Ten Weeks Under Occupation
Operation Metro Surge was the culmination of a decades-long campaign in which conspiratorial crusaders have painted Somalis as a drain on social programs, criminals, and extremists.
In December and January, the federal government deployed thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents to Minnesota as part of Operation Metro Surge, reportedly the largest immigration enforcement action in recent history. Masked men and women pursued anyone they deemed foreign or who spoke with an accent—including naturalized citizens and permanent residents. Twin Cities neighborhoods with large communities of color became hunting grounds. Traveling in unmarked SUVs, agents raided apartment complexes, descended on school parking lots, stopped people on the streets, and entered immigrant businesses. Often, they demanded proof of legal status. Within my Somali community, almost everyone I knew dreaded stepping outside. Some never left home. Others carried their passports with them at all times.
At first, I dismissed stories about agents approaching people like me as exaggerations. But this wasn’t because I was naive enough to believe that the government would not violate individual rights. As a historian, I am well aware of the long history of state violence in the United States—not least the dispossession of Indigenous peoples, enslavement of Africans, legalized racial segregation and lynchings, exclusionary policies against racialized migrants, internment of Japanese Americans, and surveillance of Muslim Americans since September 11, 2001. Yet I could not imagine federal agents roaming our streets in this day and age, indiscriminately targeting us. Doing so, I thought, would be foolish for two reasons.
First, the United States already has a deeply entrenched immigration regime that has quietly and successfully expelled millions—and excluded millions more—since the late nineteenth century. As historian Adam Goodman explained in The Deportation Machine, formal deportations are costly for the federal government. “More than 90 percent of all expulsions throughout US history,” Goodman writes, “have been via an administrative process euphemistically referred to as ‘voluntary departure.’” This process almost always takes place far from public scrutiny. Second, 87 percent of foreign-born Somalis in Minnesota are naturalized U.S. citizens, while most of the remaining 13 percent are permanent residents who entered through refugee resettlement or family reunification programs. This means that, absent complicated legal procedures, ICE cannot lawfully expel Somalis through street patrols. What, then, was the point of Operation Metro Surge?
It was never about immigration enforcement. It was about exerting power over a Muslim and Black community that has become too visible economically and politically. Donald Trump, after years of racist and bigoted rants, unleashed the full weight of federal power to terrorize Somalis. Though the operation expanded beyond one community, it was intended to target Somalis in particular, coming on the heels of right-wing media reports that exploited pandemic-era fraud investigations to smear Somali-run businesses, including hawala—a global money transfer system Somalis have long relied on to support loved ones abroad. This attack was the latest episode in a decades-long campaign in which online conspiratorial crusaders paint Somalis as a drain on social programs, criminals, and extremists plotting a coup to establish Sharia law. Where white mobs wielded revolvers and nooses to terrorize Black communities a century ago, Trump now weaponizes the law to unravel the social networks, thriving economy, and political presence we have built. Ultimately, Operation Metro Surge ended in an embarrassing retreat—thanks to an unprecedented, all-out resistance that once again thrust Minneapolis into the global spotlight.
Though the majority of Somalis have established roots in Minnesota over the past three decades following the 1991 civil war in their country, the Somali presence in the United States dates back to the settlement of hundreds of migrant laborers at the turn of the twentieth century. These migrants were part of a global network of colonial laborers from present-day northwestern Somalia, then a British protectorate. For centuries, as I have documented in my work on the first Somali diaspora, Somalis ventured into unfamiliar territories for trade, education, and employment. European writers from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries documented Somalis’ extensive migration and conspicuous presence in the global maritime and steel industries. Yemen’s coastal city of Aden, then under British rule, became a major destination for laborers. With its bustling maritime economy, Aden attracted colonial workers from East Africa and the Indian subcontinent, and offered thousands of Somalis a market for livestock trading, construction work, domestic service, and street vending.
In the early twentieth century, especially during the First World War, Somalis increasingly traveled beyond the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. British shipping companies recruited them as cheap laborers to work in the belly of steamships as the trimmers and firemen who fed the steam engine in blistering conditions. These jobs brought them to major American port cities, where many Somalis jumped ship and became boiler operators, machinists, peddlers, restaurateurs, and shopkeepers. In the early 1950s, Abdirizak Haji Hussein—who later became Somalia’s prime minister—met some of these Somalis in Harlem. In his memoir, Hussein estimated their population to be in the hundreds and described some as “politically conscious” men who closely followed the anticolonial struggles unfolding across Africa and the Islamic world.
