Which other U.S. cities received federal ICE surge teams during the 2025–2026 enforcement campaign?

1. The epicenter: Minneapolis–St. Paul and the formal “Operation Metro Surge”

The clearest, best-documented deployment was Operation Metro Surge, a December 2025 DHS initiative that concentrated thousands of ICE and other DHS agents in the Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan area and later expanded into what officials described as a massive enforcement effort; court filings, local government statements and national outlets treated Minnesota as the legal and political flashpoint of the campaign ^{[1] [5] [6]}.

2. Other cities explicitly named as prior surge targets in contemporary commentary

Several news outlets and commentators tracing the administration’s pattern of enforcement named Los Angeles, Portland and Chicago as cities that had earlier received heightened ICE attention or “surges.” A television segment summarized the 2025 pattern by saying the administration sent surges to Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Portland and Chicago, and that those cities shared large immigrant populations and sanctuary policies — a claim attributed to a former ICE official speaking on Fox ^[2]. That account aligns with broader reporting that the administration conducted sweeps across major metropolitan areas in 2025 and early 2026 ^[7].

3. Protests and national fallout in many other metropolitan areas — not the same as a documented surge

Reporting shows widespread protests in cities beyond those explicitly named as deployment sites: demonstrators gathered in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, DC, and protests were recorded in Boston, Atlanta, San Francisco and Lansing, among others ^{[3] [8] [4]}. Those demonstrations reflect national solidarity and alarm at the Minneapolis operations, but protest activity alone is not proof of an ICE surge force being stationed in each city; some outlets distinguish local demonstrations reacting to Minnesota from confirmed federal deployments elsewhere ^{[3] [8]}.

4. Conflicting framings, different sources, and the limits of the public record

Coverage varies by outlet and source: Reuters and major newspapers focused on the Minnesota deployment and on shifting ICE tactics there, noting official orders to narrow targets and political efforts to de‑escalate ^{[9] [6]}, while opinion or pundit pieces and some TV segments presented a broader list of cities said to have received surges ^[2]. Encyclopedic summaries and contemporaneous reporting also used broad language about “raids across the country,” which documents a nationwide increase in enforcement activity without always naming permanent surge teams in each metro ^{[7] [10]}. Where sources explicitly list other cities as recipients of surge teams, this answer reports those claims; where reporting only documents protests or heightened operations, that distinction is noted ^{[4] [8]}.

5. Bottom line and caveats for readers following the story

The most reliably documented federal surge during the winter 2025–2026 enforcement campaign was Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis–St. Paul ^{[1] [5]}. Several outlets and commentators additionally identified Los Angeles, Portland and Chicago as cities that had seen ICE “surges” earlier in 2025 ^[2], and widespread protests occurred in many other major cities in response to the Minnesota campaign ^{[3] [8]}. Public-source reporting is uneven: some claims come from broadcast commentators or summaries rather than detailed DHS roll‑out documents available in the provided reporting, so confirmation from DHS operational logs or targeted local reporting would be needed to map every formal surge team deployment beyond the cities cited above ^{[7] [9]}.