The Failed Spectacle of Operation ‘Racial Purge’

Or how Minneapolis became a modern day Sundown Town in 2026

What we have witnessed over the past 60 days in Minneapolis was never about immigration enforcement for the safety of Americans.

This was a deliberate, calculated assault on communities of color masquerading as public safety. And as I write this from the headquarters of our Indigenous non profit NATIFS (North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems) I can tell you that every person in our organization and thousands across the Twin Cities understands this the same way. This was a racial purge brought on by our own federal government.

The Announcement: Early December 2025

On December 4, 2025, the Department of Homeland Security announced “Operation Metro Surge ’Racial Purge’ ,” deploying hundreds of federal agents to Minneapolis-St. Paul. Within days, we knew this was going to hurt. The messaging from Trump’s soapbox made it clear that he specifically wanted to target not only our LatinX workforce, but also Minnesota’s Somali population, describing them as “garbage.” Not labeling them as criminals or a threat, but instead an entire immigrant community openly dehumanized by the President of the United States.

We immediately called a meeting at our headquarters in early December. This was right in the midst of the coast-to-coast tour launching our new cookbook “Turtle Island” which by now feels like a distant memory. We gathered leaders from across the Twin Cities: LatinX community organizers, Somali leaders, food shelf organizers, Minneapolis City Officials, people from United States Representative Ilhan Omar’s team, BIPOC nonprofit leaders, and many more. We sat together and planned for what we knew was coming– not arrests of dangerous criminals, but a campaign of terror against our BIPOC communities.

We discussed the most likely scenarios: massive food relief efforts, how to communicate safely with each other, how to support not just families but also businesses like mercados and restaurants. We talked about culturally specific food support efforts and possibly buying ingredients from the markets we knew would be suffering.

We had no idea how much worse this would actually get.

By The Numbers: The Reality Behind The Propaganda

Let me be clear about what actually happened in Minneapolis. DHS claimed they arrested over 4,000 “dangerous criminal illegal aliens.” Here’s what the data actually shows:

The Arrests:

- 4,000 total arrests claimed by DHS

- Only 335 names publicly documented (11% transparency)

- 74.2% of ICE detainees nationwide have no criminal record or have already served their sentences

- Many arrested were U.S. citizens, legal residents, asylum seekers, Native Americans, and children.

The Federal Occupation Costs:

- Cost to taxpayers a minimum $2.6 million per day ($360,000 for hotels alone, plus $1.3 million in agent salaries, $643,000 in meals and lodging, $228,000 in detention costs, and $500,000 daily in Minneapolis police overtime) totaling $18 million per week at the low end

-3000 ICE Agents at the peak (Late Dec - Jan), Normal ICE presence in Minnesota: 150 agents, That’s 20 times the normal footprint

- Minneapolis Police Department overtime: $2 million in just 4 days (January 8-11)

The Economic Devastation:

- Minneapolis businesses losing $10-20 million per week

- Lake Street corridor alone: $46 million lost (December-January)

- Customer-facing businesses reporting 50-80% revenue declines

- 80% of immigrant-owned businesses closed in a single week

- Business owners say it’s worse than COVID-19 because of zero government support for the economic damage

The Constitutional Violations:

- 96 court orders violated by ICE (January 1-28, 2026)

- Federal judge threatened ICE Acting Director with contempt

- Hundreds of wrongful detention lawsuits filed

- Warrantless arrests ruled unconstitutional

The Body Count:

- 8 people have been shot and killed by federal agents since Jan 2025 including Renee Good and Alex Pretti

- 32 people died in ICE custody in 2025, 6 so far in 2026

- Countless brutalized, traumatized, terrorized

January 7, 2026: The Murder of Renee Good Changed Everything

My team and I were out of town when it happened, receiving notification within 30 minutes of the shooting. We watched three different videos being shared on social media. We watched Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, a U.S. citizen, get shot and killed by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in cold blood with zero remorse.

We watched her last words: “I’m not mad at you, bro.”

