Urgent messages began circulating Saturday morning in group chats tracking immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota.
Federal agents had cordoned off a house under construction in a Minneapolis suburb. Two men hunkered down on the partially built roof in subzero weather, refusing to come down. Some two dozen agents wearing masks shifted on their feet, looking cold.
Within minutes, immigrant rights activists began arriving by the dozen, armed with blankets, hand warmers and coffee, blowing whistles and yelling at agents. The hourslong standoff that followed became a marathon of endurance on one of the coldest days of the year in a state known for brutal winters.
“It was going to be a battle of willpower,” said Alex Falconer, a Democratic state representative, who was among the first demonstrators to arrive at the house in Chanhassen, west of Minneapolis.
Since the Trump administration deployed scores of immigration agents to Minnesota two weeks ago in the latest phase of its deportation push, activists have ramped up efforts to gum up the agents’ work and make them feel unwelcome.
The surge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers began the first week of December, as President Trump was railing against Somali immigrants, many of whom live in Minnesota and are U.S. citizens or legal residents. The Trump administration has described the Minnesota crackdown, which it calls Operation Metro Surge, as an effort to remove “vicious” criminals in a state where it says Democratic leaders have supported policies that encouraged illegal immigration.
The Department of Homeland Security said its agents had detained more than 670 people in Minnesota this month. The department has released the names of a relatively small number who had been convicted of violent crimes.
“Minnesota is safer with these thugs off their streets,” Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, has accused federal agents of racial profiling amid reports that many Somali Americans in the state had been detained or questioned in recent weeks.
“These chaotic operations are doing nothing to make us safer,” said Mr. Walz, a Democrat.
Over the past few days, Minnesotans have been rattled by a series of tense incidents involving immigration officials. Last week, federal agents took a 55-year-old U.S. citizen into custody for several hours after she confronted ICE officers during a pre-dawn raid in her neighborhood.
Later that day, federal agents tackled and detained a Somali immigrant who was on his lunch break near downtown Minneapolis, even as he repeatedly screamed that he was a U.S. citizen. The city’s mayor, Jacob Frey, released footage of the arrest, which he described as a violation of constitutional rights. His office confirmed that the detained man was, in fact, a U.S. citizen.
A day later, another tense confrontation unfolded as agents attempted to detain a Nigerian man who federal authorities said had remained in the United States after his student visa expired.
Agents approached the man as he sat in the back seat of a vehicle, officials said, and one agent climbed into the car. The man’s girlfriend, who was in the driver’s seat, drove off with the agent still in the car, officials said, setting off a pursuit by other agents along snowy roads. At one point, the cars collided.
The pair ultimately took the agent to a nearby police station, where the Nigerian man and his girlfriend, a U.S. citizen, were arrested. Both were later charged with assaulting a federal agent, a felony. It was not immediately clear whether they had retained lawyers.
The man’s girlfriend, Rekeya Frazier, 23, is the sister of Darnella Frazier, the woman who videotaped the killing of George Floyd in 2020, sparking a national reckoning over race. In a statement on Facebook, Darnella Frazier said that her sister and her sister’s boyfriend had panicked when confronted by ICE agents.
“My sister is not a criminal,” she wrote. “Why would she drive to the police station if she intentionally committed a crime? She was scared, as most of us would be.”
Minnesota immigration lawyers said in interviews that many of the people ICE had detained in recent weeks had no criminal histories beyond allegations of immigration violations. Some had pending asylum cases, they said. Sandra Feist, an immigration lawyer who is also a Democratic state representative, said she had begun urging all Minnesotans who are not white to carry their passports with them.
“This is not a public safety effort,” said Ms. Feist. “This is an effort to terrorize people.”
Activist groups have gone to great lengths to stymie the work of ICE agents around Minnesota. On recent nights, protesters have gathered outside the hotels where visiting federal agents are staying, staging boisterous protests designed to prevent ICE officers from sleeping.
Demonstrators have often responded to reports of ICE agent sightings minutes after an alert spread in chat groups. Many have followed ICE agents’ vehicles on icy roads, honking nonstop to alert people in the vicinity. Others have blared whistles, as they have in other cities. When arrests have unfolded, demonstrators have videotaped ICE agents with their phones, often taunting them for wearing masks.
These tactics were on display at the construction site on Saturday morning in Chanhassen as the rooftop standoff persisted.
Mr. Falconer and the protesters who flocked to the scene believed that the men on the roof, who were Latino, were construction workers whom ICE agents had focused on based on their appearances rather than specific allegations.
“It’s the true definition of Minnesota Nice: we’re looking out for each other,” said Mr. Falconer, the state lawmaker. “If the ICE people think Minnesota Nice means we step aside, look the other way and don’t engage in conflict — no, we’re going to engage in conflict to protect one another.”
But on Monday, ICE said that the agency had been pursuing a particular individual who had been convicted of disorderly conduct and was in the country unlawfully. That man, ICE officials said, was one of the people who had climbed on the roof — not to work on it, but to evade agents.
As tensions escalated outside the unfinished house, one woman shouted expletives at the agents in Spanish, saying that they should be ashamed for the pain they were causing.
Another protester spoke to an agent across a yellow police tape line. She told him that Minnesotans had spent years trying to repair trust between law enforcement and civilians after Mr. Floyd’s killing. This operation, she warned, could undo that hard work overnight and spark a new wave of civil unrest.
About an hour into the standoff, one of the men on the roof climbed down and was whisked away in an ambulance. A second stayed put as the crowd of protesters swelled.
“Don’t come down!” a woman shouted, urging the man to move his body to stay warm. “We’re here for you!”
Protesters pleaded with agents to depart without the remaining man on the roof. They demanded to know whether agents had reason to believe he was among the “worst of the worst” — a term ICE has used to describe the targets of its operation in Minnesota.
“Coming illegally to the United States is not a crime?” one agent shot back. “Do you live with your doors wide open, so people come in all the time?”
A woman demanded to know whether the use of government resources was fiscally responsible given all the agents waiting for one man.
“I don’t do the math,” an agent responded.
At approximately 1 p.m., ICE agents abruptly left, climbing into their vehicles and driving away amid jeers and taunts.
Andrew Miller, a protester who was at the scene waving a flag that said “Abolish ICE,” beamed with joy. “As Minnesotans, we’re hardy,” he said, noting that some agents were clearly not dressed to withstand the bone-chilling temperature. “We outlasted them.”
Soon after the agents were out of sight, people helped the remaining man get down from the roof, swaddled him with several blankets and bundled him into the back seat of an S.U.V. Before it took off, a woman rushed to the passenger seat and thrust a bag of warm tamales through the window.
On Monday night, ICE issued a statement saying that the first man on the roof, who had come down into ICE custody, was in deportation proceedings.
Ms. McLaughlin, the D.H.S. spokeswoman said the second man, who had been the target of the operation, remained at large. For that, she blamed “the ongoing efforts of rioters and agitators disrupting lawful enforcement operations.”
Susan C. Beachy contributed research.
Ernesto Londoño is a Times reporter based in Minnesota, covering news in the Midwest and drug use and counternarcotics policy.
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