“Operation Metro Surge” is the name DHS and ICE give to a large, time‑limited immigration enforcement “surge” in Minnesota that began around Dec. 1, 2025. It deploys roughly 2,000 federal immigration agents to the Twin Cities area for at least 30 days to arrest and remove non‑citizens whom DHS says are removable, with a stated focus on people it labels the “worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens” (non‑citizens with criminal records or prior removal orders). The operation is led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and carried out mainly by its interior‑enforcement arm (Enforcement and Removal Operations), with additional agents from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) brought in under DHS authority.
An ICE arrest detainer is a written request, not a court order, that ICE sends to a jail, prison, or other law‑enforcement agency asking them to: (1) tell ICE before they release a person ICE believes is a removable non‑citizen, and (2) hold that person for up to 48 hours beyond the time they would normally be released so ICE can take custody for immigration purposes. Legally, detainers are voluntary; agencies are not required to honor them, and ICE says they are meant not to affect decisions about bail or sentence length. In Minnesota specifically, the attorney general has formally concluded that state and local agencies may not lawfully keep someone in custody past their release time based solely on an ICE detainer, and doing so risks civil liability, so jails generally release people when their state charges are resolved even if ICE has lodged a detainer.
“Criminal illegal alien” is not a defined legal category in U.S. immigration law; it is a political and enforcement label DHS/ICE are using. Legally, the Immigration and Nationality Act defines terms like “alien,” “removable alien,” and certain “criminal offenses,” but not “criminal alien” or “criminal illegal alien.” In practice, ICE uses this phrase to describe non‑U.S. citizens whom it believes are in the country without lawful status (or otherwise removable) and who also have criminal convictions or serious criminal charges. For example, ICE’s Criminal Alien Program targets “undocumented aliens with criminal records,” and DHS press releases about Operation Metro Surge repeatedly describe named individuals as “criminal illegal aliens” from specific countries and list their criminal convictions.
After an ICE/DHS arrest in operations like Metro Surge, the usual sequence is:
The figures in the DHS press release—“nearly 470” criminal noncitizens released and “more than 1,360” criminal noncitizens in Minnesota custody with ICE detainers—come from DHS itself and are not independently documented in the press release. The Jan. 13, 2026 DHS statement simply asserts that “since President Trump took office, Governor Walz has refused to cooperate with ICE and released nearly 470 criminal illegal aliens back onto the streets of Minnesota” and that there are “more than 1,360” people in state custody with ICE arrest detainers, but it does not provide underlying data, case lists, or a public methodology. No external datasets or audits currently available publicly can verify or break down those precise DHS counts.
Minnesota officials generally reject the “sanctuary” label, but state and local policies do limit some cooperation with federal civil immigration enforcement:
In practice, these policies mean ICE often must arrest people in public or at homes and workplaces rather than receiving them directly from Minnesota jails, and state/local agencies do not extend custody solely to facilitate civil immigration arrests.