The state of Minnesota, governed by the Democrat Tim Waltzhas become the new immigration objective of the Trump Government, targeting especially the immigrants of Somali origin, whom the Republican has described as “garbage”
Several American media outlets, such as CNN, CBS and The New York Times, report the start of raids of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the cities of Saint Paul y Minneapolis.
It is expected that more than 100 agents are deployed andand will focus on the Somalis who already have final deportation orders, although detaining migrants who are in the process of regularizing their status in the United States is not ruled out.
“We support our immigrant neighbors and want to reaffirm that The city of Minneapolis does not collaborate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in civilian immigration control operations,” the Minneapolis City Council stated on its website, highlighting that the city “has the most dynamic Somali-American community in the country” and that local authorities are “proud of this community and the many achievements of the people who have emigrated from Somalia and now call Minneapolis their home.”
In this sense, before the beginning of federal operations, its mayor, Jacob Frey, has signed an order in the last few hours
executive “prohibiting federal, state and local agencies from using any parking (…) of the city to carry out civil immigration control operations.
The order also announces “a signage template” for those “wish to show their support for immigrants and mark their properties as prohibited zones for these activities.”
For his part, the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, who was the Democratic candidate for vice president in 2024, has described the operation as a “publicity stunt” and has accused the Government of “indiscriminately attacking immigrants.”
Minneapolis has stood alongside the Somali community in the face of Trump’s latest xenophobic attacks. “These are people who do nothing but complain. They are all trash,” he has stated, making it clear that he does not want them in the US.
Also in New Orleans
Added to these raids are the Operation Catahoula Crunchin New Orleans, Louisiana, directed contra “illegal alien criminals roaming freely thanks to sanctuary policies,” term with which the Trump Administration refers to cities and states that restrict their cooperation with the White House in relation to their strict immigration directives.
The objective of this operation is none other than detain migrants from Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
The deployment of dozens of federal agents has shaken a state with about 223,000 immigrantsof which almost one in five are from Honduras and nearly an eighth are from Mexico, according to data from the American Immigration Council.
Latin restaurants and businesses They have announced on their social networks closures due to fear that workers or clients will be detained in raids, while activists have questioned whether agents are targeting migrants with criminal records.
Sign indicating that access to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is not allowed this Wednesday at a taqueria in New Orleans.
Reuters
Offensive against ‘sanctuary cities’
Department of Homeland Security operations against illegal immigration, ordered by Trump, have been deployed mainly in cities led by Democrats since June 2025, focused on raids by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and deployments of National Guard troops to carry out mass deportations.
The first sirens sounded in Los Angeles at the beginning of June 2025long before the residents understood that their city had become the laboratory of a new immigration offensive directed from the White House.
DHS and ICE patrols began to enter in Latin neighborhoodsblocking entire streets while helicopters flew over apartment blocks in Boyle Heights and the south-central part of the city, to the hunting for undocumented people in raids that extended to factories, warehouses and bus stops.
The protests did not take long to arrive, with thousands of people filling the city center and denouncing that the operations were not responding to a security emergency, but to a political strategy to punish one of the largest democratic seats in the country.
In Washingtonthe scenery became even more symbolic. National Guard soldiers, under the direct control of the Republican, began to patrol avenues presided over by the buildings that embody American democracy, while immigration agents extended their controls to subway stations and service areas.
He message was double: a show of force in the face of an alleged wave of crime attributed to immigrants and a warning to Democratic leaders of what could happen if they challenged the federal immigration agenda.
Civil rights organizations denounced that The military presence and raids had created a climate of fear that affected both undocumented immigrants and citizens of racial minorities, reviving debates about the limits of the law and the partisan use of federal forces.
Memphis It was added in September to that map of cities chosen by Trump to show how far he was willing to go in his crusade against what he described as an “internal enemy.”
Although local statistics showed a recent reduction in crime rates, the city was presented by Washington as an uncontrolled focus of violencethus justifying the sending of thousands of National Guard troops and hundreds of federal agents to accompany ICE raids in predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods.
The mayor, Democrat Paul Young, criticized that the operation had been decided without dialogue with local authorities, while community groups documented nighttime raids on housing blocks and mass arrests that fueled the feeling of occupation rather than security.
In Chicagoanother Democratic bastion and sanctuary city, the script was repeated with its own nuances.
First came the intensive DHS raids, directed at immigrant neighborhoods and accompanied by a presidential speech that blamed the city for being a refuge for foreign criminals and for allowing protests against federal immigration policy.
Then, the explicit threat to deploy the National Guard, which ended up running into judicial resources and the frontal opposition of the governor of Illinois J.B. Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson, convinced that the real goal was not to reduce crime but bend the political arm of a city that had become a symbol of resistance.
On November 15, the Operation Charlotte Network in the city of the same name, the most populated in North Carolina, with more than 370 arrests in one week. Democratic Gov. Josh Stein criticized the racial profiling of the arrests.