How do Minnesota state officials define and track criminal custody of noncitizens, and how does that differ from ICE/DHS reporting?

1. How Minnesota defines and measures noncitizen criminal custody

Minnesota’s Department of Corrections (DOC) measures noncitizen custody within its statutory and operational remit — state prison populations — and supplements that with surveys of county jails to produce a verified point‑in‑time count (DOC reports ~207 non‑U.S. citizens in state prisons and a separate jail survey found 94 with ICE detainers) and asserts a legal and policy duty to notify ICE about noncitizen releases and to facilitate custody transfers when requested ^{[6] [7] [2]}.

2. What DHS/ICE reports and how their framing differs

DHS and ICE issue public releases listing arrests from Operation Metro Surge, naming individuals and describing them as “worst of the worst,” and publicly assert that ICE has “more than 1,360 arrest detainers” for criminal noncitizens across Minnesota jurisdictions while alleging hundreds were released into communities ^{[3] [4] [5]}. Those federal releases aggregate across “all jurisdictions” in the state, use arrest and detainer tallies tied to a federal operation, and spotlight violent convictions to justify the enforcement narrative ^{[4] [5]}.

3. Why the numerics don’t line up: jurisdiction, time frame, and custody type

State officials say the gap stems from DHS conflating different systems and time periods: Minnesota DOC runs state prisons, not county jails, and many people on federal lists were never in state prison, were held in county jails, under ICE‑only custody, or had last been in Minnesota custody years ago — in some cases decades — creating mismatches between a state point‑in‑time count and DHS’s broader aggregation ^{[1] [7] [8]}. The DOC also notes DHS has not specified which jurisdictions or time frames underlie its 1,360 figure ^{[1] [6]}.

4. Cooperation, evidence, and competing narratives

The DOC insists it honors all federal and local detainers and documents coordination with ICE — releasing records, videos of custody transfers, and a web page to refute DHS claims — and says it found no instance where state prison custody was released without notifying ICE ^{[6] [9] [7]}. DHS/ICE communications, meanwhile, emphasize arrests and portray local authorities as refusing to “honor” detainers, a framing that Minnesota officials call misinformation or propaganda and that independent reporting shows sometimes includes people not recently in Minnesota custody ^{[3] [7] [8]}.

5. Data quality, political incentives, and accountability

Both sides point to data gaps: DOC accuses DHS of systemic data‑management failures or deliberate fear‑mongering, while DHS uses aggregated federal enforcement tallies to justify expanded operations and pressure state and city leaders to comply ^{[7] [4]}. Independent outlets and records reviews cited by Minnesota reporters found several cases where federal claims did not match state court or custody records, underscoring how differing data definitions and incentives — public safety messaging for DHS versus institutional accuracy and statutory limits for DOC — drive divergent public counts ^{[8] [7] [10]}.

6. What this means for interpreting counts and policy debates

Readers should treat the 1,360 DHS number as a federal aggregate across jurisdictions and enforcement actions that is not directly comparable to Minnesota DOC’s state‑prison point‑in‑time count of 207 plus 94 jail detainers; the discrepancy reflects different definitions (state prison vs. all jurisdictions), custody types (DOC custody vs. ICE custody or ICE detainers), and time frames rather than a simple one‑to‑one accounting error — and both the DOC and DHS statements reveal institutional agendas that shape how numbers are reported and publicized ^{[6] [1] [3]}.