A federal judge in Minnesota said plaintiffs challenging Operation Metro Surge made a clear showing that federal immigration officers used race or ethnicity to stop people without reasonable suspicion, calling the evidence from individual encounters “compelling and troubling” in a March 9 court order.
In the 111-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Eric Tostrud wrote that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in showing that federal officials maintained unconstitutional policies during the operation, including investigatory stops based on ethnicity or race without reasonable suspicion that a person was violating immigration law. He also said the record supported the claim that some arrests were made without warrants or probable cause.
Tostrud denied the request for a preliminary injunction, however, saying the plaintiffs had not shown they were likely to face immediate future harm because the scope of the federal operation in Minnesota had been significantly reduced. He also said the findings were made at the preliminary-injunction stage and would not bind a future trial on the merits.
The case was brought by three U.S. citizens who said they were stopped or arrested during the immigration crackdown. In the order, Tostrud wrote that one plaintiff, Jonathan Aguilar Garcia, was stopped and detained based solely on his race or ethnicity after being approached by agents at a Target. The judge noted that white people were also present and yelling at agents that day, but were not questioned, photographed, harassed, followed, tackled or arrested.
The ruling also said plaintiff Mahamed Eydarus and his mother were stopped and detained based solely on their race or ethnicity. More broadly, Tostrud wrote that the record showed about two dozen people were stopped without reasonable suspicion in Minnesota between mid-December 2025 and mid-January 2026.
Operation Metro Surge began in December 2025, when the Department of Homeland Security expanded immigration enforcement in Minnesota. The order said DHS detailed an additional 2,000 officers to the St. Paul field office and that the operation grew to more than 3,000 federal immigration officers or agents at its peak, acting primarily in the Twin Cities.
Federal lawyers argued that the plaintiffs’ evidence represented only a small share of the thousands of arrests made during the operation and did not prove an official policy of racial profiling. Tostrud rejected that argument as unpersuasive, writing that the plaintiffs had submitted a significant volume of testimony in a short period.
The lawsuit will now move forward after the court said the plaintiffs had presented substantial evidence at this stage that unconstitutional immigration enforcement practices were used during the operation.
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