How do previous ICE surges in Chicago and Los Angeles compare in staffing and arrests to Operation Metro Surge?

1. The question at hand — what exactly to compare

The user seeks a direct comparison of staffing levels and arrest outcomes: who was sent where, in what numbers, and how many people were detained — an apples‑to‑apples comparison complicated by differing timeframes, agency accounting (ICE alone vs. DHS-wide), and contested tallies reported by news outlets and advocacy groups ^{[5] [4]}.

2. Operation Metro Surge — scale of people and immediate arrests

Reporting indicates Metro Surge deployed a large federal presence in the Twin Cities, with multiple outlets citing roughly 2,000 masked and armed officers at the outset and statements that the federal government has added up to 1,000 more agents in response to unrest, a figure reflected in contemporaneous coverage of the deployment; ICE also reported “more than 400” arrests in Minnesota in the first stretch of operations that journalists accompanied ^{[1] [6] [2]}.

3. Chicago’s Midway Blitz — staffing and wildly different arrest tallies

Chicago’s Operation Midway Blitz was highly visible and drew additional federal resources including a temporary staging footprint and, for a time, National Guard involvement in support roles; DHS publicly tied the operation to thousands of arrests, and one DHS‑era accounting cited more than 4,500 arrests regionally, but investigative reporting assembling ICE booking and transfer data documented roughly 1,600 people arrested in the Chicago area during the blitz — illustrating how official aggregate claims and ground‑level datasets can diverge sharply ^{[4] [3]}.

4. Los Angeles surge — arrest rate spike rather than a single headcount

Human Rights Watch’s analysis of ICE data in Los Angeles during the May‑July 2025 surge showed a sharp, sustained rise in ICE arrests: an average of about 540 ICE arrests per week during the surge period, compared with roughly 139 per week after the 2021 inauguration and 87 per week in the 16 months prior — a metric that captures intensity over time rather than a one‑off total and does not by itself specify exact agent staffing levels ^[5].

5. Staffing contrasts and how agencies count deployments

Metro Surge stands out for the reported concentration of personnel in a defined metro area at once (the oft‑cited 2,000 figure), whereas the Los Angeles and Chicago campaigns unfolded over weeks with shifting levels of visible federal personnel and partnerships with Border Patrol and other DHS components; coverage emphasizes that counts often mix ICE, CBP, and other DHS officers, and that staffing often ebbed after the most visible phase even as smaller operations continued — complicating direct comparisons ^{[7] [4] [8]}.

6. Arrest totals — differing definitions and timeframes matter

Arrest numbers are not uniform: Metro Surge’s “more than 400” arrests reflect early reported totals in Minnesota, Chicago’s Midway Blitz has both a DHS‑cited multi‑thousand figure and a lower, data‑driven 1,600 figure documented by reporters, and Los Angeles’ surge is best characterized as a weekly arrest rate spike (~540/week) rather than a single aggregate, meaning comparisons must account for duration and whether counts include CBP or only ICE arrests ^{[2] [4] [3] [5]}.

7. Bottom line and caveats

Metro Surge matches or exceeds previous surges in terms of concentrated personnel on the ground (the 2,000‑agent framing), but as of mid‑January its arrest totals reported publicly were lower than the largest aggregate figures claimed for Chicago and comparable to early‑phase counts in large‑city surges; Los Angeles’ signature difference was intensity over time — sustained higher weekly arrest rates — and Chicago’s signature was disputed aggregate totals and mass transfers to detention sites, underscoring that staffing and arrest comparisons require careful attention to which agencies are counted, what period is measured, and the source of the tally ^{[1] [2] [3] [5] [4]}.