Human Rights Watch Report Calls Metro Surge a Manufactured Crisis, Names Nine Officials for Investigation and Documents Dismantled Oversight
Contributing writer Clint Combs reports on a 180-page Human Rights Watch report calling Trump's immigration crackdown in Minnesota a manufactured crisis, naming nine senior DHS officials for investigation, documenting the killing of two Minneapolis residents, the dismantling of federal oversight and the local accountability efforts now filling the void.
Human Rights Watch released a scathing report Thursday that detailed how federal immigration agents killed two Minneapolis residents, racially profiled thousands more, and systematically dismantled the oversight apparatus that would normally investigate such abuses.
The 180-page report called President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota a “manufactured crisis” after Homeland Security deployed a record 4,000 immigration agents across the Twin Cities between December and March.
Nine Officials Called Out for Investigation
The report called for investigating nine senior DHS officials who led the operation:
- Former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem
- Former Border Czar Greg Bovino
- Former Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons
- Acting Executive Associate Director for ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations Marcos Charles
- Acting Executive Associate Director of HSI John Condon
- Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Rodney Scott
- Acting St. Paul ICE Field Director and Cities Church Pastor David Easterwood
- St. Paul Field Office Director Sam Olson
- Former Deputy Incident Commander Kyle Harvick
“We recommend investigations and criminal prosecutions of bad actors including the line we made in senior leadership and multiple others,” said Human Rights Watch U.S. Program Director Tanya Greene.
Oversight Dismantled From the Inside
Three months after Trump’s inauguration, DHS issued a reduction-in-force directive that effectively dismantled the agency’s three understaffed internal oversight divisions. The DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, which normally would investigate abuse complaints, had 135 staffers fired, leaving only four. The Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman was eliminated entirely, its budget cut to zero, despite Republicans fast-tracking a record $38 billion for ICE. The CIS Ombudsman’s Office cut 96 percent of its workforce, leaving only two staffers.
“We call for things like reinstituting and reinforcing monitoring, transparency, oversight, and accountability mechanisms that have been dismantled or that have not existed with specific regard to immigration enforcement and detention,” said Greene.
A Smoke Screen, Activists Say
The report landed just days after the Justice Department rolled out conspiracy indictments against 15 Minnesotans who mobilized against Operation Metro Surge.
Emilia Gonzalez Avalos, executive director of Unidos, called the DOJ’s charging documents a smoke screen.
“They want our eyes on the courtrooms in Minnesota, the 94 pages, the 50 names, the spectacle of a trial, so that our eyes are not on the cages,” Avalos said at a roundtable discussion at the University of Minnesota Law School. “They admit the operation ended on February the 12th. They admit that rotations fell when communities stood up. You do not write 94 pages about people who lost. You write 94 pages about people you fear.”
287(g) Contracts and the Detention Pipeline
The report called for banning agreements known as 287(g) contracts that effectively turn county jails into immigration detention feeders. Eight Minnesota counties currently have such contracts, and DHS wants to convert a former Appleton private prison into a 1,600-bed immigration jail.
Excessive Force and Vulnerable Populations
The report also documented two incidents of excessive force by St. Paul police, including an officer who pepper-sprayed a man using a cane directly in his face at an ICE raid on Rose Ave. last fall. Three journalists were struck, leaving one MPR reporter hospitalized.
The findings also detail how federal agents forced many pregnant women to skip prenatal care. Researchers documented the story of Marta, who was six months pregnant when ICE agents raided her home and detained her husband in early December. Even after her husband was released, Marta was too afraid to leave her home for a doctor’s appointment.
Gender Justice Executive Director Megan Peterson drew a direct line between the Supreme Court ending federal abortion protections and the conduct of federal agents during Operation Metro Surge, arguing both reflect the same impulse to control people’s bodies.
“I think we saw very viscerally the ways in which the agents’ behavior was fueled by racism, by anti-immigrant sentiment, but also by kind of a version of toxic masculinity that animates the way in which this idea of power and control they’re using to fuel their efforts,” Peterson said.
Greene said “sensitive locations guidance be legislated, so that children and people are protected at hospitals, at church, at school,” and called for prohibiting racial profiling in immigration raids.
Local Accountability in the Absence of Federal Oversight
In the absence of federal accountability, local prosecutors moved in. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty’s Transparency and Accountability Project has charged two ICE agents with assault and grown to 30 active investigations. DHS has claimed that federal agents are immune.
Gov. Tim Walz signed an executive order creating a 15-member body — the Minnesota Truth Council — that will collect stories from people affected by Operation Metro Surge. The council’s first meeting is expected to take place later this summer.