Federal agents watch for protesters outside an ICE facility in Minneapolis following the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an ICE agent, January 9, 2026.Mostafa Bassim/Getty
The global NGO Human Rights Watch released a report Thursday alleging widespread human rights violations by the federal government during “Operation Metro Surge,” the massive ICE deployment in Minnesota this past winter in which ICE arbitrarily detained approximately 4,000 immigrants, the vast majority of whom had no domestic convictions, killing two US citizens and injuring, harassing, and surveilling others.
Researchers interviewed more than 130 people, including immigrants who spent weeks or months hiding, lawyers whose clients were affected, health care workers and educators.
Now, months after Operation Metro Surge, the report details the scale at which people are still putting their lives back together.
Calls to local suicide hotlines increased precipitously during Metro Surge, researchers learned.
“There is no amount of press coverage that could ever fully document the scale of the ripple effect of trauma that this has on the city of Minneapolis,” one resident told HRW. “And when these cameras go away, we’re still going to be here grieving and traumatized.” Calls to local suicide hotlines, the researchers learned, increased precipitously; in some cases, previously mentally healthy people became suicidal “because of the threat of being detained.” One medical provider told the researchers that ICE was “writing a recipe book” for PTSD.
Marcus Schmit, the executive director of the youth mental health organization NAMI Minnesota, called the ongoing mental health effects particularly acute for children living in neighborhoods “where friends are interrogated, assaulted, or taken away.”
“I’m terrified of being here because I don’t want that to happen to my dad again,” said a 7-year-old girl whose father was taken by ICE during a raid on their home in December. Her father, who was later released, said that his daughter sometimes begs him not to leave the house. Her mother, who was pregnant, did not leave the house for months after the raid, even for prenatal appointments.
Since Operation Metro Surge, ICE has continued raiding American cities. This month, Trump’s border czar Tom Homan threatened to raid New York City, saying he would send “more agents than you’ve ever seen before.” Some who protested during Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis, meanwhile, are still facing legal threats, as in the case of 15 Minneapolis protesters charged with felonies this week.
“The federal government sent hordes of masked, armed agents to grab people off the street, whisk them away in shackles, and abuse those who sought to bear witness,” said Reagan Williams, crisis and conflict researcher at Human Rights Watch. “National-level action is needed to ensure accountability, end ongoing abuses, remedy the harm, and prevent another crisis of this scale.”
