As DHS announces the end of the surge in Minnesota, ICE operations ramp up in rural areas.

We parked in a lot, waiting and watching, fully aware that we were being observed as well. Two masked men, likely armed, lounged in a gray SUV nearby. “They’re all over this street now,” Lety, a lifelong Minnesota suburbanite, remarked. Reports of ICE activity had surfaced at a gas station and a mobile home park, and now they were here with us, in a strip mall that housed a dispensary and an auto parts store. I kept my gaze fixed ahead while Lety kept an eye on her Signal chat. Silence enveloped us until a knock on the passenger-side window jolted us. Earlier, Lety had shared dashcam footage of ICE agents confronting her, threatening her with bear mace. This time, the figure outside was more amiable: the auto shop manager, who informed us we were blocking a loading zone. He didn’t mind us hanging out, but asked if we could move our car a bit.

Lety regularly patrols for ICE, trying to do so a couple of times each week. Eventually, the agents left, and we followed suit, heading to Sunny Acres, the mobile home park 20 miles south of the Twin Cities, where rumors of ICE presence had circulated that morning. We encountered another patroller, exchanging cautious greetings and Signal codenames. He hadn’t spotted ICE yet but feared it was only a matter of time.

Lety reached out to a friend whose parents lived in Sunny Acres, hoping they could alert their neighbors, most of whom were likely at work. Her friend agreed to spread the word. “Are you chasing those guys right now?” he asked. “You’re crazy.”

This was my sixth day in Minnesota and my first in Lakeville. After days of searching for ICE in Minneapolis without success, I spotted them almost immediately upon arriving in Lakeville, thanks to Lety. She’s lived here her entire life. The reports from the cities were alarming: ICE breaking windows and sending children to jails in Texas. “You always hear about what’s happening in the city,” she said, “but please don’t forget about the suburbs!”

It’s easy to see why ICE has extended its operations beyond the Twin Cities. The factors that hinder ICE in Minneapolis and St. Paul—high density, walkability, and a predominantly left-leaning population—are absent here. In Minneapolis, I noticed patrollers on nearly every corner, making it easy to organize protests or mutual aid networks. In Lakeville, the sidewalks were empty, and the wide streets leading to the highway were deserted. If there had been bystanders, they might have hesitated to get involved.

“Here, we’re connected enough with resources that if someone sends a message in a Signal chat, you’ll get 20 or 30 people showing up at an intersection because they received an alert,” Garrett Guntly, an activist from Minneapolis, explained. “I don’t think that exists in Lakeville or Prior Lake, where the suburbs are more spread out.”

“I keep my whistle hidden under my clothes when I’m out in Lakeville,” Lety said. While not everyone in town is conservative—it’s about a 50/50 split—it’s risky to assume everyone is on the same side.

Minnesota hasn’t voted Republican since 1972, but its reputation as a Democratic stronghold largely stems from the Twin Cities. The party’s grip on the state weakens each year. While Kamala Harris dominated in Minneapolis and St. Paul, winning over 70 percent of the vote in Hennepin and Ramsey counties, the election was much tighter in Dakota County, where Lakeville, with a population of just over 74,000, is the largest city.

Just a day earlier, I was at a coffee shop in Uptown Minneapolis when someone burst in, announcing that ICE was outside. The news spread like wildfire: two men in plain clothes, a suspicious car with a plate number listed in a crowdsourced database of confirmed ICE vehicles. Within minutes, the shop emptied as everyone bundled up and rushed out. The agents had merely stopped at a nearby pizza place for lunch. The crowd gathered outside, ready to confront them as soon as they finished their meal. The people of Minneapolis showed no tolerance for ICE.

What about Lakeville? Only two patrollers were stationed at the entrance of Sunny Acres. If they blew their whistles to warn of ICE’s arrival, would anyone hear? And if they did, would it make a difference?

Even here, patrollers can sometimes rally enough support to make an impact. Lety joined her local Signal chat on January 7th, the day Renee Good was killed. “I didn’t really know what it was for, but I thought, ‘Okay, I’ll join,’” she recalled. “I thought it was just for ICE alerts, not rapid response.”

That same day, she received an alert about ICE attempting to arrest four construction workers in Lakeville. The men were at a job site when ICE showed up with around 30 agents, surrounding the house. But they were outnumbered by neighbors who refused to let the agents access the roof. “This was my first time patrolling, and I was like, ‘What the hell?’” she said. “There were maybe 50 or 100 people outside.”

She and a friend went door to door, encouraging more neighbors to join in, and to her surprise, most were receptive. Soccer moms emerged with megaphones, and people brought coffee and blankets. Lety shared a video she captured that day, as the afternoon light faded: a symphony of whistles, people shouting at the agents to leave, lights flashing in the half-built house. A man in a neon green vest stood atop the roof he had helped construct. After about three hours, the agents retreated, and the men escaped.

There’s strength in numbers. But sometimes, there’s no one to call. Lety drives through Sunny Acres, scrutinizing every car in every driveway, noting anything suspicious: an SUV with out-of-state plates, a sedan with heavily tinted windows. The sun blazes, making everything shimmer. It’s eerily quiet. No one else is around.

