Immigration enforcement in Minnesota has returned to pre-Operation Metro Surge levels, according to newly released federal data obtained by the Deportation Data Project.
At the same time, federal immigration agents are arresting more immigrants nationwide than before, with the data showing nearly 50,000 arrests in July — higher than any previous month in the Trump administration.
Over half of those July arrests came from just four states: Texas, Florida, California and Georgia.
With new tactics, ICE reaches new high in monthly arrests
Minnesota, which had the fourth-highest number of arrests in January, dropped to 32nd among all states in immigration arrests in July. In January, over 3,000 federal agents were sent to Minnesota and arrested 2,441 immigrants, according to the data. That figure dropped significantly after the surge's announced end in February; federal agents arrested fewer than 250 immigrants every month from March to July.
The Deportation Data Project obtained arrests data from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via a Freedom of Information Act request. The data has some limitations — around 5% of arrests do not show where the arrest was made, for example. Still, it is some of the most detailed data on immigration enforcement available.
ICE has previously challenged the accuracy of the Deportation Data Project, even though the figures comes from its own internal data.
The numbers from the most recent Deportation Data Project release are similar but not the same as figures reported directly by the feds: Stateline reported that the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said it arrested about 51,000 immigrants in July.
The number of arrests in Minnesota matches trends observed by Nick Benson, an activist who tracks ICE flights out of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, who recorded fewer people being deported in recent months compared to the surge's peak in January.
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