workplace raids based on specific intelligence.
For months now, immigration agents have been seen riding in unmarked vehicles to public spaces and making arrests.
Many of these arrests are being done in public because officers are still required to have a warrant to conduct any type of search or seizure, says Iwama, the American University professor.
ICE and Border Patrol agents have the authority to question and detain people they believe are in the country unlawfully, but experts say the way that authority is being exercised raises serious concerns.
Vice President JD Vance said in a press conference recently that immigration agents plan to go door to door in an attempt to find undocumented immigrants. Whether agents are actually doing this has yet to be confirmed by NPR.
On Monday, NPR witnessed multiple instances where immigration agents drove around Minneapolis and questioned people, including some U.S. citizens, about their immigration status. Some took place in the parking lots of big box stores. All of the people questioned were people of color. All of them were able to prove they were in the U.S. legally after showing documentation.
Kerlikowske says agents are increasingly relying on these so-called "Kavanaugh stops," which are brief detentions based on minimal suspicion, which can quickly escalate.
Assistant Secretary McLaughlin continues to defend the actions of agents, telling NPR "allegations that ICE engages in 'racial profiling' are disgusting, reckless and categorically FALSE…. A person's immigration status makes them a target for enforcement, not their skin color, race or ethnicity."
What is the long-term impact of this kind of operation?
It's standard practice for federal agencies and local police to coordinate a joint task force for major crime events. Except for immigration, says Kerlikowske, where there may not be the same level of coordination, since immigration enforcement rests entirely with the federal government.
"You don't want to be a police chief and then have a federal agency parachute into your city and start taking enforcement action without some level of communication and coordination," says Kerlikowske, who spent nine years in Seattle as a police chief prior to his work with the federal government.
"But it's very clear that that is not happening in any of these cities," he adds.
The Hennepin County Sheriff's Office says they are not working with federal agencies in their immigration enforcement. There are six local law enforcement agencies within the state of Minnesota that have a 287(g) agreement – which means they are coordinating with federal authorities on immigration enforcement, according to ICE's own database.
McLaughlin said in response to NPR's question on current efforts to get Minneapolis-area law enforcement agencies to sign 287(g) agreements, "We would love for state and local law enforcement to sign 287(g) agreements to help us remove criminal illegal aliens from Minnesota. 287(g) is critical to having the enforcement we need to arrest criminal illegal aliens across the country."
The Trump administration's position is that these street-level enforcement actions wouldn't be necessary if sanctuary cities, like Minneapolis, didn't prevent ICE from picking up undocumented individuals from local jails.
"Why are DHS law enforcement surging to sanctuary cities? Because sanctuary jurisdictions won't let us in their jails to arrest the violent criminal illegal aliens in their custody," says McLaughlin. "As a result, DHS officers are forced to find the released criminal illegal aliens on the streets WITHOUT the support of local law enforcement."
But the continued presence of federal agents "puts local police officers in an impossible position," says Iwama. Because most residents are not differentiating between the federal agents they see taking away their immigrant neighbors and local police they see in their communities.
This is especially unfortunate given that local police in Minneapolis have worked in recent years following the killing of George Floyd and the subsequent protests to regain the trust of residents, she said. "And of course, here now you have this event happening which is out of their control."
The consequences, Iwama and Kerlikowske say, will ripple beyond immigration enforcement, affecting crime reporting, community cooperation and public safety across entire cities.
"When federal law enforcement leaves, local police officers are going to be required to deal with trying to make amends with a community that might no longer trust any agents," Iwama says.
NPR's Sergio Martínez-Beltrán and Martin Kaste contributed to this report.
Copyright 2026 NPR
