Citing warrantless arrests, detentions of U.S. citizens based on race and accent, and the “unlawful deployment of thousands of armed, masked, and poorly trained federal agents,” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison joined the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul Monday to announce joint legal action against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and related agencies.
“This has to stop. It just has to stop. We allege the obvious targeting of Minnesota for its diversity … and our democracy … is a violation of the Constitution,” said Ellison, pointing out that the targeting of churches, schools, hospitals, funeral homes and other sensitive locations violates federal administrative procedure.
“This is, in essence, a federal invasion of the Twin Cities and the state of Minnesota,” Ellison said. “This surge has made us less safe.”
The operation led to the fatal shooting of a Minneapolis woman by a federal immigration agent last week and evoked outrage and protests across the country.
To Ellison’s statement that federal agents have caused the state “serious harm,” the White House’s “Rapid Response” account posted on X: “What caused Minnesota tremendous harm was the theft of billions of taxpayer dollars at the hands of Somalis, Keith. If you had done your job, they wouldn’t be there.”
The White House fraud allegations were in response to ongoing investigations into extensive theft from state social service programs, much of it beginning with Minnesota’s response to the 2020 pandemic. Many of the targets of the investigations have been members of the Somali immigrant community.
Temporary restraining order also sought
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Minnesota, alleges violations of the First and Tenth Amendments, the Equal Sovereignty Principle, and the federal Administrative Procedure Act.
“Operation Metro Surge” has drawn federal immigration enforcement agents from multiple agencies within Homeland Security to the Twin Cities in what federal officials have described as the largest DHS operation in national history.
Speaking at Minneapolis City Hall on Monday afternoon, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her said in additional to the federal lawsuit, the two cities have asked for a temporary restraining order to curb U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activities.
“These are not normal times,” said Frey, noting the city’s police are logging heavy overtime as confrontations escalate between ICE agents and observers. “What we are seeing right now is not normal immigration enforcement. … At times there are as many as 50 agents arresting one person.”
The mayors said some small businesses have lost as much as 50% to 80% of revenue and some schools have closed.
“They’re targeting us based on what we look and sound like,” Her said. “Our residents are scared, and as local officials, we have a responsibility to act.”
Weeks of heightened federal activity
The lawsuit follows weeks of heightened federal activity in and around the Twin Cities, which escalated with a planned 30-day surge of ICE and U.S. Border Patrol agents that began around Jan. 4.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem personally accompanied agents on arrests shared on the department’s social media channels, and reports estimate some 2,000 or more agents will be deployed for a combination of immigration enforcement and fraud investigation.
Homeland Security says it has made more than 2,000 arrests since December.
Many of those stopped, questioned or detained appear to have no serious criminal history, Eilison said.
The attorney general and other critics have called the surge political payback because Minnesota did not vote for Trump or certify Trump as the winner in the 2024 election, or because Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, joined the failed Kamala Harris presidential ticket as a candidate for vice president.
Fatal shooting
Protesters and constitutional observers also have demanded accountability after what they’ve described as heavy-handed or blatantly illegal tactics, including the fatal shooting of Renee Good, a 37-year-old Minneapolis mother of three, who exchanged words with an ICE agent from her car before being shot in the face while attempting to drive away last Wednesday morning.
Noem and others in the Trump administration quickly labeled Good a domestic terrorist and said she was attempting to run over the agent, but Frey and other officials called that take baseless, citing video of the encounter.
Ellison on Monday said Minnesota’s non-citizen immigrant population without legal status stands at 1.5%, far below that of Republican states such as Florida, Utah and Texas, but those states have not been subject to surging immigration enforcement.
“If the goal were simply to look for people who were undocumented, Minnesota and Minneapolis is not where you would go,” Frey said.
The government also faces a new lawsuit over a similar crackdown in Illinois. More than 4,300 people were arrested last year in “Operation Midway Blitz” as patrols of masked agents swept the Chicago area. The lawsuit by the city and state says the campaign had a chilling effect, making residents afraid to leave home or use public services.
Reaction from lawmakers
The Minnesota House GOP House Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, and Floor Leader Harry Niska, R-Ramsey, said the lawsuit was a waste of resources.
“Instead of working with the federal government to target and arrest criminal illegal immigrants, they are wasting state resources on a lawsuit that seeks to override the federal government’s authority to enforce immigration law,” they said in a statement. “Minnesotans deserve leaders that allow the removal of violent criminals — not ones that demand they remain in our communities.”
Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, however, said she “strongly support(s) the action” to get federal agents out of the state.
“This surge of ICE agents has sown chaos in the streets, with countless violations of civil liberties and a dangerous disruption of daily life as Minnesotans know it,” Murphy said in a statement. “Schools and businesses have closed, and many Minnesotans have been forced to avoid unlawful detention. No one is safer because of this, and our neighbor Renee Good is dead … ICE can’t leave our state soon enough.”
To read a copy of the lawsuit go to ag.state.mn.us/Office/Communications/2026.
This report includes information from the Associated Press.
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