Operation Metro Surge Lawsuits and Court Rulings

The lawsuits over Operation Metro Surge include a constitutional challenge brought by Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, two ACLU cases targeting protester retaliation and racial profiling, a state suit seeking evidence from fatal federal shootings, and more than 1,000 individual habeas corpus petitions. As of mid-2026, one produced a federal judge’s finding of racial profiling before being voluntarily dismissed, two remain active, and none has succeeded in halting the operation through injunction. Here is what each case argued, how the courts have ruled, and where things stand now.

What Operation Metro Surge Was

Operation Metro Surge launched on December 1, 2025, when the Department of Homeland Security deployed roughly 3,000 agents to the Twin Cities in what DHS called “the largest DHS operation ever.”¹ Arrests peaked at more than 120 per day in January 2026, roughly ten times the typical pace, and reached approximately 3,800 total by March 10, 2026. Nearly two-thirds of those arrested had no prior conviction or pending criminal charge.² Border czar Tom Homan announced the operation would end on February 12, 2026.³ The litigation it produced continues.

Minnesota v. Noem: The State and Cities Challenge

On January 12, 2026, Attorney General Keith Ellison, joined by Minneapolis and St. Paul, sued DHS, ICE, and CBP in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, seeking a declaration that Operation Metro Surge was unconstitutional and an order halting it.⁴ The case was docketed as No. 0:26-cv-00190-KMM-DJF and assigned to Judge Katherine M. Menendez.⁵

The complaint raised four constitutional and statutory claims:

A First Amendment claim that the operation was viewpoint discrimination and political retaliation against Minnesota over its election results and its leaders’ criticism of the administration.
A Tenth Amendment claim that the deployment commandeered state and local resources and coerced jurisdictions into abandoning sanctuary policies.
An equal sovereignty claim that Minnesota was singled out despite having a smaller undocumented population than states like Texas and Florida.
An Administrative Procedure Act claim that the surge was arbitrary and capricious.

The plaintiffs asked for a temporary restraining order and an injunction barring the use of force against peaceful protesters, arrests of bystanders, and enforcement at schools and churches.⁴ The state argued the fraud justification was pretextual, pointing to Minnesota’s undocumented population of about 1.5% of residents, less than half the national average, and to statements from Homan suggesting the operation would scale back if state and local officials granted greater jail access. Plaintiffs said those statements proved the deployment was a coercion tool.⁶

On January 31, 2026, Judge Menendez denied the preliminary injunction.⁷ She acknowledged the plaintiffs had made a “strong showing” regarding harmful effects, including disrupted emergency services, school closures, and excessive force allegations, and described the situation as “unprecedented,” noting that prior commandeering cases like Printz v. United States and New York v. United States involved congressional legislation, not an armed deployment.⁶ But she found the likelihood-of-success factor too uncertain to justify halting the operation, and on standing cited United States v. Texas for the principle that “downstream costs to state budgets from federal immigration-enforcement decisions are alone not sufficient.”⁸

The plaintiffs filed an amended complaint on April 20, 2026. It added new survey data from the U.S. Immigration Policy Center at UC San Diego showing residents lost over $240 million in wages, that DHS agents failed to produce warrants in the vast majority of reported encounters, and that more than 70% of Minneapolis respondents who encountered agents said they were less likely to seek help from law enforcement in the future. The amended filing also added challenges to DHS policies on masked agents and “roving patrol” tactics.⁹ The case remains active with no trial date set.

Tincher v. Noem: Protesters and Observers

On December 17, 2025, the ACLU of Minnesota filed Tincher v. Noem (No. 0:25-cv-04669) on behalf of six community members who said federal agents violated their First and Fourth Amendment rights while they observed and protested ICE raids. The allegations included the use of chemical irritants, rubber bullets, unlawful detention, and agents following protesters home.¹⁰ An amended complaint in February 2026 added five plaintiffs, including media organizations.¹¹

Judge Menendez granted a preliminary injunction on January 16, 2026, prohibiting federal agents from retaliating against peaceful protesters and observers, including arrests without probable cause and retaliatory use of nonlethal munitions.¹¹ On January 26, an 8th Circuit panel of Judges Gruender, Shepherd, and Stras stayed the injunction pending appeal, finding the government had made a “strong showing” that the order was overbroad, calling it a “universal injunction by another name” granted to an uncertified class, and too vague in its directives to agents.¹² After the operation ended, the district court dissolved the injunction as moot on April 8, 2026, and the 8th Circuit dismissed the appeal on April 23. The underlying case continues.

