Operation Metro Surge's impact — and how Eden Prairie residents are responding

Thousands of federal immigration agents were deployed to Minnesota in recent months as part of Operation Metro Surge, an enforcement campaign ushered in by the Trump administration that reshaped daily life across the Twin Cities — including in Eden Prairie.

Asked how to describe the impact of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) presence in the metro area, Eden Prairie resident and Somali community member Fadumo Hassan answered with another question.

“Where do we even begin?”

Start of Operation Metro Surge

According to the Star Tribune, Operation Metro Surge has been called the “largest immigration effort ever” and has turned the Twin Cities into the nucleus of immigration enforcement activity in the U.S.

White House border czar Tom Homan announced the end of the operation Feb. 12 and said federal agents would draw down, according to the Star Tribune. As of Wednesday, the Sahan Journal reported that there are roughly 400 ICE agents still in Minnesota.

Operation Metro Surge began in December soon after President Donald Trump made numerous racist and inflammatory remarks about Minnesota’s Somali community, including calling them “garbage,” saying they do “nothing but complain” and that he does not want them in the U.S., according to reporting from The New York Times.

What followed was wide-reaching.

Since the beginning of the operation, over 4,000 federal agents were deployed to Minnesota and arrested around 4,000 immigrants in the Twin Cities, according to federal officials.

In that time, agents have shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two Minneapolis residents; shot and wounded a North Minneapolis Venezuelan man after a traffic stop; detained legal immigrants, including children, and shipped them across the country; racially profiled residents; deployed tear gas on public school property; caused numerous school districts across the metro, including Minneapolis, St. Paul, Robbinsdale and Bloomington, to start offering online schooling due to heightened ICE presence; caused absenteeism to skyrocket in schools due to the influx of agents, with one Minneapolis charter school reporting attendance dropping below 50%; caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to Minneapolis’ economy; and sowed fear into communities that will last long after the final federal agent leaves.

“The anxiety, the trauma, this is not something that is going to end, even if the last person of ICE agents leave this day,” Hassan said. “This is something that will stay with these kids, with these families, like myself.”

Effects on Eden Prairie

Operation Metro Surge has also had a direct impact on Eden Prairie.

ICE has detained a man with no criminal record who is seeking asylum in the U.S.; federal agents also threw a 13-year-old boy to the ground and struck him before detaining his father; Eden Prairie police have responded to numerous calls involving individuals thought to be immigration enforcement agents; businesses in the city have felt the financial effects of Operation Metro Surge and have seen employees missing work out of fears for their safety; and ICE presence in the area prompted what is thought to be upwards of 1,000 Eden Prairie High School students to walk out.

Eden Prairie Mayor Ron Case said Operation Metro Surge has dealt an array of social and economic damage to the city in its wake. He cited loss of job income from residents unable to work, evictions, increased demand for rental assistance and food insecurity, and said Eden Prairie Schools has seen a “loss of students which could have a financial impact on the city.”

“It’s not over, because there’s damage to all kinds of relationships, there’s damage to our immigrant community, there’s damage to our businesses,” Case said during a phone call Feb. 12, the same day Homan announced the drawdown.

Dirk Tedmon, executive director of marketing and communications for EP Schools, said in an email statement to Eden Prairie Local News that the district has “seen an increase in transfers to EP Online for this term.” Grace Becker, director of marketing and communications for the district, later said in an email that EP Schools’ attendance rates are “in line with what we’ve seen in previous school years” and administrators are not expecting any enrollment-based funding impacts.

Case said that with news of the drawdown, the city is focusing on “damage control” and working with People Reaching Out to People (PROP) and the state to assist Eden Prairie residents. Twin Cities suburban mayors, including Case, gathered at the Minnesota State Capitol on Feb. 19 to request municipal aid as suburbs begin working toward recovery.

Despite news of Operation Metro Surge’s announced end, Hennepin County officials and residents remain doubtful, and some deny it altogether.

“We receive the news of the alleged end of Operation Metro Surge with some skepticism,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a statement Feb. 12, the same day as Homan’s announcement of the drawdown. “Questions should be asked and answered about the exact nature of the cooperation with ICE supposedly promised by local and state officials, who were already providing all information and cooperation required by law.”

An Eden Prairie resident who is volunteering with communities affected by ICE and who asked to remain anonymous to maintain the safety of the people they help said they are still seeing federal agent activity despite the drawdown announcement.

“As far as I know, even with the announcement of a drawdown, we have (not) seen any evidence of this,” the anonymous resident wrote in a text message Monday. “There is activity right now (at the time of this message) that they are monitoring.”

Community efforts amid ICE

Even with the extensive damage Operation Metro Surge has done to Eden Prairie and the broader Twin Cities, residents have stepped up since December to protect their neighbors and provide comfort and security to the city’s Somali and Latino communities, who they say have been most affected by ICE activity.

