Flights, court filings and encounters indicate fewer federal agents in Minnesota, but observers remain wary

Since mid-February, the planes Nick Benson watches on the frosty tarmac of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport are mostly empty, with federal agents on average loading less than a dozen immigration detainees on board. It’s a far cry from last month, where he looked on, stunned, as they boarded as many as 127 detainees — the largest group he saw flown out on a single plane since Operation Metro Surge began.

Benson, a flight watcher who volunteers for the group MN50501, said it represents a significant decrease in the number of detainees flown from Minnesota to El Paso, Texas, or other detention center locations across the country.

When border czar Tom Homan announced Feb. 12 that the operation was ending, it was met with skepticism from activists and immigrant rights groups. Yet the observations from the airport add to a steady stream of indicators — from official statements, court filings and activist encounters — showing that federal immigration officials have dramatically downsized their footprint in Minnesota.

“Even as I consider myself deeply skeptical of anything the federal government is telling us right now, the trend and the data right now is what I would expect to see if things were drawing down,” said Benson, who watches from the upper floors of an airport parking garage and counts every immigrant detainee put on a plane.

There are no longer the huge numbers of detainees flown out in January, when Border Patrol Cmdr. Greg Bovino was leading the operation in Minnesota.

Back then, observers often saw 70 or more detainees put on each plane, and there were typically two flights every day, according to the data published by Benson, which uses a mix of direct headcounts and estimates based on federal detainee caravan sizes. Earlier this week, there were two days in a row with no detainee flights from MSP, the first time that has happened since early January.

The Department of Homeland Security and ICE did not respond to requests for comment.

ICE’s St. Paul field office director, Sam Olson, wrote in a declaration filing that as of Feb. 23, there were 270 Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers and 700 Homeland Security Investigations agents still on detail to the St. Paul field office. He noted that after Wednesday, roughly 107 ERO officers will remain. By the start of March, about 300 agents will still be on detail.

Another declaration from Marty Raybon Sr., Customs and Border Protection’s lead field coordinator for Operation Metro Surge, said that the remaining 67 CBP officers assigned to the operation in Minnesota would be “demobilized” by Feb. 23.

Despite those declarations, immigrant rights activists remain skeptical. Miguel Hernandez, an organizer with the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC), said he still regularly hears about arrests of immigrants, especially in outer Twin Cities suburbs.

He thinks the agents target areas outside of Minneapolis and St. Paul now because there is less of a “stronghold” of residents ready to quickly respond, and fewer high-density immigrant neighborhoods.

“We just believe that the tactics have changed and they’re moving in ways where the cameras won’t make it there,” he said.

“I was absolutely devastated to see that these multi-agent, multi-car raids were still happening after the announcement that the surge had ended,” she said.

Adkins said she is not reassured by the lower detainee flight numbers. She wants to hear the official arrest numbers from the Department of Homeland Security before having any confidence in a drawdown.

Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar and Angie Craig were told during a Feb. 20 tour of the Whipple building that fewer than 500 ICE agents remained in Minnesota, and that the government is averaging just two flights of detainees per week out of MSP.

Benson said that doesn’t match his observations: He’s seen a detainee flight leave MSP every day between Jan. 5 and Feb. 21, with the exception of Feb. 13, when there was no flight. Omar and Craig also said they were informed that no more detainees remained in the facility when they saw it Friday.

A spokesperson for Craig said the congressional representatives have reached out to officials for clarification on the discrepancies between what they were told during the visit and what they have heard from constituents. They are awaiting a response.

Hernandez said he thinks Homan’s announcement was intended to chill the efforts of observers. But Hernandez thinks the majority of observers aren’t slowing down, and remain committed to driving around and sounding the alarm when they see agents, even though it’s less frequent.