More ICE arrests in Minnesota disclosed as White House, Democrats spar over operation
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A week into a stepped-up immigration enforcement campaign in Minnesota, the number of disclosed arrests by federal authorities has risen to 19 as political officials spar over the operation’s scope and purpose.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials haven’t said how many people in total they have detained, have in custody for deportation proceedings or who have been released after questioning. Since the start of December, a heavier presence of federal agents has been engaged in what ICE is calling “Operation Metro Surge” in the Twin Cities region.
However, the agency has shared information about arrests of people in the country illegally who have prior criminal records, ranging from sexual assault convictions to driving under the influence. The latest disclosure came Friday evening in a news release with photos of seven men being held by ICE.
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, said in a news release that agents were going after “the worst of the worst.”
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Those arrests include men from Somalia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic. Last week, ICE officials showcased the arrests of 12 other men from Somalia, Mexico and El Salvador with past criminal convictions.
This latest immigration operation coincides with increasingly disparaging language from President Donald Trump about people of Somali heritage; Trump called Somalis “garbage” and said he doesn’t want them in the United States.
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minneapolis, who was born in Somalia and emigrated to the United States as a child, said on CBS’s “Face The Nation” Sunday that the president’s comments are disgusting.
"This kind of hateful rhetoric and this level of dehumanizing can lead to dangerous actions by people who listen to the president," Omar said.
Members of Minnesota’s immigrant communities say the operation has led to more encounters with authorities — like requiring people stopped by federal agents to show passports or other identifying documents — than ICE is reporting. Most people of Somali heritage living in Minnesota are U.S.-born or naturalized American citizens or have other legal status.
Leaders of Augsburg University, which is in a Minneapolis neighborhood with a large concentration of immigrant families, sent a message to faculty, staff and students saying a student was targeted for possible arrest on campus on Saturday. The note said federal authorities drew their weapons as a crowd formed. The incident was recorded by spectators.
“This is an extraordinarily difficult day for our Augsburg community,” Paula O’Loughlin, provost and senior vice president for academic and student affairs, wrote. She said extra support services, including legal rights sessions, were planned for the coming days.
Augsburg leaders were not available for interviews, but the school issued a statement that said the masked ICE agents confronted an undergraduate student outside a residence hall and pointed their weapons toward staff and students.
“These tactics, with the implicit threat of violence, are unacceptable, dangerous and profoundly disturbing,” the statement read in part. “As an urban university, Augsburg has long-standing, professional relationships with local law enforcement, and we are accustomed to partnering closely on public safety issues. What happened on Dec. 6 was far outside the scope of our normal experience.”
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara confirmed to KMSP-TV that his officers responded to 911 calls at Augsburg, arriving after the incident concluded but verifying the description of an ICE action in a school parking lot.
On CNN’s “State of the Union” program Sunday, a top White House official denied that the administration’s Minnesota operation is racially targeted. Tom Homan, the White House border czar, said authorities don’t know how many Somalis could come under scrutiny for “reasonable suspicion” of being in the country without authorization.
“We’re looking for public safety threats, national security threats and illegal aliens,” Homan said. “Nothing's changed.”
Homan said ordinances in Minneapolis and St. Paul barring police from cooperation with immigration authorities are one catalyst for the operation.
“We’ve got to send more resources there to flood the zone because it takes a whole team to find somebody in a community where it would take one agent to arrest one bad guy in a county jail,” Homan continued. “So this is exactly what President Trump promised the American people we’re going to do, and that's what we're doing.”
Meanwhile, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said his department is moving ahead with an investigation into money transfers from years ago between people in Minnesota and those in Somalia and other countries.
Bessent, also appearing on “Face The Nation,” said investigators are looking into allegations that organizations tied to terrorism tapped into funds sent through transfer services abroad, known as money bureau services.
“They are wire transfer organizations outside of the regulated banking system. That money has gone overseas,” Bessent said. “And we are tracking that both to the Middle East and Somalia to see what the uses of that have been.”
The treasury announced its investigation after conservative writers resurfaced unverified reports, first raised years ago. Bessent declined to prejudge the results when asked if there was evidence that any money went to terrorism.
Omar said on the program that while there was no evidence of terrorism when the reports first arose, if such links exist, lawmakers want to know and want prosecutions to occur.
“There are people who have been prosecuted and who have been sentenced,” Omar said, referring to recent fraud investigations, like the sprawling Feeding Our Future nutrition aid scandal. “If there was a linkage in that the money that they had stolen is going to terrorism, then that is a failure of the FBI and our court system in not figuring that out and basically charging them.”