Nicki Cermak, an Eden Prairie resident, has been part of a network of volunteers who wait at school bus stops to help children safely get on and off buses since EP Schools’ winter break in December.

She said she started signing up for bus stop shifts because she wanted to help her neighbors during escalating ICE activity. Cermak said she had heard from parents who were too afraid to send their children to school because they were anxious about waiting at bus stops, which strengthened her resolve to volunteer.

“Oftentimes, with the parents at the bus stop, it’s just having a presence there that makes them feel more comfortable to get their kids on or off the bus,” Cermak said.

One moment during a bus stop shift has stuck with Cermak. A boy asked if she was going to keep him safe and if she could stand next to him while his friend got off the bus.

Cermak said she made it back home before completely losing it.

She added that ICE presence in Eden Prairie has been exhausting on all fronts and that her husband is terrified something will happen to her while she volunteers at the bus stop, even though she is simply trying to help vulnerable members of the community.

“I shouldn’t have to be scared to stand on a bus stop with kids,” Cermak said.

Even with Homan’s drawdown announcement, Cermak said volunteers are still at bus stops, and the need has increased.

“… We still have people at bus stops and will continue to do so until the vulnerable community lets us know that they no longer feel our presence is necessary,” Cermak said in a text message Monday. “We have actually added bus stops in the last few weeks as some parents with high schoolers or at new stops have requested assistance.”

Ann K., another resident who has volunteered at bus stops since January and asked for partial anonymity to protect the network, said she started helping because she could not watch what was happening in the community anymore.

“I felt that not doing anything is being complicit and I just couldn’t do that anymore,” Ann K. said. “I felt that I needed to participate in some way, and I have kids in the Eden Prairie Schools, and I just was very motivated by making sure that kids can get to school.”

She said that during her first shift she witnessed an ICE pickup that made everything seem “very real.”

“You hear about it happening, but then seeing it and bearing witness, it was just very, I mean, I felt all the emotions,” Ann K. said. “I felt rage, I felt helplessness, I have felt just confusion and disbelief.”

After seeing the ICE pickup during her first day volunteering and witnessing the intensity with fellow residents, Ann K. said she drove home struck by the juxtaposition of how immigration enforcement was affecting different communities in Eden Prairie. On her drive home, she said people not far from the bus stop where she had just volunteered were “completely oblivious to the pain and fear that our neighbors are feeling.”

“I just felt even more resolved to make sure that everyone in our town knows that we are all neighbors, and … I don’t want there to be two sides of Eden Prairie,” Ann K. said. “… We are one community, and I do think that we care about each other, and it’s important when people are feeling afraid that they know that they are cared for and that they are all neighbors (and) that we are all part of this community.”

This volunteer network also helps in other ways, including driving people in targeted communities to places they need to go, such as work, medical appointments, PROP or job interviews.

The anonymous volunteer said they have been coordinating rides for community members who are afraid to drive alone since the beginning of the year. They added that they, along with other residents, tried to start helping before the holidays by bringing groceries to people who were afraid to leave their homes, but the greatest need turned out to be driving services.

The initiative quickly picked up steam, and the anonymous community member said people reach out every day — both individuals who want to drive and those who need rides. They added that the volunteer effort has become their “new, full-time unpaid job” because of how quickly it has grown.

“I have a network right now that continues to grow of 50-plus drivers who get up at all hours of the day and they drive people, vulnerable members of our community, back and forth to work,” the anonymous volunteer said. “Sometimes they’re picking up at four in the morning, other times they’re picking up at 10 at night, and then all hours in between.”

The anonymous community member also wrote in a text message earlier this month that the volunteer network of drivers is going strong and is still growing, adding that everyone is “in this for the long haul.”

An overarching theme among the volunteers was the desire to help vulnerable residents targeted by federal agents, the importance of using one’s privilege, and the need to avoid feeling complicit in immigration enforcement activity.

“Regardless of what they tell you, people who have the paperwork to be here work at almost every business that we frequent in this city, and there are workers that are terrified to go to work, and that’s a tragedy,” Cermak said. “I have deer in my neighborhood that are less afraid to be out in the community than people in these vulnerable communities are, and that’s absolutely horrific.”

Despite the damage caused by Operation Metro Surge, the volunteers noted the outstanding ways Eden Prairie has come together to support its neighbors in the midst of turmoil throughout the Twin Cities.

“A common phrase that people tell me when I’m talking to them is that ‘We are not criminals.’ This is what they’re saying to me,” the anonymous resident said. “They say, ‘… We’re just trying to feed our families and we’re just trying to work, and I wish that people would stop thinking that we’re criminals.’ … That’s the common theme that I hear from everybody, and it’s so heartbreaking. So I think we need to be doing this, and I’m really encouraged by what I’m seeing from the community. I think it’s so important because this is a positive movement that I hope gains traction that our political leaders will pay attention to.”

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