Hussen v. Noem: The Racial Profiling Finding

On January 15, 2026, the ACLU filed Hussen v. Noem (No. 0:26-cv-00324) on behalf of three community members and a proposed class, alleging systematic racial profiling, suspicionless stops, and warrantless arrests targeting Somali and Latino Minnesotans.¹³ The claims arose under the Fourth Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection guarantee. The legal team included the ACLU, the ACLU of Minnesota, Covington & Burling, Greene Espel, and Robins Kaplan.¹⁴

On March 9, 2026, U.S. District Judge Eric Tostrud, a Trump appointee, issued a ruling finding “compelling and troubling” evidence of racial profiling.¹⁵ Reviewing 33 individual accounts, Tostrud concluded that 17 people were stopped or detained solely because of their race or ethnicity, and that 23 of the 33 had been stopped without reasonable suspicion.¹⁶ He wrote that “federal agents stopped Minnesotans solely because of their race and ethnicity, and not for any lawful immigration purpose,” calling the government’s justifications “pretextual” and “senseless.”¹⁷ The court found the plaintiffs likely to succeed on their Fourth Amendment claims.

Despite those findings, Tostrud denied the preliminary injunction. With the operation winding down, he concluded plaintiffs had not shown they were likely to be stopped again, and denied class certification.¹⁶ In June 2026, the plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed the case, saying they would pursue administrative claims instead.¹⁸

Minnesota BCA v. Noem: Evidence in the Fatal Shootings

Two fatal shootings by federal agents drove a separate line of litigation. On January 7, 2026, Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old Minneapolis mother of three and U.S. citizen, was shot and killed by federal immigration officer Jonathan Ross during an ICE action on Portland Avenue.¹⁹ On January 24, 2026, Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen and ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center, was fatally shot by Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and CBP officer Raymundo Gutierrez during a protest. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner ruled Pretti’s death a homicide.²⁰

Hours after Pretti’s death, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office sued in federal court, alleging that federal personnel had barred state investigators from the scene and failed to secure evidence. U.S. District Judge Eric Tostrud granted a temporary restraining order the same day, enjoining federal officials from destroying or altering evidence. The TRO was dissolved on February 2, 2026, after the court found insufficient evidence of ongoing mishandling.²¹ The state voluntarily dismissed the Minnesota case in March and filed a successor suit in the District of Columbia seeking evidence in the killings of Good and Pretti, as well as the non-fatal shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis, a Venezuelan national shot in the thigh on January 14, 2026.²²

The Sosa-Celis case also produced a criminal fallout. DHS initially claimed Sosa-Celis and another man, Alfredo Aljorna, had “violently assaulted law enforcement with a shovel and broom handle” in a three-minute altercation, and both were charged with assaulting a federal officer.²³ Surveillance video released by the city in April 2026 showed the encounter lasted roughly 12 seconds and included no shovel attack.²⁴ U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen moved to dismiss all charges with prejudice, citing evidence “materially inconsistent with the allegations.”²⁵ ICE confirmed that two officers had given “untruthful” sworn testimony and were placed on administrative leave facing potential dismissal or criminal prosecution.

The Habeas Flood and Repeated Contempt Warnings

Alongside the institutional lawsuits, individual detainees filed a wave of habeas corpus petitions challenging their detentions. Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz reported that the District of Minnesota saw 12 habeas cases in all of 2024, 130 in 2025, and 1,111 in the first three months of 2026. The court operated from 8 a.m. until 10 p.m. at the height of the crisis, with judges issuing late-night orders to prevent detainees from being transferred out of state before their cases could be heard.²⁶

