The U.S. Department of Homeland Security confirmed Thursday that federal immigration agents have arrested five Somali residents, six Mexican residents and one El Salvador resident during “Operation Metro Surge” in the Twin Cities.
The agency issued a news release saying that the arrestees had criminal records and blaming Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for local sanctuary policies. But some local immigration attorneys say law-abiding immigrants are being swept up in the arrests.
Immigrant advocacy groups told Sahan Journal that while they don’t have exact numbers, they believe, based on family and eyewitness accounts, that there have been more people arrested in Minnesota this week than the 12 reported by DHS.
“Every time ICE [the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] begins an operation and focuses their attention on a certain city, they plan to make as many arrests as possible,” said Erika Zurawski, a member of the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee.
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Immigration agents have been seen making arrests on the streets primarily in south Minneapolis and Richfield, Zurawski said. Agents typically arrive in two to three vehicles and are usually seen wearing face masks and vests that read “POLICE.”
Local law enforcement don’t wear face masks and their vehicles are marked with clear signage with their city or county’s name, she said.
‘They’ve done nothing wrong’
Local immigration attorneys tell Sahan Journal they’ve received a handful of new clients this week as a direct result of the ICE operation targeting Somali residents.
The clients fall into two categories:
- They immigrated to the United States within the last few years and are not U.S. citizens, but filed official paperwork with the government to receive asylum, and are awaiting a final decision.
- They’ve been in the country for a long time and are not U.S. citizens, but are here legally under other immigration status, such as green cards. However, they have a prior deportation order from several years ago for a number of reasons, including a criminal conviction.
David Wilson, a Minneapolis-based attorney, said he took on two new clients this week who already have to check in with ICE on a periodic basis as part of their ongoing asylum cases. Both were detained during their check-ins this week, Wilson said.
Credit: Aaron Nesheim | Sahan Journal
“They were compliant,” Wilson said. “They were doing the check-ins. They don’t have any criminal history. They’ve both been going to court. They’ve both been submitting their documents. They were in the queue waiting for a trial date.”
On Thursday, the federal Department of Homeland Security wrote in a statement that the 12 people arrested in the Twin Cities this week represented “the worst of the worst,” including “child sex offenders, domestic abusers, and violent gang members.” Wilson, however, opined that the brunt of people experiencing fallout from the Twin Cities operation are pawns in a political dispute between Trump and Minnesota Democrats.
“These are real people living real lives,” Wilson said of many other ICE detainees. “They’ve done nothing wrong but being from the wrong country at a time when the president gets mad.”
Abdi Jabane, another Minneapolis immigration attorney, said he’s obtained one new client who was swept up in ICE activity this week. The client, who is a Somali man from Ethiopia, came to the United States within the last two years and has a pending asylum application. Jabane said he was still researching how and why this client was arrested, but added that the client was also attending regular check-ins with ICE.
Wilson and Jabane said they have other Somali clients who were questioned by ICE this week but weren’t arrested.
One of Jabane’s clients was afraid to attend his regular check-in with ICE this week.
“He was terrified,” Jabane said. “He went and was not detained.”
Jabane implored all asylum seekers to continue attending their check-ins with ICE.
“I know ICE now is everywhere,” he said. “Stay calm, go to work and go to school. If you are detained, you will still have the right to a hearing and to a lawyer to represent your case.”
He also told people to carry any of their necessary immigration papers on them at all times in case they are questioned by ICE without notice.
“Gather your documents and be ready,” he said. “Do not listen to fear, do not listen to rumors. Stay calm and stay strong.”
One of Wilson’s clients is a female Somali truck driver from the Twin Cities who was questioned by ICE over the weekend. She was arrested, detained and then released several weeks ago as she drove through a U.S. Customs and Border Protection checkpoint in Arizona.
Years ago, she was jailed and an immigration judge ordered her deportation. But her attorneys then successfully argued to prevent deportation to her home country because “she would be killed almost instantly if she returned to Somalia,” Wilson said.
