Garcia, Steven. Federal Agents Descend On Minneapolis For Immigration Enforcement Operations. 2026, Reuters
Federal agents shot and killed two American citizens in Minneapolis in January. Democrats, including Governor Tim Walz, decried the presence of federal agents as “occupation.” The Department of Justice (DOJ) opened investigations into Democratic politicians in Minnesota, while Minnesotan officials struggled to investigate the scenes where Americans were killed.
“Operation Metro Surge” is the name of the effort by the Trump administration to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents to apprehend and deport undocumented immigrants. This operation began in Minneapolis and St. Paul in December 2025. On January 5th, 2026 President Trump deployed around 2,000 ICE agents and around 1,000 CBP agents to Minneapolis (Brook and Catalini). Just two days later Renee Good was shot and killed, followed by Alex Pretti on the 24th.
This crackdown on immigration followed claims of welfare fraud in the Somali immigrant community (Musa). Four years ago, dozens of people—most Somali, though the leader was not—were charged with falsely claiming to provide meals to children “during the Covid-19 pandemic through a nonprofit called Feeding Our Future.” One of the indicted faces charges of money laundering: receiving $1.1 million in Federal Child Nutrition Program funds, but using the money to travel and buy real estate in Minnesota (“78th Defendant”). 37 of the accused pleaded guilty; it is unclear how many are Somali (Alvarez and Sottile).
President Trump, in response, called the Somali community in Minneapolis “garbage” and “low-IQ”. He accused them of “ripping off our country and ripping apart that once-great state” of Minnesota (qtd. in Alvarez and Sottile).
ICE and CPB agents in Minneapolis wore camouflage, helmets, and tactical gear, also carrying military-grade weapons with them. The type of equipment used is often reserved for SWAT and some of it costs more than $3,000 dollars (Gibbons-Neff).
Encounters between ICE and “camera-wielding observers” often escalate into protests and lead to volatile situations (Homans). “Legal observers [have been] hauled off without charge; schoolchildren teargassed; motorists dragged from their cars […] Simply filming [ICE agents] is enough to be branded a domestic terrorist” (Smith). These tense interactions between ICE and Minneapolitans led to the two fatal shootings of American citizens.
The first shooting was of Renee Nicole Good on January 7th, 2026. 37 years old and a US citizen, Good was killed when ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot her through her car window that morning. She was known by family and neighbors as “a loving mother, a poet and a partner” (Musa).
Officials in the Trump administration described Good as a “domestic terrorist”, with former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claiming that she tried to “weaponize her vehicle” to run over an ICE officer (Feuer and Thrush; Musa). A video analysis by The New York Times “showed no indication that he had been run over.”
An investigation into the ICE agent who fired on Good would usually be made, yet senior DOJ officials, as of January 23rd, “said there are no plans to […] pursue an investigation into whether Mr. Ross […] had used excessive force.” Federal investigators refused to cooperate with state and local prosecutors, making efforts to investigate Mr. Ross much more complicated (Feuer and Thrush).
Tracee Mergen, an FBI supervisor, resigned after “bureau leadership in Washington pressured her to discontinue a civil rights inquiry into the immigration officer” who shot Good. Civil rights inquiries are a common step in similar shootings (Feuer and Thrush).
Instead of investigating the ICE officer, the DOJ investigated Good and her partner, looking into their possible ties to “left-wing protest groups.” Six senior prosecutors within the DOJ resigned in protest. There has also been a crackdown on “protestors who have opposed the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement push in Minnesota” (Feuer and Thrush).
The DOJ opened another investigation into several elected Democrats in Minnesota, in order to determine if they “conspired to impede the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement actions in the state.” Subpoenas—written documents ordering a person to attend court—were issued to the offices of Governor Walz, Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis and Mayor Kaohly Her of St. Paul (Feuer and Thrush).
The second fatal shooting was of Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old V.A. hospital registered nurse (Homans). He was killed on January 24th, 2026 around a mile away from the location Good was shot two weeks earlier and less than a mile from where police murdered George Floyd in May 2020 (Smith). Similar to the murder of George Floyd, Good and Pretti’s deaths have caused protests against the law enforcement agencies responsible for killing them. While the Black Lives Matter protests in response to Floyd’s death denounced police corruption, the current protests are focusing on federal agents.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claimed officers fired “defensive shots” after a man with a gun approached them. Pretti was carrying a firearm, but he was a lawful gun owner with a permit to carry, and the gun was not out at the time. Governor Walz accused the authorities of a “rush to judgement” and called the shooting “sickening.”
President Trump insisted Pretti “should not have been carrying a gun,” despite the White House claiming to be the “most pro-Second Amendment administration in history” (Gangitano and Cai). This comment has led some gun rights advocates to threaten sitting out the midterms. The National Rifle Association called for a full investigation into the situation, rather than “making generalizations and demonizing law-abiding citizens.” They have since backtracked and defended President Trump’s stance on guns as a whole (Gangitano and Cai).
Pretti’s family said he was “a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital.” They condemned what they said were “sickening lies told about our son by the administration.”
Hours after Pretti’s shooting, state investigators obtained a search warrant from a judge to access the scene of Pretti’s death. This was an unusual legal move, investigators admitted, since they would normally have access to the scene. Even after obtaining the warrant, “federal agents refused to honor it and physically blocked state investigators from the area.” They were not able to do so for long and soon after state “agents were at the scene […] collecting evidence” (Stokes).
Another unusual legal move occurred when a temporary restraining order was granted by District Court Judge Eric Tostrud against the DHS in order to prevent the department from “altering or destroying evidence connected to Pretti’s killing” (WCCO Staff). State officials do not normally need a restraining order against the DHS to protect a crime scene: tampering with evidence is illegal under federal law (England).
But these two shootings by ICE agents in Minneapolis have not been the only escalations of violence. Julio Sosa-Celis, an undocumented immigrant, was shot in the leg by an ICE agent in Minneapolis after attacking him with a broom during an arrest, according to an FBI agent’s affidavit (Homans).
Three other people have also been shot and killed in the last few months: Silverio Villegas González in a Chicago suburb, Isaias Sanchez Barboza in Rio Grand City, Texas, and Keith Porter in Los Angeles. Both Villegas Gonzalez and Sanchez Barboza did not have US citizenship, but Porter, who was shot by an off-duty agent, did (Heffernan and Meagher; Harb). Additionally, as of January 27th, six immigrants have died in ICE custody since the beginning of 2026 (Harb).
The violence shown in the media and on the news is disturbingly graphic, yet reactions to it have varied (Homans).
Governor Walz, for one, described the federal deployment to his state as an “occupation” and “a campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota by our own federal government.”
President Trump, on the other hand, responded to the shooting of Pretti by defending ICE officers and accusing Mayor Jacob Fry and Governor Walz of “inciting insurrection,” or encouraging violent uprising against the government (WCCO Staff).
A federal agent spoke into a TV mic, saying, “It’s like Call of Duty,’ […] a first-person shooter military video game. ‘So cool, huh?’” (Smith).
As of the 26th of January, President Trump has had “productive conversations” with Governor Walz and Mayor Frey. Mayor Frey asked in a phone call to end the surge of immigration enforcement and the President agreed that the present situation couldn’t continue. The commander of Border Patrol, Gregory Bovino, left Minneapolis on January 27th (Karnowski and Balsamo). This bodes well for the city of Minneapolis.