Federal judges repeatedly found that ICE agents were ignoring court orders. In a single January 28, 2026, order, Schiltz compiled 74 cases involving 96 violated court orders, calling the list one “hurriedly compiled by extraordinarily busy judges.”²⁷ Subsequent reviews identified an additional 113 court order violations across 77 more cases. Schiltz wrote that the court was “not aware of another occasion in the history of the United States in which a federal court has had to threaten contempt — again and again and again — to force the United States government to comply with court orders.”²⁸ He said the litigation would occupy the Minnesota federal bench “for years.”²⁶

The underlying legal question of whether long-term U.S. residents can be subjected to mandatory detention regardless of their history is pending before the 8th Circuit and expected to reach the U.S. Supreme Court.²⁹

Where Each Case Stands as of Mid-2026

The Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse tracks the principal case sets arising from Operation Metro Surge.³⁰ Their status:

Minnesota v. Noem (No. 0:26-cv-00190): Active before Judge Menendez. Preliminary injunction denied January 31, 2026; amended complaint filed April 2026; no trial date set.
Tincher v. Noem (No. 0:25-cv-04669): Active before Judge Menendez. Preliminary injunction dissolved as moot; 8th Circuit appeal dismissed; underlying claims continue.
Hussen v. Noem (No. 0:26-cv-00324): Voluntarily dismissed in June 2026 after a finding of racial profiling but denial of injunctive relief; the ACLU said it would pursue administrative claims.
Minnesota BCA v. Noem (No. 0:26-cv-00628): Closed. Voluntarily dismissed in March 2026; a successor evidence case was filed in the District of Columbia.

More than 1,000 individual habeas petitions have been filed in Minnesota federal court and remain in various stages of adjudication.²⁹ The ACLU has also filed a separate FOIA lawsuit against DHS seeking policies related to the targeting and filming of federal agents.³

1
PBS NewsHour. Federal Agents Sent to Minneapolis Area to Carry Out Largest Immigration Operation Ever
2
Minnesota Star Tribune. ICE Action Targeted Somalis but Group Made Up Fewer Than 3% of Arrests
3
ACLU. ACLU Comments on Trump Administration Announcing End to Operation Metro Surge
4
City of Minneapolis. AG Lawsuit Announcement
5
Minnesota Attorney General. Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief
6
State Court Report. Does the ICE Crackdown in Minnesota Violate the Tenth Amendment
7
NPR. Judge Won’t Halt Immigration Enforcement Surge in Minnesota
8
Jurist. US Federal Court Denies Minnesota Bid to Stop Operation Metro Surge
9
Minnesota Attorney General. Amended Federal Lawsuit Against DHS
10
ACLU. Tincher v. Noem et al.
11
Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. Tincher v. Noem
12
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Order, No. 26-1105
13
ACLU. ACLU Sues Federal Government to End Suspicionless Stops and Racial Profiling
14
ACLU. Hussen v. Noem
15
Minnesota Reformer. Judge Finds Compelling and Troubling Evidence of Racial Profiling by Federal Agents in Minnesota
16
Courthouse News. Judge Rules ICE Made Warrantless Race-Based Stops of Somali and Latino Minnesotans
17
MPR News. Judge Denies Temporary Halt to Alleged Racially Biased ICE Enforcement Tactics
18
Law360. ACLU Drops Racial Profiling Suit Over ICE Arrests for Now
19
The Guardian. Renee Good Autopsy Results
20
MPR News. Alex Pretti Shooting
21
Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension v. Noem
22
PBS NewsHour. Minnesota Sues to Obtain Evidence in Shootings by Federal Officers During ICE Surge
23
Courthouse News. New Minneapolis Shooting Footage Contradicts Initial ICE Account
24
The Guardian. ICE Shooting DHS Accountability Minneapolis
25
MPR News. Minneapolis Releases Video of Non-Fatal Shooting
26
Fox 9. How Did ICE Operations Impact Federal Courts
27
Minnesota Reformer. Chief Judge Schiltz: One Way or Another ICE Will Comply With This Court’s Orders
28
Politico. ICE Minnesota Judge Criminal Contempt
29
News From the States. Lawyers Filed Over 1,000 Lawsuits Challenging Immigrant Detentions During Operation Metro Surge
30
Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. Operation Metro Surge Case Collection