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minnesota
'This Occupation Has to End!' Omar Argues After Homan Says Most Agents Will Stay in Minnesota
"Every single ICE and CBP agent should be out of Minnesota," the congresswoman said. "The terror campaign must stop."
Feb 04, 2026
President Donald Trump's "border czar," Tom Homan, announced Wednesday that 700 immigration agents are leaving Minnesota, but with around 2,000 expected to remain there, Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, whose district includes Minneapolis, declared that the drawdown is "not enough."
As part of Trump's "Operation Metro Surge," agents with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have invaded multiple Minnesota cities, including Minneapolis and Saint Paul, and committed various acts of violence, such as fatally shooting Alex Pretti and Renee Good.
In a pair of social media posts about Homan's announcement, Omar argued that "every single ICE and CBP agent should be out of Minnesota. The terror campaign must stop."
"This occupation has to end!" she added, also renewing her call to abolish ICE—a position adopted by growing shares of federal lawmakers and the public as Trump's mass deportation agenda has hit Minnesota's Twin Cities, the Chicago and Los Angeles metropolitan areas, multiple cities in Maine, and other communities across the United States.
In Congress, where a fight over funding for CBP and ICE's parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, is playing out, Omar has stood with other progressives in recent votes. The bill signed by Trump on Tuesday only funds DHS through the middle of the month, though Republicans gave ICE an extra $75 billion in last year's budget package.
During an on-camera interview with NBC News' Tom Llamas, Trump said that the reduction of agents came from him. After the president's factually dubious rant about crime rates, Llamas asked what he had learned from the operation in Minnesota. Trump responded: "I learned that maybe we can use a little bit of a softer touch. But you still have to be tough."
"We're really dealing with really hard criminals," Trump added. Despite claims from him and others in the administration that recent operations have targeted "the worst of the worst," data have repeatedly shown that most immigrants detained by federal officials over the past year don't have any criminal convictions.
Operation Metro Surge has been met with persistent protests in Minnesota and solidarity actions across the United States. Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Wednesday that "the limited drawdown of ICE agents from Minnesota is not a concession. It is a direct response to Minnesotans standing up to unconstitutional federal overreach."
"Minnesotans are winning against this attack on all our communities by organizing, resisting, and defending our constitutional rights. But this moment should not be a victory lap," Hussein continued. "It must instead be a call to continue pushing for justice. The deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of federal immigration agents remain uninvestigated, and communities and prosecutors alike have raised grave concerns about violations of their oaths and the Constitution. This is not the time to pull back, it is the time to deepen our resilience, increase our support for one another, and keep fighting for our democracy and accountability until justice is served."
The Not Above the Law coalition's co-chairs—Praveen Fernandes of the Constitutional Accountability Center, Kelsey Herbert of MoveOn, Lisa Gilbert of Public Citizen, and Brett Edkins, of Stand Up America—similarly said that "Tom Homan's announcement that 700 federal immigration agents will be withdrawn from Minnesota is more a minor concession than a meaningful policy shift."
"The vast majority—approximately 2,000 federal agents—remain deployed in the state, and enforcement operations continue unabated," the co-chairs stressed. "This token gesture does nothing to address the ongoing terror families face or the constitutional crisis this administration's actions have created."
“The killings of Minnesotans demand real accountability," they added. "Families torn apart by raids and alleged constitutional violations deserve justice. Real change means the complete withdrawal of all federal forces conducting these operations in Minnesota, full accountability for the deaths and violations that have occurred, and congressional action to restore the rule of law. The American people deserve better than political theater when constitutional rights hang in the balance."
On Tuesday, the state and national ACLU asked the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to "use its early warning and urgent action procedure in response to the human rights crisis following the Trump administration's deployment of federal forces" in the Twin Cities.
"The Trump administration's ongoing immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota are being carried out by thousands of masked federal agents in military gear who are ignoring basic constitutional and human rights of Minnesotans," said Teresa Nelson, legal director of the ACLU of Minnesota. "Their targeting of our Somali and Latino communities threatens Minnesotans’ most fundamental rights, and it has spread fear among immigrant communities and neighborhoods."
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ACLU Calls On UN to Initiate 'Urgent Action' Protocols Over Trump's Authoritarian Abuses in Minnesota
Federal law enforcement officials "have ignored basic human rights in their enforcement activity against Minnesotans, especially targeting Somali and Latino communities," said the ACLU.
Feb 04, 2026
The ACLU revealed on Wednesday that it has asked a United Nations committee to initiate "urgent action" protocols over the Trump administration's human rights abuses in Minnesota.
The national ACLU, alongside the ACLU of Minnesota, said that it reached out to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) on Tuesday and asked it to "use its early warning and urgent action procedure in response to the human rights crisis following the Trump administration's deployment of federal forces in Minneapolis and the St. Paul metropolitan area."
In its submission, the ACLU alleged that federal immigration officials "have ignored basic human rights in their enforcement activity against Minnesotans, especially targeting Somali and Latino communities," and it called on CERD to "issue a decision under its early warning and urgent actions procedures to intervene and investigate the US' grave violations of its human rights obligations."
