Human Rights Watch condemns federal government in Operation Metro Surge report
An international watchdog group has released a damning report on Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota, calling for federal leaders to be investigated for creating a "human rights crisis," and urging local leaders to step up support for those impacted.
Human Rights Watch released its 180-page report Thursday entitled "A Manufactured Crisis," with the group's researchers using information gathered from sources such as interviews with 136 Minnesotans — including immigrants, lawyers, government officials and others — analysis of photo and video evidence, data from federal, state and local agencies, as well as a community-managed database.
"One provider told us about three teens who attempted suicide after their parents were detained," said Ida Sawyer, crisis and conflict director for Human Rights Watch, in a news conference Thursday. "The consequences for this will likely be felt for years, and all of it fell hardest on people of color or immigrant families."
Human Rights Watch says data obtained through the Freedom of Information Act revealed that 77.1% of those arrested by federal officers during the surge had no criminal convictions. They say close to 90% of cases resolved resulted in orders of release.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which described the surge as the largest federal immigration law enforcement deployment in the nation's history, claims agents "made more than 11,000 of illegal aliens including murderers, rapists, pedophiles and gang members" during the surge. But the latest figures WCCO has seen show that number is closer to 4,000 arrests in Minnesota from November 2025 until the start of March.
The watchdog group is now calling on Congress to hold hearings about the conduct of federal agents with leadership from Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Patrol, the Bureau of Prisons and the Department of Justice.
"Across the Twin Cities we found the same story: people stopped, detained and swept into an abusive system often simply because of how they looked, often even when they were citizens or permanent residents," Sawyer said.
The group urges lawmakers to pass legislation barring federal agents from locations like schools, places of worship, courthouses and hospitals; explicitly outlawing racial profiling; prohibiting agents from wearing face coverings, concealing their identities, agencies and vehicles; conducting "robust oversight" of immigration detention facilities; and better funding and staffing government oversight agencies.
The report also makes dozens of recommends for several bodies, like imploring the Trump administration to "end any formal or informal immigration arrest and deportation quotas;" for Homeland Security to pull all remaining surge-deployed federal officers from the state; for the justice department to work with state and local authorities to investigate the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and the shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis; and for state and local law enforcement to avoid participating in federal immigration actions.
In a statement Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security defended the surge, alleged "the media manipulates data to peddle a false narrative that DHS is not targeting public safety threats" and called accusations of racial profiling "disgusting, reckless, and categorically FALSE."
The surge began in December 2025 amid President Trump's inflammatory remarks about Minnesota's Somali community and the state's ongoing fraud crisis, leading to weeks of near-daily clashes between protesters and authorities. By the surge's end in April, thousands of metro residents had been detained, with most spending time in makeshift jail facilities inside Minneapolis' Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building.
Multiple federal officers are facing criminal charges levied by the Hennepin County Attorney's Office in Minnesota, and several Twin Cities residents have been charged by the U.S. Attorney's Office for allegedly threatening federal law enforcement during the surge. Dozens of protesters have also been charged federally for disrupting a church service in St. Paul where a local ICE leader also serves as a pastor.
According to a report from Minneapolis city leaders, the surge led to the shuttering of dozens of businesses and a wage loss of nearly $700 million — with $203 million lost in January alone.