In the 1960s, soon after Somalia gained independence from Italy and Britain, a second wave of Somalis began arriving in the United States. These were mainly students and government personnel who came for higher education and training programs designed to equip them with skills to serve their newly independent nation. They were part of larger groups of Africans and others from formerly colonized territories who studied in the United States and the Soviet Union on government scholarships—programs through which the superpowers sought to gain power and influence in the new nations throughout the Cold War. While Somalis often returned after completing their programs, many chose to remain in the United States by the 1970s, as the country’s post-independence honeymoon waned and the military regime of Mohammed Siad Barre grew more brutal. These educated elites became integral to the economy, working as scientists, engineers, professors, and administrators in both public and private sector on the East Coast.
In the 1990s, a third wave of Somalis, fleeing violence after the collapse of the Barre regime, arrived primarily through the federal government’s refugee resettlement program, which has admitted nearly 3.7 million displaced people from around the world since 1975. Today, an estimated 260,000 people of Somali descent live in the United States. Although they are spread across the country, about 84,000 reside in Minnesota, now the nation’s largest Somali community. The state has drawn Somalis in part because of its established refugee resettlement agencies, low-wage job opportunities, and relative affordability. Sizable Somali communities have also settled in cities including Columbus, Ohio; Seattle, Washington; San Diego, California; and Lewiston, Maine.
In Minnesota, Somali refugees began building social, economic, and educational institutions—mosques, business centers, and charter schools—to meet the needs of their growing community. They have made Minnesota a mecca not only for newly arrived Somalis but for longtime residents from other states. Over the years, I have met dozens of Somalis who have relocated to the Twin Cities from elsewhere in the United States. Some moved so that their children could grow up among fellow Somali Americans and maintain their cultural heritage. Others saw an opportunity in the community’s concentrated purchasing power and found a fertile place to establish tailored economic services in Minnesota. Today, both the Twin Cities metro region and Greater Minnesota house thousands of Somali-owned businesses: law and medical offices, dental clinics, daycare centers, pharmacies, grocery stores, coffee shops, banquet halls, barbershops, salons, and restaurants.
Somalis have among the highest labor-force participation rates in the state. They serve as nurses and caregivers in hospitals and nursing homes; teach in K-12 schools and universities; work in manufacturing companies and meatpacking plants; handle packages in Amazon warehouse facilities; and transport passengers and cargo as rideshare drivers, as well as for city buses and trucking companies. For any traveler in Minnesota, a Somali person is likely to be the first and last face they see on their Uber ride to or from the Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport.
In Minnesota, one need not look far to see the contributions of Somalis. Economist Bruce Corrie has estimated that Somalis generate about $500 million in household income, pay an additional $67 million in state and local taxes, and contribute $8 billion to the state’s economy. Much of this wealth is based on spending power generated through exchanges within the Somali community, including the purchase and sale of goods and services that many American establishments do not carry, such as halal groceries, ethnic food, traditional Muslim attire, and money transfer services.
Somalis have also integrated into American civic life and become visible political participants in Minnesota and beyond. In 2010, Hussein Samatar became the first Somali American public official when he won a seat on the Minneapolis School Board. Three years later, Abdi Warsame was elected to the Minneapolis City Council, becoming the highest ranking Somali American official in the United States. Over the past decade and a half, more high-profile politicians have joined their ranks: Ilhan Omar was elected to Congress; Omar Fateh and Zaynab Mohamed to the Minnesota State Senate; and Mohamud Noor and Samakab Hussein to the Minnesota House of Representatives. Several more now serve in local and state government in Minnesota and in other states, including Maine, Ohio, and Washington.
The social institutions and community-centered economic success that Somalis have built are comparable to those of thriving business districts African Americans created amid Jim Crow segregation in the early twentieth century: Detroit’s Paradise Valley, Chicago’s Bronzeville, Atlanta’s Sweet Auburn, and Tulsa’s Greenwood District. Black entrepreneurs, professionals, and working-class people concentrated their wealth in these communities, creating a measure of economic independence. However, racial violence always ran parallel to these success stories. White mobs carried out deadly attacks against rising Black communities, including the East St. Louis Race Riot of 1917, the Tulsa Massacre of 1921, and the Detroit Race Riot of 1943. These were desperate attempts to undermine their political progress and relegate them to second-class status and, as journalist Jazmin Goodwin put it, “to suppress Black economic independence.”
