Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis knows that what is playing out on the streets of his city will have profound implications for the whole country. Since December, thousands of federal agents have arrived in Minneapolis, as part of an immigration enforcement effort that the Department of Homeland Security has named “Operation Metro Surge.” Since then, Frey has had to shepherd a city rived by protests, infuriated by the killings of two American citizens at the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, and shaken by an aggressive federal action that has left some residents afraid to leave their homes.
I spoke to Frey on Thursday afternoon, not long after Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan — who has been dispatched to Minneapolis to replace and clean up after the operation’s original commander Gregory Bovino — promised to de-escalate the situation there. He said in a news conference that there would be a drawdown of agents, only to have President Trump later deny that there was any plan to pull back.
