Confrontations between ICE and protesters: How does Minnesota compare to other states?

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Since the US Department of Homeland Security massively expanded “Operation Metro Surge” in Minnesota on 6 January — which the agency describes as its largest operation ever — protests, from organized rallies to unplanned gatherings around arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), have erupted across the state.¹ Just shy of 30% of migration-related demonstrations in the state since this date have involved physical confrontations between demonstrators and law enforcement agents, the highest rate recorded during any major ICE operation.

Confrontations in Minnesota spiked immediately after an ICE agent shot Renee Good on 7 January, the first of two shootings by federal agents since the operation began.² That same day, demonstrators threw snowballs at agents near the site of the shooting. Over the following weeks, agents used tear gas, pepper balls, and less-lethal munitions against demonstrators protesting over the shooting outside a federal building in the Minneapolis area. 

Tensions in the state remain high as ICE continues its operations. It has surged as many as 3,000 federal agents to the state, outnumbering police officers in Minneapolis — the epicenter of the operation — by more than five to one.³ President Trump has threatened to use the Insurrection Act to “put an end” to the protests in the state, and the Justice Department has opened an investigation into Democratic leaders over allegedly impeding operations.⁴ Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union has lodged a lawsuit alleging that ICE has frequently detained citizens and those with legal migration status and made arrests based on nothing more than perceived ethnicity in Minnesota.⁵ On 16 January, a federal judge restricted ICE’s response to peaceful and unobstructive demonstrators, citing a pattern of misconduct, though an appeals court blocked the ruling days later.⁶

Demonstrations during ICE operations are much more likely to see confrontations

Since the beginning of the Trump administration’s migration crackdown across the United States, ACLED has recorded more than 7,700 pro-migration demonstrations in the country. Confrontations between demonstrators and law enforcement — including physical violence, forceful dispersals, and arrests — have taken place at roughly 3% of these demonstrations. Though Minneapolis has seen the highest rates of confrontation of any major ICE operation so far, ACLED data show that it fits a wider pattern: Physical confrontations at pro-migration protests are more than four times as likely in states where ICE is conducting major operations. 

Metro Surge is the latest in a series of ICE operations that have been increasingly aggressive and violent (see graph below). Time and again, pro-migration demonstrations have spiked dramatically in the areas where ICE conducts operations, as people react to raids and arrests taking place within their communities. These surges in demonstration activity also heighten tensions between demonstrators and law enforcement, especially during larger operations that cause greater local disruption through raids and arrests.

While demonstrations during relatively small operations in North Carolina and Louisiana remained entirely peaceful with minimal police intervention, longer-lasting ICE operations with a higher number of arrests in California and Illinois saw particularly elevated levels of physical confrontation. In California, demonstrations surged in early June 2025 — shortly thereafter, Trump deployed the National Guard and the Marines to the state, marking a dramatic escalation of tensions not seen since the Black Lives Matter movement. Partially for this reason, these demonstrations saw a massive spike in physical confrontations between demonstrators and police, particularly in Los Angeles County, where more than one in 10 demonstrations saw violence from demonstrators, and over one in five saw physical police intervention. Similarly, during ICE’s two-month Operation Midway Blitz in Illinois, which began in September 2025,  over 14% saw physical police intervention, though demonstrators engaged in significantly lower levels of violence.

These ICE operations are the result of the Trump administration making its migration crackdown a central priority, and the administration’s fiscal spending indicates that it has no plans of deviating from this path. In mid-2025, ICE received a massive budgetary windfall, including a $75 billion supplement to be spent over the next four years, making it the highest-funded law enforcement agency in the United States, and reflecting its central significance to the Trump administration’s agenda.⁷ 

In addition to cracking down on migration, these operations also serve to target Democrat-led states that have instituted “sanctuary” policies that limit their cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. On 21 January, the DHS cited Governor Janet Mills' sanctuary policies as creating the need for its next operation, “Catch of the Day,” in Maine.⁸ With Trump showing no signs of backing down on his efforts to conduct major immigration operations, ACLED data and these latest violent incidents in Minnesota paint a picture of what the future may hold as ICE operations continue. 

Visuals produced by Ciro Murillo.