Like their Black counterparts, Somali Americans have faced unrelenting racist and xenophobic attacks for decades, which conservatives have spread through events and online platforms. In 2019 the New York Times interviewed John Palmer, a former university professor with a mission to end Somali settlement in central Minnesota. Palmer relied on news sites known for xenophobic and conspiratorial content, including Jihad Watch. Through the group Concerned Community Citizens, or C-Cubed, he disseminated racist claims about Somalis: that they are a drain on government programs, innately violent, less intelligent, and a threat to the American way of life. Liz Baklaich, a member of C-Cubed, told the Times, “If our country becomes like Somalia, there is nowhere for us to go.”
Such narratives have spread far beyond online chat rooms and community meetups. Over the years, Minnesota news outlets have reported numerous racist incidents targeting Somalis. In 2010 a Somali high school student reported that his white peers told him, “This is our country, and we do not need black people here.” That same year, a Transportation Security Administration agent assaulted an eighty-three year old for being Muslim and Somali. In 2015, a Somali woman was attacked with a beer mug for speaking Swahili. In 2017, a city council member proposed a plan to temporarily prevent refugees from resettling in St. Cloud, Minnesota. In 2015, a police officer reminded a Somali teen of “what happened in Black Hawk Down when we killed a bunch of you folk,” and said that if Americans had spared no one, “you guys wouldn’t be over here right now.”
After emerging as a presidential candidate ten years ago, Trump quickly became invested in the anti-Somali narrative, amplifying what had previously been confined to obscure online platforms, local news headlines, and school hallways for a national audience. In 2016, during a campaign rally in Minneapolis, he told a crowd:
Here in Minnesota, you’ve seen firsthand the problems caused with faulty refugee vetting, with very large numbers of Somali refugees coming into your state without your knowledge, without your support or approval. Some of them [are] joining ISIS and spreading their extremist views all over our country and all over the world. Everybody’s reading about the disaster taking place in Minnesota.
For years, both as president and as a candidate, Trump has made similar remarks linking Somalis to terrorism, fraud, and piracy. After his “garbage” comment about Somalis this past December reached my news feed, I went blank. I felt strangely numb to Trump’s racist rants for weeks; I wanted to feel upset, but I could not ignore his long history of disparaging African Americans and immigrants. He has claimed that Haitians eat pets, called Mexicans “rapists,” barred Muslim refugees from entering the country, referred to African and Latin American nations as “shithole countries,” and denied the legitimacy of the first Black president of the United States. What we have witnessed in recent months is merely an escalation of his long-standing racist and xenophobic attacks.
The Trump administration launched Operation Metro Surge following the publication of an article by Ryan Thorpe and Christopher Rufo in the right-wing outlet City Journal alleging, with little evidence, that funds obtained through fraud schemes ended up in the hands of al-Shabaab, a militant group in Somalia. The article conflated two distinct issues: ongoing investigations in which several Somalis have been charged and convicted of stealing government funds meant to feed poor children during the pandemic, and a decades-old remittance system that Somalis and other immigrants have used to send money to their families. The fraud cases have dominated headlines in Minnesota over the past five years and are expected to remain prominent as we approach the midterm and gubernatorial elections. The remittance system is separate. Since the early 1990s, Somalis across the global diaspora have used this network to send money to their loved ones. According to the humanitarian organization Oxfam:
Every year, members of the Somali diaspora send approximately $1.3 billion to their friends and relatives in Somalia, exceeding all humanitarian and development assistance to the country and comprising between 25 and 40 percent of the country’s economy. Remittances helped many Somalis survive the horrific 2011 drought in Somalia, and remittances continue to help many families pay for food, water, education, and basic health services. This money—usually small monthly contributions taken directly from working Somalis in the diaspora—is nothing short of a lifeline for the Somali people.
Despite this, Rufo and Thorpe framed the remittance story as if thousands of ordinary Somali Minnesotans use the networks to funnel money to al-Shabaab. The Trump administration seized the development as an opportunity to end temporary legal protections for some Somalis, freeze federal childcare funding, and deploy federal agents to target community members.
