"Chairman Paul, Ranking Member Peters, members of the committee, I am Keith Ellison, Attorney General of Minnesota. 

Since early December, Minnesota has been the site of Operation Metro Surge—the largest single largest immigration-enforcement surge in U.S. history.    

The surge has caused real harm to our state, and it must end. 

Members of the committee, I respectfully ask you to exercise your oversight powers and do the following:  

1. Require ICE to provide a full, transparent accounting of everyone stopped, detained, arrested or deported from Minnesota during Operation Metro Surge. 
2. Require ICE to document the conditions of its detention facilities and to allow attorneys, healthcare professionals, clergy, and elected officials full access. 
3. Require the FBI to conduct investigations, in partnership with Minnesota, into the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and into every other use of excessive force. 
4. Require ICE to stop masking, stop racial profiling, and stop conducting warrantless searches. 

Finally, pass comprehensive immigration reform. The best time to have done so would have been 20 or 30 years ago. The next best time – is now. 

The one question any rational person might ask – is “why?” Because it really makes no sense. Every rationale the Administration has offered for this surge is a pretext. 

The government has said the purpose of the surge is to fight unauthorized immigration. Yet Minnesota ranks 28th among all states in the percentage of undocumented immigrants: Florida and Texas alone have nearly as many undocumented people as the entire population of Minnesota. 

The government has said the purpose of the surge is to fight fraud in government programs. I hate fraud, and my office and I are already fighting it: We have convicted 300 Medicaid fraudsters in the last seven years. 

The government did not surge forensic accountants into Minnesota. Instead, it sent 3,000 masked, armed men – who are now kicking in doors, demanding papers, and killing Minnesotans, not fighting fraud.     

The surge has hurt the fight against fraud. Because of it, a wave of experienced prosecutors have left the U.S. Attorney’s office in Minnesota, and the remaining staff are drowning under a flood of habeas corpus petitions.  

The government has also said the purpose of the surge is to fight violent crime and rid our streets of “the worst of the worst.” Yet violent crime rates in Minneapolis were falling before the surge. Furthermore, ICE’s own data shows that 77% of those it has detained in Minnesota have no criminal records at all. 

Notoriously, some of those detained have been children. Is five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos the worst of the worst? Or 10-year-old Elizabeth Zuña Caisaguano?   

The surge is contributing to violent crime: two of the three homicides committed in Minneapolis in 2026 have come at the hands of federal immigration agents. 

Recently, the government has said the purpose of the surge is to gain cooperation from state and local officials in immigration enforcement. But the Minnesota Department of Corrections already follows state law that requires Minnesota to notify federal authorities when of a non-citizen incarcerated for a felony.    

Second, under Minnesota law, no jail can keep someone incarcerated on an ICE detainer longer than they are otherwise legally allowed to incarcerate them. This is not unique to Minnesota: Several federal and state courts have reached a broad consensus that aligns with our law. 

So, after dismissing all the pretext, it’s clear: This surge is about what President Trump said it was about. In a Truth Social post on January 13, he wrote that “retribution and reckoning” was coming to Minnesota. This war on Minnesota is retribution — for our policies, our values, and how we vote — and it comes at great cost.  

It comes at the cost of the lives of two U.S. citizens: Renee Good, a poet and a mother, and Alex Pretti, a nurse who cared for veterans, both of whom died at the hands of immigration agents. 

It comes at the cost of shuttered businesses, disruptions in education for tens of thousands of children, and lasting harm to Minnesota’s economic prosperity and social cohesion. 

And it comes at the cost of our constitution.  

Under the Tenth Amendment, the federal government may not compel or coerce the states to enforce immigration law or any other federal government priorities. And under the First Amendment, the government may not stifle speech or restrict the right of peaceful assembly. Operation Metro Surge routinely violates both constitutional principles.  

Chair Paul, members of the committee – the people of Minnesota care deeply about the health, safety, and constitutional rights of their neighbors, and I have one final request from them, directed to the Administration: End the surge. Now. It has already gone too far. It must go no further."

The Official Website of Office of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison

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