Did Trump Walk Away From Minnesota With An Immigration Win?

The Trump administration has declared its Minnesota immigration enforcement surge a “huge victory” for public safety, but that win wasn’t achieved without a cost.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), along with other federal immigration agents, have begun scaling back their presence in Minneapolis, drawing to a close what became an incredibly controversial operation following the deaths of two American anti-ICE agitators. While the surge busted scores of violent criminals, it also became a vehicle for Democrats to hold national security funding hostage and added another wrinkle to the wider morale crisis hitting immigration enforcement agents.

“The morale is decreasing [among immigration agents] because you’re placing them in situations where they’re being targeted through every facet of society,” Ammon Blair, who spent a decade as a Border Patrol agent, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “I just got a text last week asking me, ‘Hey, Blair, how are you liking the outside of Border Patrol? I think I’m leaving,’ and this guy loves border security.” Blair’s comments closely mirror what other immigration agents have reportedly said about declining morale.

Border czar Tom Homan announced earlier in February that ICE and Border Patrol agents would begin withdrawing from the Minneapolis region, with roughly 1,000 agents already returning to their home stations or relocating to other areas of the country. Just a few agents are expected to remain, marking an end to what has been dubbed Operation Metro Surge.

“What we’ve signaled to everyone else around the entire country — because they’re not just in Minneapolis — we’ve signaled that that is a battle won, and now they know the exact playbook to enact in every single blue state and blue region,” said Blair, who now serves as a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

‘We Will Not Back Down’

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) touted Operation Metro Surge, which began in late December, as a major success that netted the arrest of more than 4,000 illegal migrants. Homan has also touted the “unprecedented collaboration” from state and local officials, a major win in a state known for refusing to cooperate with federal immigration agents.

“We have arrested over 11,000 criminal illegal aliens who were killing Americans, hurting children and reigning terror in Minnesota because sanctuary politicians refused to protect their own people and instead protect criminals,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told the DCNF. “Since Operation Metro Surge began, our brave DHS law enforcement have arrested over 4,000 criminal illegal aliens including vicious murderers, rapists, child pedophiles and incredibly dangerous individuals. A HUGE victory for public safety.”

“When you see an ICE law enforcement officer, thank them for risking their lives to make your neighborhoods safer,” McLaughlin continued.

There were roughly 130,000 illegal migrants living in Minnesota in 2023, making up slightly over 2% of the state’s population, according to a Pew Research Center study released in August 2025.

Launched after reports of wide-scale fraud perpetrated by Minnesota’s burgeoning Somali community, Operation Metro Surge was the latest effort to crack down on criminal migrants living in sanctuary jurisdictions. In contrast to Democrat strongholds, GOP-led states largely lead the nation in ICE arrests due to policies mandating local law enforcement cooperation.

The operation quickly became a front page story after two American anti-ICE agitators were killed in separate altercations with law enforcement.

Renee Good drove into an ICE agent on Jan. 7 while obstructing an operation, prompting the agent to fire defensive shots and killing her in the process. Video footage of the incident went viral, prompting a surge in anti-ICE protests and paving the way for another deadly encounter.

Alex Pretti was shot by Border Patrol agents on Jan. 24 after he allegedly attempted to obstruct their work while carrying a concealed handgun. While Pretti’s supporters have cast him as an ICU nurse innocently exercising his freedom of speech, video footage later surfaced revealing he had been antagonizing agents for days, even kicking the tail light out of a federal vehicle and spitting on an agent in one incident.

While initially labeling Pretti as a “domestic terrorist” who was openly brandishing a weapon and posed a serious threat to law enforcement agents, top administration officials later backtracked on those claims.

Some Republicans have joined calls for an investigation into the Minneapolis operation.

‘Amid The Aftermath’

Former Border Patrol Commander at Large Gregory Bovino — who led the enforcement surge in Minnesota and had quickly become the face of the administration’s immigration agenda — was reportedly demoted from his position and returned to work as a sector chief in California. McLaughlin, the main spokesperson for DHS, later on announced her resignation to staff, with a source confirming the timing of the decision was triggered by the shootings.

“McLaughlin started planning to leave in December but pushed her departure amid the aftermath of the Renee Good and Alex Pretti shootings,” an individual briefed on the move told the DCNF.

For liberal lawmakers long opposed to tough immigration enforcement, the shootings have created an opportunity to push for large-scale reforms, including body cameras and judicial warrants for arrests on private property. Congressional Democrat leaders in February issued a 10-point list of demands they want enacted to rein in federal immigration agents in order to win their approval for DHS funding.

While Republican leadership has indicated an openness to some reforms, they’ve made clear that policies hindering enforcement operations are non-starters, which include Democrat demands that deportation officers obtain judicial warrants before conducting certain arrests. DHS has since remained under a partial shutdown with lawmakers unable to reach a consensus, leaving key agencies under thin financial footing.

Democrats have acknowledged that money from the Big Beautiful Bill, which was passed last year, is keeping ICE largely untouched while the DHS funding battle continues on.

President Donald Trump re-entered the White House with a strong mandate on immigration policy, with 2024 election polling not only indicating that Americans rated immigration as a top issue, but voters also overwhelmingly viewing Trump as the better candidate to handle immigration over then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

Roughly one year into Trump’s presidency, polling around ICE support has nosedived, with many Americans showing disapproval of the administration’s strategy of deploying immigration agents into major metropolitan areas.

Sixty-two percent of Americans believe the deployment of federal immigration agents into cities had gone too far and 60% view ICE unfavorably, according to an AP-NORC poll released in February. This is a staggering increase from 2018 when just 37% held an unfavorable view of the agency.

Roughly 65% of Americans believe ICE has gone too far and just 30% approve of the agency’s performance, according to a Marist survey also released in February. The numbers mark a sharp change from the 54% of Americans who said ICE had gone too far in June 2025.

Internal GOP polling showing a sharp drop in support for the president’s immigration agenda has reportedly made some administration insiders sweat, prompting Trump’s advisors to push for a recalibration, according to Axios.

Though it’s unclear if the Minneapolis debacle will have a noticeable effect on Trump’s public approval, with longtime pollster Mike McKenna pointing to national surveys spanning all the way back to the summer of 2025 that show no major changes have occurred.

“There might be a modest degradation in approval over time (like a point or maybe a point and a half), but it is not like there has been some kind of crazy toboggan ride to the bottom of the mountain,” McKenna said to the DCNF. “It seems a bit premature to get too excited one way or the other.”

Trump could turn things around in regards to how the public views ICE, Blair told the DCNF, pointing to Florida’s model of maximum cooperation between local and federal law enforcement.

“We are not just going after the worst of the worst — we are protecting our citizenship and our citizenry by going after those who continue to not follow the rule of law,” Blair told the DCNF. “ICE is there for immigration enforcement, to protect the boundaries of American citizenship.”