And then we watched the White House and DHS spin it. They called her a domestic terrorist. They said she “viciously ran over” the officer with her car. They lied. The videos showed the truth. But they lied anyway, and they kept lying.

That moment changed everything. Witnessing a murder committed by a group of violent young white men in tactical gear with no empathy, that’s when we understood the depth of the danger they presented to our community. We closed Owamni for two days to regroup and decide if it was even safe to continue operating in public.

We weren’t the only ones. Schools across Minneapolis and St. Paul went into lockdown. Businesses shuttered. Families stayed home. Not because of dangerous criminals on the streets, but because of the federal agents supposedly there to protect us.

The Rise of a Decentralized Resistance

Here’s what the Trump administration didn’t count on: Minneapolis knew how to organize. We had no choice because our communities had to do what was needed to survive and stay safe by looking out for each other when the government fails us, or more accurately– tries to destroy us.

Within days, Minneapolis became a testament to what mutual aid and collective action look like in practice:

Underground Communication Networks:

- Real-time alerts on ICE presence across 77 of Minnesota’s 87 counties

- 30,000+ trained constitutional observers documenting federal activity

- Surveillance of the Whipple Building (ICE headquarters)

- License plate databases tracking federal vehicles

- Encrypted messaging systems

Mutual Aid Programs:

- Massive food relief efforts for families too terrified to leave home

- Grocery deliveries to hundreds of households weekly

- Ride-share and work watch programs to help people get to their jobs safely

- Community spaces offering warmth, coffee, supplies for protesters

The Weaponization of Technology:

- We always knew our cell phones tracked our data, now they were weaponized against us so we created protocols on how to minimize our current digital footprint

- We then used the same smartphones they track us with, to track them

- Spotters at ICE headquarters calling out convoy movements

- Real-time maps of federal activity

- Digital organizing that kept us one step ahead

We knew right away collectively that nobody was coming to save us. Our state and city officials had their hands tied. We didn’t believe the courts would help us in time, and we were right. Federal judges found 96 violations of court orders, and ICE kept operating in their illegal fashion despite court orders.

We saved ourselves.

January 23, 2026: Minneapolis Takes The Streets

I’ll never forget the photos that came from the mass ICE OUT gathering on Friday January 23rd.. It was -2°F. Windchill made it feel like -20°F. Tens of thousands of people flooded the streets of Minneapolis to march against ICE of every age, race and color. We were united in voice against the threat of the fascist masked police force that threatened us.

Parents brought their children. Elders walked alongside teenagers. Somali community members marched with Mexican families, Native organizers, white allies, labor unions, faith leaders. We shut down businesses across the state in an “economic blackout.” Hundreds of shops and restaurants closed in solidarity including our restaurant Owamni.

The message was clear and loud: ICE can get the F*ck out of Minnesota.

January 24, 2026: They Murdered Alex Pretti

Then less than twenty-four hours later, they murdered another Minneapolis civilian.

Alex Pretti, 37 years old, an ICU nurse at the VA hospital, was shot multiple times by Border Patrol agents in broad daylight in South Minneapolis on video. He was filming federal agents with his phone and he was trying to protect a woman being brutalized by them.

They pepper-sprayed both of them, and we watched on the videos as ICE violently wrestled him to the ground with six agents surrounding him. They shot him 10 times in less than 5 seconds. At least three bullets in his back. One in his upper chest. Another possible wound on his neck.

An agent was seen on video removing Alex’s gun from his waistband– he had a legal permit to carry and not once did he reach for his weapon before they shot him. The videos prove everything– he never drew it, never reached for it and they murdered him anyway.

And once again, the White House lied. Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem and Greg Bovino called him a “domestic terrorist.” They said he “brandished a firearm” with intent to commit harm to agents. The videos proved otherwise but they kept lying in sync with each other.

That murder hurt an already wounded community because of the Renee Good Murder just a few weeks before, but it didn’t break us. It made us stronger.

January 26, 2026: They Came For My Employees

Two days after murdering Alex Pretti, three of my employees were ride-sharing to work at Owamni when they realized they were being followed by federal agents. As soon as they parked, they were surrounded. Guns drawn. Pointed at my staff.

