Days of demonstrations against immigration agents left Minnesota tense on Tuesday (January 13, 2026), a day after federal authorities used tear gas to break up crowds of whistle-blowing activists, and State and local leaders sued to fight the enforcement surge that led to the fatal shooting of a Minneapolis woman.
Confrontations between federal agents and protesters stretched throughout the day and across multiple cities on Monday. Agents fired tear gas in Minneapolis as a crowd gathered around immigration officers questioning a man, while to the northwest in St. Cloud, hundreds of people protested outside a strip of Somali-run businesses after ICE officers arrived.
U.S. sends more agents to Minneapolis despite furore over woman’s killing
Later that night, confrontations erupted between protesters and officers guarding the federal building being used as a base for the Twin Cities crackdown.
With the Department of Homeland Security pledging to send more than 2,000 immigration officers into Minnesota in what Immigration and Customs Enforcement has called its largest enforcement operation ever, the State, joined by Minneapolis and St. Paul, sued the Trump administration on Monday (January 12, 2026) to try to halt or limit the surge.
