Minneapolis — The action begins around sunrise for the federal officers carrying out the mission Immigration campaign In and around the Twin Cities, with hundreds of people wearing tactical gear streaming out of a bland office building near the main airport.
Within minutes, massive SUVs, pickup trucks and minivans begin to leave, forming unmarked caravans that quickly become a frightening and familiar sight on the streets of Minneapolis and St. Paul and their suburbs.
The demonstrators He arrives early tooBraving the cold to stand across the street from the fenced-in federal complex, which houses the immigration court and government offices. “Go home!” They scream as the caravans roar. “The ice is out!”
Things often get uglier after dark, when the convoys return and the demonstrators sometimes grow angrier, shaking fences and sometimes hitting passing cars. Eventually, federal officers marched toward them, firing tear gas and flash grenades before pulling away at least a few people.
“We’re not going anywhere!” A woman shouted one morning. “We’re here until you leave.”
This is the daily rhythm of Operation Metro Surge, the Trump administration’s latest and largest crackdown yet, with more than 2,000 officers involved. The surge has pitted city and state officials against the federal government, and sparked daily clashes between activists and immigration officials in very liberal cities. A mother of three was left dead.
The crackdown is barely noticeable in some areas, especially in whiter, wealthier neighborhoods and suburbs, where caravans and tear gas are rare. Even in neighborhoods where masked immigration officers are deployed, they often move with ghost-like speed, making arrests and disappearing before protesters can gather in force.
However, the increase could be felt in wide swaths of the Twin Cities region, which is home to more than 3 million people.
“We don’t use the word ‘invasion’ lightly,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat, told reporters this week, noting that his police force has only 600 officers. “What we are seeing is thousands — even thousands — of federal agents coming to our city.”
These agents have a large presence in a small town.
It can take hours to drive through Los Angeles and chicagoBoth are targets of the Trump administration’s crackdowns. It may take 15 minutes to cross Minneapolis.
So, as anxiety spreads across the region, children are missing school or learning remotely, families are avoiding religious services, and many businesses have temporarily closed their doors, especially in immigrant neighborhoods.
When you drive down Lake Street, an immigrant hub since the days when new arrivals to Minneapolis came from Norway and Sweden, the sidewalks now seem crowded only with activists standing watch, ready to take action. Sirens At the first sign of the convoy.
At La Michoacana Purepecha, where customers can order ice cream, chocolate-covered bananas and pork rinds, the door is closed and staff let people in one by one. Nearby, at Taqueria Los Ocampo, a sign in English and Spanish says the restaurant is temporarily closed due to “current conditions.”
Twelve blocks away in the Carmel Mall, where The city has a large Somali community It applies to everything from food and coffee to tax preparation, and signs on the doors warn, “No ICE without court order.”
It’s been nearly six years since then George Floyd was murdered At the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, but the scars of that killing are still fresh.
Floyd was killed just blocks from where an ICE officer was located He shot and killed Rene Goodea 37-year-old US citizen, during a confrontation on January 7 after she stopped to help neighbors during a law enforcement operation. Federal officials say the officer fired in self-defense after Judd “weaponized” her car. City and state officials to reject Those explanations and Point out multiple videos to passersby From confrontation.
For Twin Cities residents, the crackdown may seem overwhelming.
“I’ve had enough,” said Johan Baumeister, who came to the scene of Goode’s killing shortly after the shooting to lay flowers.
He said he did not want to see the violent protests that rocked Minneapolis after Floyd’s death, causing billions of dollars in damage. But this city had a long history of activism and protests, and he had no doubt there would be more.
“I think they will see Minneapolis show our anger again,” he predicted.
He was right.
In the days that followed, repeated confrontations broke out between activists and immigration officials. Most were little more than insults and taunts, with the destruction mostly limited to broken windows, graffiti, and some badly damaged federal vehicles.
But angry clashes now break out regularly across the Twin Cities. Some protesters clearly want to provoke federal officers, by throwing snowballs at them or shouting obscenities through megaphones from just a couple of feet away. However, the dangerous force is coming from immigration officers, who smashed car windows, sprayed protesters with pepper spray, and warned monitors not to follow them through the streets. Immigrants and citizens They were snatched from cars homes and sometimes detain them for several days. Most clashes end with tear gas.
Drivers in Minneapolis or St. Paul can now stumble through intersections blocked by men wearing body armor and gas masks, with helicopters circling the sky and the air filled with the shrieks of protesters’ sirens.
In a state that prides itself on its morals, there’s something very Minnesotan about the protests.
Shortly after Judd’s shooting, Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat and frequent target of Trump, repeatedly said he was angry but also urged people to find ways to help their communities.
“Maybe it’s like bulldozing your neighbor’s walk,” he said. “That might mean being at a food bank. It might mean stopping to talk to someone you’ve never talked to before.”
He and other leaders appealed to the protesters to remain peaceful, warning that the White House was looking for an opportunity to suppress them further.
When protests turn into clashes, residents often come out of their homes, handing out bottled water so people can flush tear gas from their eyes.
Residents stand in schools to warn migrant parents if convoys approach while transporting their children. They provide care packages for people who are too afraid to go out, arranging trips to work and doctor visits.
On Thursday, in the basement of a Lutheran church in St. Paul, the group Open Market MN collected food packages for more than a hundred homestay families. Colin Anderson, the group’s outreach director, said the group has seen a significant increase in requests.
Sometimes, people don’t even understand what happened to them.
Like Christian Molina of suburban Coon Rapids, who was driving through a Minneapolis neighborhood one day, taking his car to a mechanic, when immigration officers started following him. He wonders if it’s because he looks Hispanic.
They sounded their sirens, but Molina continued driving, unsure of their identity.
Eventually, the officers sped up, hit the car’s rear bumper and both cars stopped. Two people appeared and asked Molina for his papers. He refused, saying he would wait for the police. Crowds began to gather, and clashes quickly broke out that ended with the firing of tear gas.
So the officers left.
They left behind an angry, anxious man who suddenly had a sedan with a misshapen rear fender.
Long after the officers were gone he had one last question.
“Who will pay for my car?”
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Associated Press reporters Rebecca Santana and Giovanna del Orto in Minneapolis and Haley Golden in Seattle contributed to this story.