What documented examples exist of misidentified or falsely attributed arrests during the Minnesota ICE operations in 2025–2026?
Executive summary
Operation Metro Surge generated a string of documented instances where arrests announced by DHS or ICE either misattributed custody events, included people transferred from state prisons long before the operation, or involved the detention of lawful residents and even U.S. citizens — claims now central to lawsuits and public disputes [1] [2] [3]. Federal agencies insist they targeted “the worst of the worst,” but reporting and court filings show concrete examples that undermine some official assertions and have prompted litigation and judicial scrutiny [4] [5] [1].
1. Public ICE lists that included people not arrested “on the street” during the surge
A review of names ICE put forward as arrestees in Minneapolis found several individuals who were not newly arrested in the Operation Metro Surge sweeps but rather had been transferred from state custody to DHS before December 1, 2025 — one person’s transfer dated back to 2003 — showing that ICE’s list conflated past transfers with new street arrests [1]. DHS and ICE repeatedly highlighted arrest tallies publicly — including a January claim of 3,000 arrests in Minneapolis and a broader January 19 claim of “over 10,000 criminal illegal aliens” — assertions that reporting and record-checks suggest were overstated or at least imprecise in how arrests were counted [1] [4].
2. State corrections officials say DHS falsely claimed on-the-street arrests when people were handed over from prisons
Minnesota corrections officials directly disputed DHS’s portrayal in at least two documented cases, saying Homeland Security falsely stated it had arrested two undocumented people off the streets when in fact the men had been released by state prisons to ICE custody — an explicit example of misattribution in official counts [2]. Corrections Commissioner statements and reporting emphasize that inclusion of such detainers in DHS tallies can produce misleading narratives about the operation’s street-level impact [2].
3. Documented detentions of lawful residents, refugees, and U.S. citizens
Multiple outlets reported specific incidents where legally present refugees, green-card applicants, and U.S. citizens were detained during the operation. The New York Times documented refugees who had legally entered the country and applied for green cards but were arrested during the surge [5], and the ACLU’s complaint recounts the stop and detention of Mubashir Khalif Hussen, a 20-year-old U.S. citizen, on Dec. 10, 2025 — an alleged example of wrongful profiling and seizure [3]. Local reporting and broadcasts also flagged the high-profile arrest and release of a 5-year-old child and his father, who returned to Minnesota after a judge ordered their release and whose case intensified questions about screening and identification during operations [6].
4. Systemic patterns flagged in lawsuits and academic reporting
Civil rights groups and lawyers have turned these concrete examples into broader allegations: class-action suits filed by the ACLU and others assert racial profiling, suspicionless stops, warrantless arrests, and retaliatory detentions against observers — charging that many of the seizures during the surge lacked probable cause and included citizens and legal residents [3] [1]. Analysts and think tanks report wider patterns consistent with the documented misidentifications: a Brookings review found that roughly one-third of those arrested had no criminal record and cataloged more than 50 reported incidents in which agents allegedly busted car windows to effect arrests [7].
5. DHS and ICE counterclaims and the contested framing of “criminal illegal aliens”
DHS and ICE have repeatedly defended the operation as targeted enforcement of individuals with criminal histories and have publicized named arrests of people with violent or serious convictions, framing the surge as removing “murderers, rapists, gang members” and other threats from Minneapolis streets [4] [8]. Reuters reporting on internal guidance indicates a push to focus arrests on people with prior criminal histories and to standardize arrest procedures, underscoring that the agencies view the operation as targeted even as outside reporting documents misattributions and questionable detentions [9].
6. What is documented — and what remains unclear
Documentation exists for several concrete misattributions: inclusion of pre-existing state-to-federal transfers in ICE’s public arrest lists, at least two cases where state officials said DHS falsely claimed street arrests, and multiple reported detentions of lawful residents and a U.S. citizen that have become part of lawsuits and reporting [1] [2] [5] [3]. What reporting cannot yet fully establish is the full scale of misidentification across the thousands of claimed arrests because ICE has released only a subset of names and court discovery is ongoing; therefore, claims about percentage-wide error rates rely on sampling and advocacy group tallies rather than a complete administrative accounting [10] [11].