They grabbed one of our employees. Said he “fit the description” of somebody they were looking for. He just happens to have brown skin. “Just checking his paperwork,” they said. Would bring him back if everything checked out.

Side note: he’s here legally. Has all of his documentation.

By evening, he was in Texas.

It took us nearly a week to get him out. He was moved to three different holding centers. When we were finally able to get him out because his paperwork was in order, he reported his experience to us and confirmed what we’ve heard from others in those situations. The inhumanity, the lack of communication, the overcrowding, the lack of cleanliness, the verbal, mental and physical abuse.

He said the most difficult and traumatizing pieces of the experience were asking why he had to be shackled when he was not a criminal and willing to participate; how they threatened his family; and how they never told him why he was there.

They told him once that he was going “home” and he thought they were sending him back to the country he was born in and hadn’t been back to for years, but he realized later he was on a plane back to Minnesota.

The utter lack of empathy for the many people who have no criminal backgrounds (74%) who are still stuck in those detention centers is appalling. And meanwhile, they continue to build more and more. Most Americans don’t really understand the experience the people and children in detention centers are going through and now there is an active ruling stating they can hold people indefinitely in certain states while perpetually waiting for a court date that may never come.

It should be clear to everybody that this was never about fraud in Minnesota. Never about dangerous criminals running around our streets. This was about terrorizing people of color. This was about Stephen Miller’s dream of a racial purge.

The Infrastructure of Mass Incarceration

Let’s talk about where your tax dollars are going. Congress allocated $75 billion to ICE through the “Big Beautiful Bill,” including:

- $45 billion for detention expansion

- $30 billion for operations

Private prison companies GEO Group and CoreCivic, who are both massive Trump donors and contributed nearly $2.8 million to his campaign and inaugural fund, are now building facilities to hold 100,000+ detainees. That’s approaching the size of the entire current federal prison system (155,000 inmates). The United States already has the largest prison population in the world, with nearly 2 million people incarcerated as of early 2025.

ICE pays these companies $150-165 per detainee per day. The companies pay detainees $1 per day for forced labor, which is a rate unchanged since 1950. They pocket the difference. It’s legalized slavery, and your taxpayer money is funding it.

Meanwhile, Minneapolis businesses have lost over $100 million. Families can’t afford food. Workers can’t get to their jobs safely. But sure, let’s give more money to private prison corporations.

Or let’s take a few of those billions given to DHS to give back to the damage done in Minneapolis and other cities like Chicago, Portland and LA. he $45 billion ask they are stalled within the Senate should do.

The Scapegoating and The Spin

They threw Gregory Bovino under the bus because somebody had to take a fall for their massive failures.

The nazi cosplaying Border Patrol commander was made the fall guy, but we all knew Tom Homan was no better when he took over. And really, we need accountability directly from Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller who were the architects of this terror campaign.

It was disheartening to watch House Democrats help vote for more DHS and ICE funding. Now we can see exactly where that money is going, which is to double the size of the federal prison system, to enrich private prison corporations and to fund a well-armed, heavily undertrained, masked Gestapo that kills American citizens with no accountability except to enact at the whim of a dangerous and addle-minded narcissistic US president.

When Homan announced they’d draw down 700 agents, we weren’t fooled. That still left 2,000+ agents when our normal number is 150. Still more than 13 times the dangerous presence. [maybe something here about what they’re still doing– reports of ICE invasions are happening today]

Mobilizing Against the SAVE Act and Voter Suppression

Here’s what they’re doing now: They didn’t get the Insurrection Act (though Trump openly floated the idea). They didn’t get the public support they wanted. So now they’re turning their attention to dismantling voting rights for millions of Americans.

The SAVE Act requires passports or birth certificates to register to vote. Twenty-one million Americans lack these documents. This disproportionately blocks low-income voters, people of color, and married women who changed their names.

Steve Bannon said it explicitly: “We’re gonna have ICE surround the polls.” The White House won’t guarantee it won’t happen. That’s voter intimidation, pure and simple.