Jamil Dakwar, director of the ACLU's Human Rights Program, said that the US government is in violation of international human rights treaty obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), which prohibits "the use of racial and ethnic profiling, extrajudicial killings, and unlawful use of force against protesters and observers."
Teresa Nelson, legal director of the ACLU of Minnesota, explained the urgency in getting the international community to intervene in the US government's operations in her state.
"The Trump administration’s ongoing immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota are being carried out by thousands of masked federal agents in military gear who are ignoring basic constitutional and human rights of Minnesotans,” Nelson said. “Their targeting of our Somali and Latino communities threatens Minnesotans’ most fundamental rights, and it has spread fear among immigrant communities and neighborhoods.”
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Minnesota Districts and Teachers Sue to Make ICE 'Stay Away From Our Schools'
"Students can't learn, and educators can't teach, when there are armed, masked federal agents stationed within view of classroom windows, sometimes for days on end," said the Education Minnesota president.
Feb 04, 2026
Just days after an educational leader in Minnesota said that "our families feel hunted" because of President Donald Trump's "Operation Metro Surge," two school districts and a teachers union on Wednesday sued to block immigration agents from targeting people in and around public schools.
"For decades, administrations of both parties recognized that schools are different—places where children learn, where families gather, and where fear has no place," noted June Hoidal of Zimmerman Reed LLP, one of the firms behind the new lawsuit filed in the District of Minnesota.
However, shortly after Trump returned to office last year, his Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revoked the rule barring agents from arresting undocumented immigrants in or around "sensitive" locations like schools, places of worship, and hospitals, as part of his pursuit of mass deportations.
"When enforcement moves into school zones, the harm isn't theoretical," Hoidal stressed. "Attendance drops, instruction stops, and school communities lose the stability public education depends on. Districts across the country are watching how courts draw the line around spaces dedicated to children."
Over the past year, members of DHS and its agencies—including Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—have flooded various communities, including in Minnesota. The districts in this case serve students in Fridley, a suburb of the Twin Cities, and Duluth, about 150 miles northeast of Minneapolis and Saint Paul.
"The removal of long-standing protections around schools has had immediate and real consequences for our learning community," said John Magas, superintendent of Duluth Public Schools. "We've seen increased anxiety among students, disruptions to attendance, and families questioning whether school remains a safe and predictable place for their children. Schools function best when families trust that education can happen without fear, and that stability has been undermined."
His counterpart in Fridley, Brenda Lewis, similarly said that "as superintendent, my responsibility is the safety, dignity, and education of every child entrusted to our schools. When immigration enforcement activity occurs near schools, it undermines trust and creates fear that directly interferes with students' ability to learn and feel safe. Schools depend on stability, and that stability has been disrupted."
As Common Dreams reported earlier this week, Lewis has recently spoken at a press conference and to media outlets about the flood of federal agents—and it's come at a cost. The superintendent said she was tailed by agents multiple times while driving to and from the district office, and three of the six school board members have spotted ICE vehicles outside of their homes.
"It is my responsibility to ensure that our students and staff and families are safe, and if that means [agents are] going to target me instead of them, then that's what we need to do, and then they can leave our families alone," Lewis said. "But at the end of the day, are they trying to intimidate me to stop? Yes. Will I stop? No."
In addition to the two districts, Education Minnesota, a labor union of more than 84,000 state educators, is part of the suit against DHS, CBP, ICE, and agency leaders. The group's president, Monica Byron, declared that "students can't learn, and educators can't teach, when there are armed, masked federal agents stationed within view of classroom windows, sometimes for days on end."
"ICE and Border Patrol need to stay away from our schools so students can go there safely each day to learn without fear," she continued, "and so that our members can focus on teaching instead of constantly reacting to the shocking and unconstitutional actions of federal agents."
Last February, a federal judge in Maryland blocked the Trump administration from conducting immigration enforcement actions at Baptist, Quaker, and Sikh places of worship that sued over the repeal of protections for sensitive locations. The new suit asks the court to throw out the 2025 policy and restore protections to all such places.
The legal group Democracy Forward is involved in both cases and several others challenging Trump policies. The organization's president and CEO, Skye Perryman, said Wednesday that "the trauma being inflicted on children in America by this president is horrific and must end. The Trump-Vance administration's decision to abandon long-standing protections for schools has injected fear into classrooms, driven families into hiding, and thrown entire school communities into chaos."
"This is unlawful, reckless, and legally and morally indefensible," Perryman added. "We are in court because children should never have to look over their shoulders at school or worry that their loved ones could be taken away at the schoolhouse gate, and because the government cannot undermine decades of settled policy without regard for students, educators, or the law."
The suit was filed as Tom Homan, Trump's "border czar" and one of the named defendants, announced that 700 immigration agents are departing from Minnesota, which will leave around 2,000 there. The move comes amid incredible pressure on the administration to end Operation Metro Surge. Protests in the state, and in solidarity around the country, have ramped up since agents fatally shot legal observers Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
The deadly operation in Minnesota has also impacted federal spending decisions in Congress. On Tuesday, lawmakers passed and Trump signed a bill to end a short-term government shutdown, but the measure funds DHS for less than two weeks. However, even if future funding for the department isn't resolved in that time, ICE can continue its operations thanks to an extra $75 billion for the agency that Republicans put in last year's budget package.
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