Soon, video clips of agents roaming Minneapolis streets and randomly stopping Somalis to check their citizenship status began flooding social media. I initially dismissed the incidents as surreal: how could this happen in 2026? Then more images emerged, including one of a Somali American Uber driver, Ahmed Bin Hassan, confronting agents who had apparently approached him as he waited in the rideshare queue at the Minneapolis airport, asking about his immigration status. Bewildered yet defiant, Bin Hassan asked the agents why they had singled him out. “I can hear you don’t have the same accent as me,” one of them replied. “That’s why I’m asking you.” That was the moment I realized the gravity of our new situation. If someone was being targeted for looking and sounding Somali, then Operation Metro Surge was personal.
I came to Minneapolis more than two decades ago as a refugee. I did everything I was told to do to lead a dignified life: I maintained good grades and completed high school, earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism, became a naturalized U.S. citizen, established a career as a reporter, and later received a doctorate in history. In the United States, I thought I would never have to worry about law enforcement stopping me on the streets for my immigration status. This kind of thing, as I have heard more than once from students and friends, happens in the developing world—not here. Still, for the first time, I began preparing myself for a possible encounter with ICE. One day, I locked myself in my home office to rehearse what I would do and say if agents stopped me. I pulled out my iPhone and began speaking into the camera:
I will not disclose my citizenship status.
I do not consent to a search.
Am I free to go?
I repeated these words dozens of times—sometimes through tears—and with each take, I grew more confident, more assertive. In the meantime, I imagined all the scenarios that could result from my actions: The possibility of going free. Or getting beaten and detained. Or taking a bullet to the head. I was prepared for any outcome. By the time my department chair wrote to ask how I felt about coming to campus at the beginning of the semester, I knew exactly how I would respond: I would refuse to hide or succumb to fear and intimidation. Showing up would be my way of resisting.
Understandably, others stayed home to avoid potential encounters with ICE. Several of my students decided not to attend classes during the first two weeks of the semester due to safety concerns. These were mainly immigrants and children of immigrants who have lived in Minnesota most of their lives, yet they could not go to school. I felt so sad for this country.
But I felt the saddest when I visited my aging parents in Burnsville, a suburb about thirty minutes south of Minneapolis. I was curious about how they were processing the unfolding events and how they were preparing themselves if they had to leave home. My mom brought both her and my dad’s cellphones to show me images of their passports that my brother had sent them as text messages. I watched my mom, who does not understand technology, struggle to work her iPhone, and wondered how she would be able to retrieve her passport image amid violent shouts and screams. I wondered whether ICE agents would even consider the photo a legitimate document. From our interactions, I realized that my parents had accepted showing our identification as the new norm, which is why they did not ask whether I had mine. Perhaps, since my siblings also decided to keep their passports with them, they assumed I was doing the same. I did not share my plan to resist with them because the news would have left them restless.
As a result of the raids and weeks-long ICE occupation, Somali businesses suffered tremendous losses as fearful customers were forced into hiding. During the height of Metro Surge, I visited Karmel Mall in Minneapolis to see how the occupation had affected the largest economic and cultural center for Somalis in the country. It was a Friday afternoon. Typically, the mall is bustling with activity: shoppers buying and browsing, people eating at restaurants, crowds in long lines for tea and snacks, men getting haircuts at barbershops, women having their makeup done at salons, people praying at the mosque, and children running around. But on that afternoon, Karmel felt like a ghost town: fewer than one-third of the usual shoppers were there, and many businesses were closed either because of a lack of customers or because employees were afraid to leave home. This was true of Somali establishments throughout the state. I was witnessing the active hollowing out of Somalis’ economic independence, a source of community pride for the past three decades. Operation Metro Surge achieved its intended goal: to disrupt our community’s growing independence and influence in Minnesota.
Meanwhile, Minnesotans came out in droves to resist ICE and protect their immigrant neighbors. Armed with whistles and phones, they protested and stood guard over immigrant businesses, apartment complexes, and places of worship. Renee Good and Alex Pretti, shot and killed by federal agents, paid the ultimate price for the cause. Others were beaten, bruised, and detained. Still, thousands of constitutional observers remained alert in the frigid cold to protect us until the federal government retreated, ending Operation Metro Surge. Seeing these Minnesotans on street corners and at bus stops gave me—and so many others like me—a deep sense of hope, even amid the fear and chaos. At that moment, I understood that we were not alone in the fight. We had our neighbors on our side.
Ibrahim Hirsi is a Minneapolis-based historian and journalist covering immigration, politics, and social justice in Minnesota.