Operation Metro Surge Disrupts Community Care Across Twin Cities
Community organizations across Minneapolis and St. Paul say Operation Metro Surge has disrupted food delivery, harm-reduction services, and outreach as fear of ICE enforcement keeps residents inside.
Since the beginning of Operation Metro Surge in December 2025, thousands of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have entered the Twin Cities and surrounding areas. The agents have carried out raids and arrests that community organizers say have disproportionately impacted immigrant and other marginalized communities.
The operations have fueled fear and tension across the metro, disrupting access to food, harm reduction services, and other forms of community-based care, and complicating the work of organizations that serve vulnerable populations.
For local organizers, Operation Metro Surge has heightened the need for outreach while simultaneously making that work more difficult. Abdulrahman Wako, an organizer with the Elliot Park Neighborhood in Minneapolis, described the challenges his organization has faced since the surge began.
One of Elliot Park Neighborhood’s primary efforts is delivering meals to food-insecure neighbors. Wako said the influx of ICE agents has diverted staff and volunteers toward protecting vulnerable community members and has complicated food delivery itself.
“It’s all hands on deck,” Wako said.
Sharon Day, executive director of the Indigenous Peoples’ Task Force (IPTF), echoed those concerns, noting that fear surrounding ICE activity has created additional logistical challenges for her organization’s food distribution and outreach efforts.
Emanuel Roberts, executive director of Anything Helps MN, an organization that supports underrepresented communities affected by the opioid epidemic, said fear has directly impacted participation in essential services.
“Attendance has dropped significantly,” Roberts wrote in an email to the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder. “Not because the need has gone away, but because fear has taken its place. People are afraid to leave their homes. Afraid to come to the center. Afraid to go to school, work, appointments, or anywhere that could put them in the path of enforcement.”
“For many of our participants,” he added, “walking through our doors now feels like a risk they can’t afford to take.”
Wako and Day both said that fear of contact with ICE has significantly reduced turnout for community aid programs, even as need continues to grow.
In response, organizations have increasingly leaned on one another. Hennepin County convened a Zoom meeting among publicly funded community outreach organizations, primarily groups serving communities of color, to coordinate efforts and share information. Day said nearly every organization in attendance spoke during the meeting and described the atmosphere as focused and determined.
She compared the moment to the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, when community organizations were deemed essential workers. Despite uncertainty and strain, she said, the responsibility to continue showing up remains.
Roberts said Anything Helps has long relied on collaboration with partner organizations, but the presence of ICE has intensified that cooperation. “Collaboration has always been core to who we are,” Roberts wrote. “That commitment is not changing, it’s strengthening. What is changing is our intention to connect even more deeply with the community.”
“We see neighbors stepping up, mutual aid networks forming, and people caring for one another in real, human ways,” he continued. “That response is a powerful reminder of what harm reduction and grassroots recovery organizations are truly about.”
IPTF and other Native American outreach organizations have also coordinated to maintain services during a period of uncertainty. The Metro Urban Indian Directors (MUID), an umbrella organization of 30 Twin Cities American Indian service groups, typically meets monthly. In recent weeks, member organizations have met multiple times to coordinate outreach amid ICE activity. MUID has also collectively hired an outside coordinator to help sustain food delivery operations.
Elliot Park sits near the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, home to a large Somali community. On Saturday, Jan. 17, pro-ICE demonstrators marched through the area, further heightening fear during an already tense period. Wako said the event intensified anxiety among residents but stressed the importance of staying focused on community care rather than reacting.
“We all do better when we all do better,” Wako said, quoting the late Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone.
Roberts emphasized a similar message, underscoring the importance of mutual support as a form of collective health.
“In these uncertain times, Anything Helps wants to extend our resources, our relationships, and our support outward,” he wrote. “We are here to reinforce the network of care already in place, not replace it, and to keep showing up together.”
Noah Riccardi is a recent Macalester College graduate and contributing writer for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder.