The Department of Homeland Security began deploying thousands of federal agents to Minnesota’s Twin Cities over the weekend as part of a massive surge in immigration enforcement after President Donald Trump attacked state leaders over a spate of welfare fraud cases that allegedly cost the state billions.
The decision to deploy as many as 2,000 agents follows months of ire from the Trump administration about welfare fraud cases involving some Somali residents of the state, whom the president referred to in December as “garbage.” Minnesota has a population of around 79,000 Somali people, many of whom live in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul region and have recently been targeted by DHS.
In a statement to NOTUS, a DHS spokesperson confirmed the surge and said the operation has already resulted in a large number of arrests.