Minnesota, Minneapolis and St. Paul sue DHS over federal agent surge

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, joined by the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, announced a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, alleging unconstitutional conduct tied to a large-scale deployment of federal law enforcement agents across the state.

The announcement was made Monday during a press conference in Minneapolis. Ellison said the lawsuit alleges that DHS actions violate the U.S. Constitution, federal law, and state sovereignty, citing warrantless arrests, excessive force, and the targeting of schools, places of worship, courts, and other sensitive locations.

Ellison said the state is alleging violations of the Tenth Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act, arguing that DHS actions have disrupted schools, overwhelmed local law enforcement, and caused economic harm.

He said multiple school districts shifted to remote learning, businesses closed or reduced operations, and police departments were forced to divert resources to respond to incidents involving federal agents.

The lawsuit also references the January 7, 2026, fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good during an encounter involving ICE agents in Minneapolis. Ellison said the shooting os part of a broader pattern of excessive and unlawful conduct by federal agents operating in the state.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said the federal presence amounts to unconstitutional behavior rather than routine immigration enforcement.

Frey said local police resources have been stretched thin as the city responds to incidents involving ICE operations, adding that schools, businesses, and healthcare access have been disrupted by fear among residents.

State and city officials argue that Minnesota is being singled out for political reasons. Ellison and Frey said the federal government’s actions are not driven by public safety concerns, noting that crime has declined in Minneapolis and that Minnesota’s non-citizen population is below the national average.

Full statements from Minnesota attorney general and Minneapolis mayor

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison

We have come together, and we are here to announce a lawsuit we are filing against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to end the unlawful, unprecedented surge of federal law enforcement agents into Minnesota, because this has to stop. It just has to stop.

We allege that the obvious targeting of Minnesota for our diversity, for our democracy, and for our differences of opinion with the federal government is a violation of the Constitution and of federal law.

We allege that the surge’s reckless impact on our schools and on our local law enforcement is a violation of the Tenth Amendment and the sovereign authority that the Constitution grants to states.

We allege that DHS’s use of excessive and lethal force, their warrantless and racist arrests, and their targeting of our courts, our churches, houses of worship, and schools are violations of the Administrative Procedure Act as arbitrary and capricious federal actions, and we ask that the courts end the surge of thousands of DHS agents into Minnesota.

We ask the court to end DHS’s unlawful behaviors in our state — the intimidation, the threats, the violence. We ask the courts to end the tactics used at our places of worship, our schools, our courts, our marketplaces, our hospitals, and even funeral homes.

The deployment of thousands of armed DHS agents into Minnesota has done our state serious harm. This is, in essence, a federal invasion of the Twin Cities and Minnesota, and it must stop.

DHS agents have sown chaos and terror across the metropolitan area and in cities across the state of Minnesota. Schools have gone into lockdown. Entire districts have had to cancel in-person school for tens of thousands of students to ensure safety and offer online education because of students’ and parents’ fear of coming into schools.

Local businesses are struggling. Revenues are down. Some retail stores, daycares, and restaurants have actually closed because people are afraid to go out and do their shopping — whether they are immigrants or citizens of many generations.

This surge has made us less safe. Thousands of poorly trained, aggressive, and armed agents of the federal government have rolled into our communities and overwhelmed our local police departments. Law enforcement agencies should be focused on public safety, but instead many are dealing with the aftermath of DHS agents’ chaos and violence.

Minneapolis has had to respond to more than 20 ICE-related incidents, including witnesses seeing people being pulled into unmarked vehicles by men in masks, or ICE abandoning people in the street with detained individuals still inside vehicles. This is an unlawful commandeering of police resources.

In just two days, responding to the chaos ICE has caused the city two billion dollars in law enforcement overtime expenses.

I wish I could stop there, but I can’t, because these poorly trained, aggressive, and armed agents of the federal state have terrorized Minnesota with widespread unlawful conduct. They are making unconstitutional arrests and using excessive force.

DHS agents have barged into restaurants asking to access secure areas, and when asked to present a warrant — which is required by law — they respond, “We don’t need one.”

DHS agents have arrested peaceful bystanders. They have fired chemical irritants at people obeying lawful orders while exercising their First Amendment rights. They have even done so at some of our most sensitive places, like Roosevelt High School here in Minneapolis.

They have detained law-abiding citizens, leaving them handcuffed for hours just because of the color of their skin, what they are wearing, or because they speak English with an accent.

And on January 7, 2026, a DHS agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, leaving her children without a mother and her six-year-old son without either parent.

This has to stop. It never should have started. These agents have no good reason to be here.

Minnesota’s non-citizen immigrant population is just one and a half percent, which is half the national average. Our state’s percentage is lower than Utah’s, Texas’s, and Florida’s — but none of those states have thousands of federal agents swarming their streets or harming their people.

The administration says they are focused on finding criminals — the “worst of the worst,” they say — but many of the people DHS is arresting in Minnesota have no criminal history.

In 2025, 93 percent of the people arrested by ICE had no violent criminal history. Sixty-five percent had no criminal convictions at all. Randomly stopping people in the street because of their skin color is not what the public expects or wants, and it is not doing anything to improve public safety.

I heard the administration talk about fraud — no, not the 43 fraud convictions the President has, or the $43 million fraudsters the President has pardoned — but instead claiming ICE is here to look for fraud.

We work with the federal government all the time, and if the federal government wants to help us with forensic accountants, we are open to that conversation. But these ICE agents, engaged in the behavior they are engaged in, are not helping public safety at all.

