Survey: Federal surge had immediate and wide-ranging negative effects on Twin Cities

NINA MOINI: One of the first surveys on the impacts of the surge of federal immigration agents shows there were broad negative economic, health, and education, public safety effects on the Twin Cities. The US Immigration Policy Center at the University of California, San Diego, UC San Diego is behind the research. Between mid-February and early March, they surveyed more than 700 people in Minneapolis and more than 600 people in St. Paul. Tom Wong is the director of the center. He's on the line to tell us more about their findings. Thanks for being with us, Tom. Really appreciate it.

TOM WONG: Thank you for having me.

NINA MOINI: Your center is based in California. Obviously, you do nationwide work. Why did you all decide to take a look right away at Minnesota?

TOM WONG: Well, I think since the reelection of Donald Trump, we in the immigration space knew mass deportation, a key part of his campaign, was going to be a sort hot topic. And when it comes to immigration enforcement, Minnesota became ground zero. So what we were seeing-- me, based in San Diego, the social media images, the news coming out of Minnesota, it was very harrowing, especially when we see images of use of force and of course, the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. And so from a sort of research perspective, Minnesota became an important case to understand how this administration was enforcing federal immigration laws and subsequently the impact of those policies.

NINA MOINI: How did you conduct this survey? Tell us a little bit about the process, because people like to know because then they feel better about what they're seeing.

TOM WONG: Yeah, we can nerd out a little bit here.

NINA MOINI: Yeah.

TOM WONG: In terms of survey research, so what we want to do is gold-standard work. And that's a probability-based sample. So basically what that means is that we want to draw a sample that is unbiased so that everybody in the population has an equal probability of selection. So we take lists of residents in Minneapolis and residents in St. Paul who are 18 and older, randomly sample from that group to participate in the survey.

Random sampling does a lot of great things, but it doesn't solve all sort of issues. After we have our sample, we look at demographic characteristics such as age, race, ethnicity, gender, and then we look at the broader characteristics of the population as a whole. And then we adjust so we weight accordingly.

I use something called iterative proportional fitting. So it's called raking. It's what major surveys do. So that means we have a sample that is weighted to look like the 18 and older population in Minneapolis and St. Paul. And when we weight data, there are a lot of different fit statistics. And so here the sample represented the population pretty well. We don't have any extreme weights, for example. And then we have a resulting small margin of error-- 3.6% for Minneapolis and 3.8% for St. Paul.

NINA MOINI: That's so important because as you know, in this day and age, there's misinformation. And so just talking about how people conduct these surveys and the process and the integrity that exists is important. Let's dig into some of your findings, starting with interactions with federal agents. What did you see there?

TOM WONG: Yeah, this was a sort of empirical question where I really didn't have an expectation going into it. I didn't how high it was going to be or how low it was going to be. We know from the administration's description, Metro Surge is the largest enforcement action in modern immigration history. What we saw in Minneapolis is that nearly 3 out of 10 respondents said yes to having at least one interaction with ICE or Border Patrol during Metro Surge. In St. Paul, it was about 2 out of every 10 respondents.

So if we think about the 3,000 to 4,000 ICE and BP personnel that were in Minneapolis and St. Paul during Metro Surge, and there's roughly half a million plus 18 and older population, then the boots on the ground only really need to have two interactions per day to equal 28% of Minneapolis and 19.2% of St. Paul. But those are staggering numbers. 1 out of 4, almost 3 out of 10, excuse me, in Minneapolis, saying yes to having at least one interaction with ICE or BP, and then 2 out of 10.

When we extrapolate to population sizes, that means hundreds of thousands of people interacted with ICE and BP during Operation Metro Surge. And in terms of the specific interactions, I mean, we dug a little bit more deeply and a lot of those interactions, responses expressed, showed some concern when it comes to civil rights and civil liberties questions.

NINA MOINI: Things like racial profiling, use of force, interactions near sensitive locations like schools or churches. Tell us if you would Tom, about the use of force the people reported.

