A Human Rights Watch report says the Minneapolis and St. Paul immigration crackdown known as Operation Metro Surge more than doubled calls to a state mental-health helpline, as healthcare disruptions, school attendance drops, and reports of detentions and prof
For families in the Twin Cities, the damage from the immigration crackdown didn’t end when federal agents pulled back. Months later. Human Rights Watch says the aftershocks are still showing up in places where people least expect them—phone lines for suicide prevention and waiting rooms where patients simply stop coming.
The report, published Thursday, documents abuses over the multi-month siege of Minneapolis and St. Paul tied to a campaign described by Trump administration officials as the largest immigration enforcement operation in history. It began in December and stretched into February. with thousands of officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Border Patrol conducting roving arrest operations throughout the area.
Among the most striking accounts are those involving mental health providers. Human Rights Watch reports that the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Minnesota saw a 120 percent increase in calls during Operation Metro Surge. The report also says there was a “significant increase” in the number of people struggling with suicidal thoughts or actions during the crackdown.
The sharpest warning came through at least one medical provider’s description of what detention did to teenagers. The report says the provider knew of at least three teenagers who attempted to take their own life after their parents were detained. with one of the adolescents doing so on a “frequent” basis.
“People that we talked with expressed emotions of exhaustion. fear. frustration. immense stress. ” Reagan Williams. the author of the Human Rights Watch report. said. “They expressed particular concerns for children. medical providers in particular. the impact of missing school. of knowing violence is happening in their communities — for immigrant children and children of color. the fear of having a parent taken. of themselves being taken.”.
Williams said the goal was to bring light to the full scope of harm—“not only the harm that we saw in terms of violence in the streets. in terms of abusive detentions. ” but also what those events did to everyday life: “the impact it had on people’s ability to leave their homes. to go to doctor. to go to school. to go to work.”.
By the time Williams arrived in the Twin Cities, she had expected to focus on the most visible clashes captured in viral videos. The interviews and evidence pushed her to understand that the crackdown’s reach went farther than street-level violence.
The report says violence and racial profiling caused many Minnesotans to forgo medical care. Human Rights Watch describes a pattern that is both immediate and blunt: the day after Minnesota residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed by federal agents. nearly a third of one healthcare provider’s patients—mostly Somali or Spanish-speaking immigrants—did not show up for pre-scheduled appointments. Another provider told the report the number of in-person visits at their office dropped by as much as 50 percent.
Operation Metro Surge produced more than arrests and injuries. Human Rights Watch says it also included free speech violations and unlawful detentions. and it describes the overall campaign as a combination of lethal violence and targeting that left residents afraid to move through ordinary routines.
The scale of enforcement was large. More than 4,000 immigrants were arrested during Metro Surge. At roughly 100 arrests per day, the report says it was the highest per capita arrest rate in the country, and it adds that 64 percent of immigrants arrested in the campaign had no criminal record.
The report also says racial profiling was woven into daily life. It quotes language from the report describing how. in Minnesota. “US citizens and immigrants alike were racially profiled in the ordinary course of their day — approached by federal agents while driving. while at work. or while shoveling snow.” It says residents of Somali and Latin American descent were “notably targeted. ” despite the report’s finding that the majority of those communities are U.S. citizens or have green cards.
Even when people were not detained, the report describes a kind of public disruption that spread into schools. Human Rights Watch says attendance in one Minnesota school district dropped by nearly a third during the operation. It also reports at least 14 incidents of immigration enforcement at or near campuses. including the arrest of a preschool teacher. a special education staff member. and a parent at a school bus stop.
One superintendent’s message was blunt. If I told you every time ICE was near a school, you’d stop reading my messages, the superintendent told Human Rights Watch.
The report also details the legal toll of detention and the scope of who got caught in the dragnet. A hotline run by the National Lawyers Guild recorded 524 cases of U.S. citizens detained during the surge, though the figure is believed to be a significant undercount. A survey by the U.S. Immigration Policy Center at the University of California. San Diego earlier this year found that nearly a third of Minneapolis residents experienced an interaction with federal agents. and that nearly half of those interactions occurred “at or near a school. healthcare facility. childcare facility. courthouse. or place of worship.”.
The financial blow has been documented too. The report says it follows a fresh tally from Minneapolis officials announced last week estimating that Metro Surge cost the city nearly $700 million. It adds that a nonprofit serving tenants in Minnesota described the economic fallout as a “crisis. ” with an 85 percent increase in people seeking rent payment assistance.
Human Rights Watch is now urging federal and congressional action. It is calling for an overhaul of the Department of Homeland Security. which oversees ICE and Border Patrol; congressional investigations into the actions of officials involved in the operation; legislation to prohibit immigration arrests at sensitive locations such as schools and hospitals; and additional reforms.
So far, the report says, accountability has been scarce. It states that “The many abuses committed by federal agencies during Operation Metro Surge have so far been met with near-total impunity.”
In the months after the arrests and the viral videos, the calls to a suicide helpline more than doubled—an outcome the report places not in the category of distant political fallout, but in the daily lives of people trying to keep their children safe and their families intact.
ICE Operation Metro Surge Minneapolis St. Paul Human Rights Watch mental health suicide helpline National Alliance on Mental Illness Immigration and Customs Enforcement U.S. Border Patrol detentions racial profiling schools Minneapolis cost $700 million