In early December, the Trump Administration launched Operation Metro Surge. Led by Gestapo Greg Bovino, ICE invaded the Twin Cities with 3,000 federal agents. They initiated a thoroughly American campaign of white supremacist terror on Minnesota’s Somali community, whipping up hysteria over tax fraud as justification for the ethnic cleansing of immigrants. By the end of January, ICE had murdered two protesters: Renee Good and Alex Pretti. They kidnapped 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, using a child as human bait against the rest of his family. They shot Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, a Venezuelan man, and while in pursuit of him they threw a tear gas round into the car of a Black family of eight, leaving their infant boy unconscious.
This reign of terror was met with brave resistance. In neighborhoods across the city, people got in the way of agents seeking to tear apart families. Thousands of people descended on the Whipple federal building multiple times in an attempt to shut down DHS operations. Across the country people tried to throw sand in the gears of the deportation machine by confronting DHS at federal buildings and field offices. In the most recent wave of defiance, high school students have poured out of their classes to protest against ICE.
Both the horrors of ICE’s actions, and resistance to it, have punctured the malaise that generally characterizes the mood of masses of people in the United States. Millions of people are anxious for a way they can stop ICE. Despite their initial defiance in the face of popular condemnation, DHS is now winding down Operation Metro Surge. Ending Metro Surge is not going to end the deportation and detention of immigrants or stop the murders. Before Metro Surge in 2025, at least 31 people had died in ICE detention and at least one person, Silverio Villegas González, was murdered by ICE in 2025. The barbaric history of DHS predates Trump. Millions of immigrants were deported under Obama and Biden. Looking forward, DHS is renting out hundreds of buildings across the country to expand their capacity to launch raids. They are buying warehouses at a rapid pace to convert into new concentration camps.
The DHS hopes that this tactical retreat will quell the protests breaking out across the country so that they can return to carrying out their mass deportations without interference. They want to avert the risk of the current protests growing and cohering into a force capable of putting an end to deportations. We must use this moment of retreat by the enemy to go on the offensive. It is not enough to end the occupation of Minneapolis by federal stormtroopers, we must smash the deportation machine for good. Walking back Metro Surge proves that the feds fear a mass movement against ICE, and that resistance can succeed in slowing the deportation machine. The Spring Surge to Melt ICE, launched by Dare to Struggle, is a plan to build up this resistance in order to amount the forces necessary to end deportations in this country. Don’t confuse the end of Metro Surge with an end to mass deportations. Use it as inspiration and start organizing the millions of people that it will take to smash the mass deportation machine for good.
Dare to Struggle 