Minneapolis has become the epicenter of a fierce struggle over immigration enforcement, civil rights, and the rhetoric of national leaders, with tensions reaching a boiling point in December 2025. At the heart of the controversy are aggressive deportation operations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), incendiary statements from former President Donald Trump, and the vocal resistance of Representative Ilhan Omar, whose own family has been swept up in the maelstrom.
The most dramatic flashpoint occurred on Monday, December 15, when ICE agents carried out what they described as a “targeted vehicle stop” in Minneapolis. According to WCCO, the operation quickly turned violent: agents handcuffed a pregnant woman, forced her onto her stomach in the snow, and pinned her down with their full body weight and knees. Onlookers, many of whom recognized the woman’s condition, shouted desperately at the agents. “Please let her go! She’s pregnant!” one person pleaded. Another screamed, “Get her off of her fucking stomach.” Despite the crowd’s protests, ICE agents refused to relent.
The situation escalated further when one agent fired a Taser into the crowd, taunting, “Who wants more?” according to WCCO’s reporting. As bystanders hurled snowballs in frustration, ICE agents responded with pepper spray, striking both the crowd and members of the press, including WCCO reporter Esme Murphy and her photographer. The Minneapolis Police Department was called in for backup, but, as Police Chief Brian O’Hara told WCCO, officers found “no violence occurring” against the federal agents. O’Hara noted, “We have been training our officers for the last five years very, very intensely on de-escalation, but unfortunately that is … often not what we are seeing from other agencies in the city.”
ICE’s operation ended with the arrest of a young Ecuadorian couple—abducted from their car after agents shattered its windows. The woman, reportedly pregnant, was taken into custody in Illinois. The location of her husband remains unknown. Two U.S. citizens were also arrested for allegedly assaulting federal officers, according to CBS.
These scenes unfolded against the backdrop of “Operation Metro Surge,” an initiative that has brought increased ICE activity to Minneapolis, St. Paul, and nearby suburbs. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claims the operation has led to more than 400 arrests, though the Star Tribune has been unable to independently verify this figure. ICE has not released a list of those detained, fueling anxiety and fear among local immigrant communities.
For Minnesota’s substantial Somali population—nearly a third of the nation’s 260,000 Somali Americans, according to reporting from Techdirt—the crackdown has felt both targeted and personal. President Trump has repeatedly singled out the state and its Somali community for criticism, both online and in public speeches. On December 12, 2025, Trump told reporters, “We can go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way, if we keep taking in garbage into our country. Ilhan Omar is garbage. She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage.” He also accused Somali refugees of “completely taking over the once great State of Minnesota.”
Such rhetoric has stoked fears and, residents argue, emboldened federal agents. On December 16, federal officers deployed chemical irritants to disperse a crowd in a heavily Somali neighborhood as they checked identifications, according to the Associated Press and Techdirt. Minneapolis City Council member Jamal Osman, himself Somali American, witnessed the confrontation, as did an AP videographer. Osman described seeing a young Somali American dragged away, detained, fingerprinted, and ultimately released only after presenting his U.S. passport—then told to find his own way home, six miles away, in freezing weather.
Representative Ilhan Omar, a frequent Trump critic and a symbol of Minnesota’s Somali community, has been at the center of both the political and personal storm. Over the weekend preceding December 17, Omar claimed that ICE agents targeted her son while he was shopping at a Target store. She told WCCO that her son was released after showing his passport. The Department of Homeland Security, however, denied the incident, with a spokesperson stating, “ICE has absolutely zero record of its officers or agents pulling over Congresswoman Omar’s son,” and accusing Omar of staging a “PR stunt.”
Omar has challenged ICE to provide documentation of all Minnesotans pulled over, insisting that the agency’s denial does not match the experiences of her family or her constituents. She has also accused federal agents of racially profiling young Somali men, telling WCCO, “They are looking for young men who look Somali, that they think are undocumented. My son was born here so was the young man that was harassed.”
The friction between Omar and federal authorities has only intensified with news that the Trump administration is investigating her for alleged immigration fraud. On December 8, Tom Homan, the White House’s border czar, told Newsmax that a fraud investigator had advised him to look into Omar’s immigration history, repeating long-discredited allegations that she married her brother to obtain U.S. citizenship. Omar has consistently denied these claims, which have never been proven. When asked to respond, Omar dismissed the inquiry, saying, “Because they’re sick,” and insisted investigators would “absolutely not” find anything incriminating.
The investigation, and the broader crackdown, come as Trump continues to link Minnesota’s Somali community to a state fraud scandal involving dozens of individuals. In a national address on December 17, Trump once again criticized Minnesota Somalis, further inflaming tensions. Yet, as reporting from The Minnesota Daily and Techdirt points out, the vast majority of Minnesota’s Somali population are either American citizens or permanent residents, with nearly 58 percent born in the United States and 87 percent of foreign-born individuals naturalized.
ICE and DHS officials have repeatedly insisted that their operations are not targeting the Somali community specifically. ICE Acting Executive Director Marcos Charles told NBC News, “It is not an operation targeting the Somali community. We’re looking for people that are here illegally.” However, NBC News’ own observations suggest otherwise, noting that the raids have disproportionately affected Somali neighborhoods and that “fewer than a dozen people were arrested despite not being the initial targets of the operation.”
Local resistance to ICE’s actions has been fierce. Protesters have physically blocked agents from entering Minneapolis stores, shaming officers into leaving. In one widely shared video, anti-ICE activists shielded a business from a raid, showering agents with expressions of love and offers of prayer. As Techdirt observed, “Resistance works. ICE officers work best when there’s no friction. When confronted or slowed, they’re far more apt to give up and leave than continue their likely illegal actions.”
As winter deepens in Minneapolis, the standoff between federal immigration authorities, local officials, and the city’s immigrant communities shows no sign of abating. The events of December have left scars—and raised urgent questions about the future of immigration enforcement, civil rights, and political rhetoric in America’s heartland.