Immigration enforcement agents are not trained to investigate fraud, and randomly stopping people in the street because you don’t like their accent is not going to stop fraud.

Enforcing federal immigration law and fighting fraud are just pretexts for this surge. The real reason is no secret: Donald Trump and his administration have been targeting people, cities, and states that don’t agree with them politically.

He has singled out Minnesota countless times. He has called us corrupt and crooked. He has attacked our funding to the tune of billions of dollars, which we are challenging — and we fought back, of course. He has attacked programs Minnesotans rely on and tried to shut them down — programs that people pay taxes for. And he has attacked Minnesotans with despicable, racist, xenophobic language.

The truth is Donald Trump doesn’t seem to like our state very much — but what’s that about?

He doesn’t like our best-in-the-nation safe and secure elections, and sometimes he doesn’t like who we choose in them. Just last week, Trump claimed that he won Minnesota three times, when in fact he has never won Minnesota.

He doesn’t like how we take care of each other, or how we make sure our kids have enough to eat. He doesn’t like the strength that immigrant communities bring to our state, and he doesn’t seem to like that we protect our neighbors no matter where they were born.

The Trump administration’s decision to target Minnesota and the Twin Cities is motivated by a desire to retaliate against Trump’s perceived political opponents — the people of the state of Minnesota and the Twin Cities — rather than any good-faith concerns about immigration enforcement, public safety, or law enforcement.

In conclusion, I didn’t have the pleasure or benefit of knowing Renee Nicole Good, but her friends and family knew her as someone who was kind, someone who loved her family deeply, and someone willing to stand up for her neighbors. That sounds like the Minnesota I know.

The administration wants to paint false political narratives about us, but we know who we are, and we know our rights.

The Constitution gives Minnesota the sovereign authority to protect the health and well-being of every single person who lives within our borders. The Constitution gives us the right to vote for who we want, pray however we want, and be whoever we want, without fear of being racially profiled, assaulted, or killed in our own communities.

We are going to defend those rights, because as much as they would like to believe it, DHS is not above the law — and the people of Minnesota are certainly not beneath it.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey

These are not normal times, and the response we are asking for from the judicial system and the courts requires us to file suit at this particular moment.

What we are seeing now is not normal immigration enforcement. We are not asking ICE not to do ICE things. We are asking the federal government to stop the unconstitutional conduct that is invading our streets each and every day.

You’ve seen the videos. At times, there are as many as 50 agents arresting one person. The scale is wildly disproportionate, and it has nothing to do with keeping people safe.

Let’s be clear: the stated reason of this federal government for bringing in this full invasion of ICE and Border Control is not safety. By the way, crime is down in virtually every category and in virtually every neighborhood of this city.

If this were about fraud, you would see an invasion, perhaps, of accountants — but that’s not what you see. What you see is people being indiscriminately taken off our streets.

Discrimination only takes place to the extent that a determination has been made that somebody is Somali or Latino, or at least looks that way, and then there is virtually no discrimination thereafter.

You cannot indiscriminately take people off our streets — American citizens off our streets. You cannot drag pregnant women through the snow. You are not allowed to take teenagers out of their cars and detain them when they are, in fact, American citizens. That is against the law in every state. That is against the United States Constitution.

And we are feeling the impact here in Minneapolis. Schools have closed. People are afraid to go to work, shop, or seek medical care. 911 calls are up. Police resources are indeed stretched thin.

We have approximately 600 officers in the City of Minneapolis. Mayor Her has approximately 600 officers in the City of St. Paul. The number of ICE and Border Control agents is now in the thousands — they are in the thousands.

If the goal were immigration enforcement, if the goal were simply to look for people who are undocumented, Minneapolis and St. Paul would not be the place you would go. There are countless more people who are undocumented in Florida, Texas, and Utah. Why are they in these smaller cities in the middle of the Midwest?

The answer is very clear: it is politics. Florida, Texas, and Utah are Republican states. The reason Minnesota and Minneapolis are being targeted is because we have a Democratic governor, a Democratic attorney general, and Democratic mayors.

We are doing everything possible to keep our cities safe during this unprecedented time. At the same time, our police officers are tired. We have seen substantial damage because we are now having to pay a lot of overtime.

Millions of dollars of emergency overtime for law enforcement. Emergency operations have been activated across city and state agencies, pulling focus from the daily core services we are tasked with providing.

Local police officers are being diverted from the very work that we need them to be doing. And small businesses are losing significant revenue, with some worrying they may not survive at all.

People are scared to take their kids to school or daycare, to go to work. They are worried about paying rent.

There is no doubt in my mind that the actions the federal government is taking are not just mean-spirited — they are unconstitutional — and every one of us needs to be standing up.

Just last week, a group of the city’s public works employees were stopped by ICE agents. Three of the four employees were not white. ICE agents asked to see the IDs of the three non-white employees and did not even ask the white employee for identification.

Minneapolis is being targeted because we stand up for our neighbors and welcome immigrants, because we believe in the law — and frankly, because we are a blue city in a blue state.

Donald Trump should know this: as long as federal agents are in our city acting unconstitutionally against our neighbors, we will continue to push back with everything we have.

We are not victims in the City of Minneapolis. We have heroes who are standing up for each other and standing by the neighbors they love.

And one thing I can tell you for certain is this: we are not backing down. We don’t retreat in Minneapolis. We don’t back down in Minnesota.

We stand up against bullies. And right now, what we are asking for is an intervention from the court to push back on this unconstitutional conduct — pure and simple.

The post Minnesota, Minneapolis and St. Paul sue DHS over federal agent surge appeared first on BNO News.

Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief