ICE action targeted Somalis, but group made up fewer than 3% of arrests in Operation Metro Surge

Christopher Magan, Jeff Hargarten and Yuqing Liu, Star Tribune on Mar 31, 2026

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MINNEAPOLIS — Federal immigration agents arrested about 3,800 people during Operation Metro Surge, according to new data released by the Deportation Data Project.

The vast majority of the people arrested between December and March 10 were from Latin America, including half from Ecuador or Mexico. Just over 100 were Somali nationals, despite President Donald Trump repeatedly disparaging the Somali community.

The data released March 30 is the most detailed look at the effect of the three-month enforcement surge that brought thousands of protesters into the streets and left two U.S. citizens dead. The region is still recovering, with state and local lawmakers debating whether rental assistance and small business loans will help soften the impact.

Trump repeatedly referenced Somali residents accused in social services fraud schemes as a leading factor for sending thousands of federal agents to the Twin Cities in December. Yet, most Somalis living in Minnesota are here legally, and the new data shows fewer than 3% of those detained during the surge were from Somalia.

Suleiman Adan, deputy executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations Minnesota, said Trump has targeted Somali communities for a long time.

“His rhetoric has painted Somalis as criminals and threats, and that language has real consequences here in Minnesota,” Adan said in a statement. “We heard from families who were afraid to go to work, parents worried about their children at school, and community members who felt watched simply because they are Somali. That kind of damage does not disappear overnight.”

The data does have limitations, according to the Deportation Data Project, a group of academics and attorneys based at the University of California Berkeley School of Law. The group, which obtained the data from the federal government, said one limitation is that ICE omitted detention stints in hospitals and medical centers.

The data also includes more than 200 instances of the same arrest in Minnesota being counted more than once and doesn’t appear to include every apprehension. The Minnesota Star Tribune isn’t counting those duplicates.

Thirty-eight children are listed among the 3,800 arrested, and they do not appear to include Liam Conejo Ramos, a 5-year-old Columbia Heights student from Ecuador, who was detained with his father Adrian Conejo Arias. An immigration judge rejected their asylum claims, but the family plans to appeal.

In a statement, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson didn’t specifically comment on the arrests made during Operation Metro Surge but instead claimed that more than 10,000 immigrants were detained in Minnesota since Trump took office. While DHS didn’t respond to questions about the low numbers of Somali nationals arrested during the surge, the spokesman also said fraud investigations were part of the operation.

“This story only reveals how the media manipulates data to peddle a false narrative that DHS is not targeting public safety threats,” the statement said. “Nationwide our law enforcement is targeting criminal illegal aliens — including murderers, rapists, gang members, pedophiles, and terrorists.”

Chaos surrounding the operation contributed to the departure of two of Trump’s top immigration officials — former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino. The President sent Tom Homan, his border czar, to draw down the operation after weeks of scrutiny.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials also claimed they were in Minnesota to arrest immigrants with violent criminal records. But the data shows almost two-thirds of the immigrants arrested in Minnesota did not have a previous conviction or pending criminal charge.

Entering the U.S. without permission is a misdemeanor, and re-entry after being deported is a felony. Just 200 of the immigrants detained during the surge were in custody for another reason at the time of their arrest.

DHS disputed the data analysis related to criminal arrests, saying the percentage was much higher than the data shows.

“70% of illegal aliens ICE arrested across the country have criminal convictions or pending criminal charges just in the U.S.,” the statement said.

DHS did not verify its arrest analysis or explain why the numbers are different from the figures it supplied to the Deportation Data Project.

A Star Tribune analysis of Minnesota immigrants on the Department of Homeland Security’s “Worst of the Worst” website found that about half of the criminals ICE took credit for arresting were already in custody before the surge.

At the height of the operation in January, immigration agents were arresting more than 120 people per day across Minnesota, particularly in the days following the killing of Renee Good. That’s a tenfold increase from the roughly a dozen arrests a day before the surge.

Despite the rapid activity during the surge, January arrests in Minnesota represent only 7% of the total ICE arrests that month. Nationwide, immigration officials detained roughly 360,000 between Jan. 20, 2025, and March 10, 2026, according to the data.

There have been roughly 5,700 immigration arrests in Minnesota since Trump returned to office.

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