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Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul sued the Trump administration on Monday, seeking to block a massive federal immigration crackdown they say flooded the Twin Cities with armed agents, sparked fear and unrest, and overwhelmed state and local authorities, according to court documents.
The lawsuit names Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem, senior DHS officials, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), including ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons and Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, as well as federal agencies themselves.
“We’re here to announce a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security to end the illegal, unprecedented expansion of law enforcement in Minnesota,” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said during a news conference Monday. “We suspect that Minnesota’s apparent focus on our diversity, our democracy and our ideological differences with the federal government is a violation of the Constitution and federal law.”
Ellison said the deployment of thousands of armed and masked DHS agents to Minnesota has done “tremendous damage” to the state, calling for what he described as a “cooperative attack” on the Twin Cities and Minnesota to stop.
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Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul sued the Trump administration, seeking to block massive immigration operations led by ICE and DHS. (City of Minneapolis)
The plaintiffs accuse immigration agents of conducting military raids throughout the Twin Cities, including stopping schools and hospitals, engaging in racial profiling, warrantless and excessive force arrests, and local law enforcement, while claiming the operation was politically motivated retaliation rather than immigration enforcement.
“DHS agents have sown chaos and fear throughout this city,” Ellison said. “The schools are gone [into] the closure of the country. All districts have had to cancel school for tens of thousands of students to ensure safety and provide online education.”
“Local businesses are struggling,” he added. “Incomes are low, and some shops, kindergartens and restaurants have closed because people are afraid to go out.”
The indictment comes nearly a week after an ICE agent shot and killed a 37-year-old Minneapolis woman during a law enforcement operation in south Minneapolis. Federal officials said agents were trying to arrest the woman when the woman tried to use her car as a weapon to fight the police, prompting the ICE officer to fire in self-defense.
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Renee Nicole Good, moments before she was shot and killed by a federal agent in Minneapolis. (Courtesy of Fox News)
“On January 7, 2026, a DHS agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, her motherless children and her 6-year-old son without both parents,” Ellison said. “This has to stop … it should never have started.”
Ellison said the scope and scale of the federal operation has crippled public safety services and disrupted daily life in the Twin Cities.
The Mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, said this operation goes beyond traditional immigration practices and makes communities unsafe.
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Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey speaks to the media at City Hall on Jan. 9. (Aaron Lavinsky/Minnesota Star Tribune via Getty Images)
“What we’re seeing right now is not normal immigration enforcement,” Frey said. “The measure is not proportional, and it has nothing to do with keeping people safe.”
The Trump administration has pushed back hard on the case, DHS accusing Minnesota leaders of undermining public safety and obstructing federal law enforcement.
“Keith Ellison made it clear today that he is prioritizing politics over public safety,” said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “It’s truly amazing that the Left can miraculously rediscover the Tenth Amendment when they don’t want law enforcement officers to enforce federal law — which is a clear federal responsibility under Article I, Article II and the Constitution — and then go back to including all possible federal responsibilities when they return to power. Save us.”
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Federal agents fired pepper balls at protesters outside during an anti-ICE protest in Minneapolis on Jan. 11, 2026. (Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“Sanctuary politicians like Ellison are the reason DHS moved to Minnesota in the first place,” McLaughlin continued. “If he, Tim Walz, or Jacob Frey had just done their sworn duty to protect the people of Minnesota to end fraud and get criminals off the street — if they had worked with us to do it — we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place.”
McLaughlin cited many examples of illegal immigrants he says Minnesota leaders are protecting, including people convicted of rape, child sexual abuse, kidnapping, murder and other violent crimes, some with final removal orders from decades ago.
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Among them, he highlighted a man from Laos who he said was convicted of sleeping with a boy with a strong arm, serious sex crimes, many cases of kidnapping and fraud, burglary, possession of drugs and obstructing the operation of the law, who received a final removal order in March 2018.
McLaughlin said other examples include immigrant criminals from Laos, Guatemala, Somalia, Sudan, Burma and Sierra Leone, with convictions ranging from sexual assault and murder to DUI-related deaths, with the last removal orders dating back to August 1996.