TOM WONG: Yeah, I mean, that's one of the more concerning. So being in San Diego and watching reels on my social media, it was really, really concerning to see the use of force by ICE and BP. The extent to which people experienced the use of force is really striking when it comes to the survey results. So among those who reported at least one interaction with ICE or BP during Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis, about 2 out of 10 said physical force was used against them. And then St. Paul, it was a smaller number, but it's still about 14%.

And so when we think about how ICE and BP conducted themselves during Operation Metro Surge, many reported being randomly stopped on the street or randomly stopped while driving. And many were, in fact, legally here or US citizens. And some even reported being distrusted about their immigration status or citizenship despite showing ID. And so when you put those things together and then you still find that 2 out of 10 or 1 out of 10 said ICE or BP used physical force against them, then it's not just the kind of image of an undocumented immigrant trying to run away from ICE and Border Patrol and subsequently being tackled to the ground. This is also legal permanent residents and US citizens experiencing violence by ICE and Border Patrol. And that's not what we imagine when we think about federal law enforcement.

NINA MOINI: So you're taking some of the anecdotal stories and in the little snippets of video there, and you're trying to quantify what has happened. And I wish we had a whole hour to really break these down. But in terms of economic impacts, I'm reading here you found more than $180 million in lost wages. In terms of schools, more than half of families in Minneapolis and 45% in St. Paul kept kids home from school due to fear out of the people you surveyed. Tell me a little bit about trust in law enforcement and how that went.

TOM WONG: Yeah, so there is a large literature on local law enforcement cooperation with ICE and trust and law enforcement. And what that literature shows is that when local law enforcement do work with ICE, for example, in 287(g) agreements, then there's an erosion of trust. So when it comes to local law enforcement. So, I heard the segment before about King's protest, and the challenge is there. A lot of community policing requires trust among residents, and immigrant communities, with a little bit more distrust, you need to work harder to gain the cooperation that you need to keep community safe. Law enforcement knows that. And I think that when you have ICE and BP conducting themselves in the way that we saw during Operation Metro Surge, then subsequently, you may have, Minneapolis and St. Paul PD trying to distinguish themselves and saying, hey, that is not us.

And so what we see in these data here are that over half of respondents said that they were less trustful of law enforcement as a result of how ICE and BP conducted themselves during Operation Metro Surge. Even more concerning is that almost half in both Minneapolis and St. Paul also said that they were somewhat less likely or some less likely to seek help from law enforcement. And that part, in terms of the help-seeking behaviors of individuals, I think is really, really concerning, especially from a policing perspective.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, and that's something that local agencies, police chiefs and have been concerned about. Definitely just lastly, Tom, are you sharing these findings with local or state leaders, or what do you hope comes of these findings, how they're used?

TOM WONG: Yeah, no, I think that a lot of cities and states are worried about whether or not they are going to be next. And what we learned from Minnesota is going to provide a blueprint for how other cities and states might prepare and also potentially fight back because here the consequences of Metro Surge, again, it seeped all across society and the economy there. So yeah, in terms of sharing the results, they've been shared widely with decision-makers in Minnesota. And to the extent that the results are helpful, then hopefully, we don't see another Operation Metro Surge again. So this is not to say that the federal government cannot enforce immigration law.

Of course, it [AUDIO OUT]. But when we think about the conduct of ICE and BP during Metro Surge, yes, I think we can all agree that people should not die, shot five times in the back-- Alex Pretti as a result of enforcing our immigration laws. So yes, hopefully, these results are helpful. I should also say there are more results coming soon. We have a few other projects ongoing about [AUDIO OUT].

NINA MOINI: About Minnesota. All right. Tom Wong, thank you for sharing your work with us.

TOM WONG: Thank you for having me.

NINA MOINI: Tom Wong is the director of the US Immigration Policy Center at the University of California, San Diego.