Last month after she was arrested by ICE in Arizona, Wilson and his colleague successfully filed a habeas corpus motion, which argues that a person can’t be detained for long periods of time while the likelihood of deporting them remains uncertain. This led to her release from immigration detention.
Then, over the weekend, ICE agents visited the woman’s Twin Cities home and attempted to deport her, Wilson said. She called Wilson’s law office, and an attorney talked the ICE agents out of arresting her, Wilson said.
“It’s only because we had filed and already won [her habeas case] that they were willing to listen to the phone call from the attorney saying, ‘You really don’t want to do this again; we just did this 45 days ago,’” Wilson said. “No one had really actually screened whether she should have been taken into custody, because if they looked they would have seen that they had just lost this issue in federal court.”
Wilson said it’s likely that the ICE agents reportedly seen idling around Somali malls, homes and businesses this week are targeting immigrants with deportation and withholding orders from several years ago.
“If people have final orders [of removal], they might not have any check-ins anytime soon,” Wilson said. “So [ICE] goes out looking for them.”
Local immigration attorneys said such immigrants can be hard to deport because the federal government has already unsuccessfully tried to deport them, and the immigrants’ attorneys likely already successfully argued that their clients would immediately face danger if they were sent to their home countries.
“That doesn’t mean the government can’t send you somewhere else,” Wilson said, noting that East African countries like Uganda and Rwanda have agreed with the Trump administration to take detainees from other African countries.
Community, faith leaders show support
Community members and leaders, politicians and faith leaders have been mobilizing throughout the week to support the Somali community and call out the immigration enforcement.
More than 100 people rallied Thursday outside the Target store on E. Lake Street in Minneapolis to demand that Target prohibit ICE from using their parking lots to mobilize.
Photos and videos recorded by immigrant advocacy watch patrols showed ICE agents using the Minneapolis Target parking lot and one in Richfield to congregate, said Luis Argueta, communications director at Unidos MN, a statewide immigrant advocacy group.
“We know history will teach Target and other companies that darkness does not prevail,” said Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR-MN.
Target issued a written statement to Sahan Journal denying any cooperation with ICE.
“These claims are entirely baseless,” said the statement. “We have no cooperative agreements in place with ICE.”
Suleiman Adan, CAIR-MN’s deputy director, said his group recently organized a statewide task force that’s grown to more than 500 members to handle reports of ICE enforcement against Somali residents.
Task force members operate in cities with large Somali populations, including St. Cloud and Moorhead, and in neighborhoods like Cedar-Riverside in Minneapolis.
About 50 people, mostly Minneapolis residents, attended a training session Thursday evening at Brian Coyle Neighborhood Center to prepare for ICE activity in Cedar-Riverside.
“They’re just targeting a new group of people and we have to stand up against it as a community, because they have no right to say who doesn’t belong on stolen land,” said Nick Estes, one of the attendees.
Minnesota is home to the largest Somali population in the country, with 80,000 residents, according to Minnesota Compass. About 4,200 are not U.S. citizens, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, but many are green-card holders. Some are undocumented or have temporary protected status (TPS); President Donald Trump announced in late November that he plans to cancel TPS for Somali residents.
A citywide prayer was also hosted Thursday morning at the Brian Coyle Neighborhood Center in Cedar-Riverside to show support for the Somali community. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said at the prayer that his department has seen a heightened sense of fear in the Somali community in the past few days, but reaffirmed his commitment to support them.
At a news conference hosted in the Umatul Islam Center mosque on Thursday, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said Trump’s derogatory remarks about the Somali community are harmful. Faith leaders across different religions and Somali community leaders in attendance also denounced the ICE operation.
“The focus needs to be on who we are as a people and what we value as Americans,” Frey said.
He issued an executive order Wednesday to create signage for businesses and property owners that show support for immigrants, and that mark their properties as off-limits for federal immigration actions. He also prohibited federal, state and local agencies from using city-owned parking lots, garages, ramps and vacant lots for federal immigration actions.
“Every one of us needs to be standing up against this hateful rhetoric because, indeed, when you come for one of us, you come for all of us,” Frey said.