Trump’s team is also trying to blackmail Minnesota and other states to turn over voting poll data. Why? Because they know they won’t win the midterms fairly.

What This Really Was About

This really was never about fraud in Minnesota. The Feeding Our Future fraud prosecution, which Trump used as justification for Operation Metro Surge ‘Racial Purge’ suffered major setbacks after six federal prosecutors resigned, including lead attorney Joe Thompson, following Renee Good’s murder. They resigned in protest of DOJ pressure to investigate Good’s widow while refusing to pursue civil rights charges against the ICE agent who killed her.

This was never about dangerous criminals on the streets. Only 25.8% of ICE detainees nationwide face pending criminal charges. The rest have no criminal record or already served their sentences.

This was the Trump administration following Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for authoritarian rule. This was Stephen Miller’s dream of conducting a massive racial purge in America.

They targeted Somalis, Latinos, Native Americans and anyone with brown skin or anyone who looked “foreign” enough. Anyone they could terrorize.

They killed two U.S. citizens on video and killed many more without the media attention. They brutalized countless others and violated 96 court orders, arrested children, separated families, destroyed businesses and traumatized entire communities.

And they’re still trying to expand this operation nationwide. That needs to be a hard NO for the American public.

What You Can Do

Support Minnesota from anywhere:

- Visit standwithminnesota.com for comprehensive mutual aid funds, rent relief, food delivery networks, and frontline organizers

- Donate to thesaltcurefund.org - The Salt Cure Restaurant Recovery Fund provides grants to struggling Minnesota restaurants for payroll, rent, and urgent needs

- Buy gift certificates from Minneapolis restaurants (especially Lake Street and immigrant-owned businesses) and donate them to families in need

- The restaurant industry has been devastated - they’re reporting “COVID” levels of crisis but without any government support funds

Amplify real stories, not corporate media spin:

- Share firsthand accounts from Minneapolis residents, not DHS press releases

- The federal government has lied repeatedly about both murders (Renee Good and Alex Pretti) despite video evidence

- Follow local Minnesota journalists and community organizers for truth

- Push back on disinformation from your family and friends who might be repeating federal lies

Stop the SAVE America Act and Defend Voting Rights:

- The SAVE America Act would disenfranchise 21 million Americans who lack passports or birth certificates

- 69 million married women who took their spouse’s name would face extra bureaucratic hurdles because their birth certificates don’t match their current legal names

- 4 million married men who changed their surnames face the same barrier

- Young people (18-24), people of color, low-income Americans, and trans individuals are disproportionately affected

- This would eliminate universal mail voting in 8 states that have been using it successfully for years (​​California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, Washington and Washington DC)

Hold ALL ELECTED OFFICIALS accountable:

- Demand NO MORE ICE funding without comprehensive reform

- ICE violated 96 court orders in one month and killed 2 U.S. citizens - INVESTIGATE

- $75 billion is going to private prison corporations while Minnesota businesses lost $100+ million

- Hold all House Democrat accountable who voted for DHS funding and helped enable this terror campaign

- Tell your representatives, Not one more dollar until there’s accountability

Prepare your own community and do not put down your guard:

- Get constitutional observer training (visit defend612.com for resources)

- Know your rights if ICE comes to your city

- Build mutual aid networks now, before you need them

- Set up communication systems to alert neighbors of ICE presence

- Any blue city could be next

Document everything:

- If ICE operates in your community, film them safely

- ICE agents lie even when there are witnesses and video evidence

- Build license plate databases, track movements, share information

- Constitutional observers are legal and essential

Vote in EVERY election:

- They’re trying to stop us from voting through the SAVE Act and poll intimidation

- Show up to every primary, every local election, every midterm

- Bring everyone you know

- Our votes are our power and don’t let them take it away

This really was Operation Racial Purge. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. If you aren’t familiar with what an American Sundown Town is, do your own research because your U.S. education system failed you and everybody you know.

Learn facts and history to be better than the past and to help make the future better for all regardless of ethnicity, religious beliefs, country of origin or skin color.

Wopila, Sean

#FuckICE