The mutual aid and rapid response networks in the Twin Cities thrive partly because they’re hyperlocal. One St. Paul resident who regularly tracks ICE activity in her neighborhood—known as commuting or patrolling—expressed discomfort with doing the same in unfamiliar communities. “I’d be a danger to myself and others,” she said. Guntly, active in the South Minneapolis Signal groups, noted that the decentralized nature of the work complicates coordination outside one’s immediate area. In the chats, he often sees messages like, “There’s something happening in Burnsville; does anyone have relays down there?”

That’s not to say there’s no resistance outside the Twin Cities. People in Minnesota’s suburbs and small towns are also mobilizing against ICE, but they face more obstacles and fewer allies.

“It’s tough to know who you can trust, neighbor to neighbor,” Andy, a lifelong Shakopee resident, shared. “You don’t know if they lean right or left, or what their views are. There’s definitely a divide.”

Andy has been delivering groceries with Neighbors Helping Neighbors, a mutual aid group that started in Minneapolis in December, for about a month. He’s noticed significant fear among the immigrant community in Shakopee, where over 15 percent of the population is foreign-born. To receive help from Neighbors Helping Neighbors, individuals must submit a request detailing their needs: groceries, rent support, rides to work, or other assistance. In addition to grocery deliveries, Andy acts as a “connector,” reviewing requests and matching them with community members who can help.

Part of his role involves reaching out to those who submitted requests to see if they still need assistance. “Sometimes it’s met with suspicion, like, ‘Who are you? How did you get this number?’” he explained, as people worry that ICE is trying to lure them out. “It’s really sad and frightening that people have to be wary of receiving aid.”

He elaborated: “Building trust takes time. Some neighbors have been out of work for two months. They’re behind on rent because they can’t go to work. They’re caring for their families and terrified to go outside.”

Resistance is much smaller in St. Cloud, a community of just over 72,000, where nearly two-thirds of voters supported Trump in 2024. “When observers respond to ICE activity, it’s not just ICE they have to watch out for,” Audrey, a lifelong St. Cloud resident, noted. Some neighbors are “hostile towards our observers and supportive of ICE.” Still, the small group of observers in St. Cloud is dedicated, covering ten towns across more than 200 square miles.

This level of geographic and ideological isolation presents its own challenges. Just like in the Twin Cities, observers in St. Cloud and the surrounding area have faced harassment and intimidation from ICE, Audrey said. “We never want observers to go alone, but it’s been hard to avoid that in this type of community,” she explained. “We’ve had calls about potential ICE activity where we hesitate to send an observer because it’s 30 to 40 minutes away, and they might be the only observer in a town without rapid response. What are they walking into? But they go anyway.”

La Viña, an Evangelical church in Burnsville, Minnesota, has distributed over 818,000 pounds of food since DHS’s Operation Metro Surge began. The church conducts upwards of 5,000 deliveries each week, according to pastor Miguel Aviles. Every Saturday, carloads of volunteers line up to help at La Viña, snaking past the church grounds and onto the street.

The church began calling for volunteers in December and now relies on a network of over 8,000 people to sort, pack, and deliver groceries. Lety mentioned she sometimes joins her mom, a regular volunteer, although she feels more suited to patrolling. (“I have ADHD,” she explained; she gets restless waiting in line.) La Viña’s volunteers deliver far beyond Burnsville, a suburb about 20 minutes south of Minneapolis. Aviles noted that some drivers have traveled as far as two hours away.

“We’ve had drivers who have felt intimidated,” Aviles said. “I had a woman call me and say, ‘Pastor, I’m with my father doing deliveries, and ICE has been following us for 40 minutes.’”

Still, he emphasized the overwhelming community support and the pressing need. Initially, most requests the church received were for groceries. Now, two months in, rent has become the most urgent concern. “People haven’t been able to work for over two months,” he explained. Some managed to pay rent in January but fell behind in February. La Viña has initiated a rent fund to help keep people housed while ICE operations continue.

Even if the occupation ends soon, Aviles anticipates it could take months or years to return to some semblance of normalcy. On February 12th, border czar Tom Homan announced that the “surge operation” would be winding down, but he also indicated that a “small footprint” of agents would remain in Minnesota during the transition. This isn’t the first time Homan has claimed to be scaling back operations. Earlier in February, the Department of Homeland Security announced that 700 agents would be leaving the state.

Homan’s announcement hasn’t yet resulted in any real change. Audrey reported a significant amount of ICE activity on the day of Homan’s announcement.

“Even if they leave tomorrow, we still have a lot of work to do, both mentally and physically,” Aviles said. People have lost their jobs, and once they return to work, it will take at least two weeks to receive their first paycheck, which won’t cover all their needs. “I’ve been telling our volunteers and community that we still have a lot of work ahead. It’s going to take time to recover.”

In some ways, the community has already been irrevocably changed. Aviles recounted a family that first came to La Viña two years ago. He officiated the patriarch’s funeral, celebrated the son’s engagement, and married him. “And then we had to say goodbye,” Aviles said, as life under Metro Surge became so unbearable that the family chose to leave the country. “On Monday, we had to say goodbye to a Brazilian family. Same story. She was a Sunday school teacher. They loved God, they loved our community, and they had to self-deport because this country is pushing them out.”

These, he said, are wounds that may never heal. “They claim they’re going after the worst of the worst. That’s not true. These were the best of the best, and we miss them dearly.”