After an anxious winter, Minnesota’s Operation Metro Surge has mostly turned into yesterday’s news.

Things have quieted down in the Twin Cities. No major new surges have been launched in other places. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, appears to have revised its strategy.

That doesn’t mean the ICE invasion should be forgotten. It should be remembered as a time when several thousand federal agents undertook statewide police actions even though state officials didn’t ask for help.

The result was about 4,000 arrests. The public should be told if these 4,000 were really the worst of the worst, as ICE leaders have claimed.

We should know how many of them were involved in crime. We should know how many have been deported. It’s especially important to know if any are still in custody, still awaiting their fate. In a free society, no one should sit in jail indefinitely without the public being made aware of it.

Twin Cities media should continue writing follow up stories. I want to read about people who lost their businesses. I want to read comments from teachers, social workers and parents about long range effects on children.

I never thought I’d see the day when people who look like they might be foreign had to carry papers to prove citizenship. It happened during the height of ICE activity. It showed that fascism is a very real threat in 2026, especially if the public fails to take a strong enough stand for freedom and democracy.

I believe ICE operations in Minnesota were scaled back because of the united response of citizens. Hundreds of them took to the streets. A group of 10 even marched down Main Street in Marshall.

They were mostly peaceful when they came face to face with ICE agents. They observed. They recorded evidence of brutality with photos and video evidence.

There were efforts on the part of some federal leaders to label protestors as outside agitators, people who came from other states to cause trouble. They said most of them were paid and given free motel rooms.

The reality is that a large share of those who openly objected were neighbors helping neighbors. Think about it. They had to know the streets of Minneapolis and St. Paul to keep track of ICE officers.

The deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti were an important part of what fueled a worldwide outcry. It was like the death of George Floyd. Efforts to change the narrative and fault the victims didn’t work. Instead it became a question of whether 4,000 arrests were worth the deaths of two U.S. citizens.

It became clear that things were changing when Homeland Security Director Kristi Noem was terminated and reassigned to a different job within the agency. Both Democrats and Republicans felt that a change in Homeland Security leadership was needed.

Almost everyone supports the deportation of illegal aliens who commit crimes. There was an objection, however, to the way ICE went about it in the Twin Cities and other locations.

It’s wrong to target particular cities and states, especially when they’re places that have not been supportive of President Trump.

Many conservatives who were in favor of federal immigration enforcement actions are ordinarily advocates for states’ rights. They favor letting states decide on the legality of abortion. They favor state and local control of public education and a rollback of federal environmental protection laws.

With immigration, however, they saw a need for federal interference. It seems they only wanted to grant autonomy to states whose policies conform to their wishes.

As news of the war in Iran replaces ICE activity on front pages, there are lessons to be learned from recent ICE operations.

One is the value of cooperation between federal agencies and state officials. Another is to realize that fraud in government programs happens in many places, not just in one location such as Minnesota.

It’s especially important to avoid stereotyping all immigrants, legal as well as illegal. They aren’t all here to collect welfare or commit crimes. Most of them are here to work, to build a better life for their families. They should be given a chance to build a future just like our ancestors had many years ago.

— Jim Muchlinski is a longtime reporter and contributor to the Marshall Independent