FACT SHEET

BREAKDOWN OF ARRESTS BY ICE IN MINNESOTA

Minnesota has seen over 1,694 arrests in 2025, with 37% of arrestees having a prior criminal record and 19% of arrestees facing pending criminal charges. Since the beginning of “Operation Metro Surge” in late 2025, ICE has identified more than 3,000 arrests, though official numbers have yet to be released.

Did you know?...

Minnesota has seen at least 1,694 arrests in 2025, prior to the launch of Operation Metro Surge.

• From January 20, 2025, through October 15, 2025, ICE made 1,694 arrests in Minnesota.
• Of those 1,694 arrests, ICE identified 44% of arrestees with civil immigration violations (no criminal record), 37% of arrestees with prior criminal record, and 19% of arrestees with pending charges.

In January 2026, DHS identified 212 illegal immigrants as the “worst of the worst” on its website with the following breakdowns:

• 75 arrested for Violent crime (homicide, assault, domestic violence) or gang affiliation
• 28 arrested for Sex Offenses, Rape, Or Criminal Sexual Conduct
• 45 arrested for Fraud, Theft, Illegal Reentry, or Trafficking
• 57 for drugs
• 7 for DWIs

Executive Summary

Since January 2025, ICE has carried out over 200,802 arrests nationwide. While a large percentage of these arrests have been individuals convicted of a crime or with pending criminal charges, the percentage of arrests with no criminal convictions rose to 42.7% of arrests nationwide in January 2026. Public polling in support of ICE remains strong, with over 70% of midterm voters agreeing with the fact that entering the United States without legal permission is a crime.

Minnesota has seen over 1,694 arrests in 2025, with 37% of arrestees with prior criminal record and 19% of arrestees with pending criminal charges. Since the beginning of “Operation Metro Surge” in late 2025, ICE has identified more than 3,000 arrests, though official numbers have yet to be released.

DHS has identified over 212 “worst of the worst” arrests, including those accused of murder, rape, and gang affiliation. However, ICE has also been accused of arresting over 100 refugees lawfully settled in Minnesota and over 150 U.S. citizens arrested for impeding law enforcement operations.

General Minnesota ICE Arrests

Minnesota has seen at least 1,694 arrests in 2025, prior to the launch of Operation Metro Surge

• From January 20, 2025 through October 15, 2025, ICE made 1,694 arrests in Minnesota, an increase in arrests from 2024.
• Of those 1,694 arrests, ICE identified 44% of arrestees with civil immigration violations (no criminal record), 37% of arrestees with prior criminal record and 19% of arrestees with pending charges.

Recent ICE Arrests

Under the current federal operation to address illegal immigration in Minnesota, ICE has allegedly arrested more than 3,000 arrests, but official details have yet to be released.

• Since the launch of “Operation Metro Surge” ICE has identified over 400 undocumented immigrants arrested in Minnesota as of December 2025.
• In January 2026, DHS identified more than 3,000 arrests made in Minnesota related to Operation Metro Surge.
• In January 2026, a federal judge identified that more than 100 refuges lawfully resettled in Minnesota had been detained by ICE.
• ICE has identified that of the arrests it has made, nearly 150 US citizens have been charged with assault or obstructing law enforcement officials. However, official numbers have yet to be disclosed regarding Operation Metro Surge.

Worst Of The Worst

In January 2026, DHS identified 212 illegal immigrants as the “worst of the worst” on its website with the following breakdowns:

• 75 arrested for Violent crime (homicide, assault, domestic violence) or gang affiliation
• 28 arrested for Sex Offenses, Rape, Or Criminal Sexual Conduct
• 45 arrested for Fraud, Theft, Illegal Reentry, or Trafficking
• 57 for drugs
• 7 for DWIs

National ICE Statistics

Under President Trump, there has been an increase of individuals detained by ICE, with the amount of those detained without criminal convictions or pending charges rising as well.

• Between January 20, 2025 and June 26, 2025, ICE has carried out roughly 220,802 arrests nationwide. Of those arrested during this period, 36.5% of those had been convicted of a crime and 29.8% had pending criminal charges.
• In February 2025, the first full month of Trump’s second term, about 14.7% of those detained by ICE had no criminal convictions or pending charges. By September, that percentage had risen to 34.6%, and in January it was 42.7%.

Public Sentiment

Public polling finds that public support for ICE and enforcing federal immigration law remains strong among midterm voters.

• In February 2026, a poll found that 73% of midterm voters felt that entering the United States without legal permission is breaking the law.
• Midterm voters also supported deporting those here illegally by an almost 2:1 margin (61%-34%).
• When asked if they support ICE enforcing federal immigration law by removing illegal aliens, 54% of voters said they did support ICE.
• When asked if they opposed defunding ICE, 58% of midterm voters were opposed to ICE being defunded.

The Washington Post Grossly Understates the Crime Rate of Illegal Immigrants

By using a patent falsehood and disregarding key facts, the Post paints a picture of illegal immigration and crime that is diametrically opposed to reality. Other media outlets have published articles that suffer from similar flaws. These include but are not limited to:

• misrepresenting association as causation.
• cherry-picking timeframes that hide the full picture.
• employing bait-and-switch tactics.
• using statistical techniques that are inappropriate to the data.

In stark contrast to these sketchy studies, straightforward facts from credible primary sources prove that illegal immigrants are much more likely to commit serious, imprisonable crimes than the general U.S. population.

Source

https://www.justfactsdaily.com/the-washington-post-grossly-understates-the-crime-rate-of-illegal-immigrants

The Constitution & Illegal Immigration

• the Supreme Court stated in Harisiades v. Shaughnessy that “deportation” has “been consistently classified as a civil, rather than a criminal, procedure.”
• the federal law that governs the “apprehension and detention of aliens” states that an “alien may be arrested and detained pending a decision on whether the alien is to be removed” on a “warrant issued by the Attorney General,” which is not a judicial warrant but an administrative one.
• the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers states, “It is important to keep in mind that the underlying basis for a non-citizen’s removability may be due to some criminal violation, but the removal warrant used by ICE is not a criminal warrant signed by a federal judge.”

Source

https://www.justfactsdaily.com/in-fact/n0000739

Illegal immigrants vote in large enough numbers to change significant electoral outcomes.

The New York Times claims that “studies consistently show little if any evidence” of “widespread illegal voting by migrants.”

IN FACT, a rigorous study conducted by Just Facts found that roughly 1.0–2.7 million non-citizen immigrants illegally voted in 2024, and attempts to debunk this study by the Times, NPR, and others epically failed.

Furthermore, a 2014 study in the journal Electoral Studies found that illegal votes cast by non-citizens likely “gave Democrats the filibuster-proof super-majority needed to pass” Obamacare by putting Al Franken of Minnesota into the U.S. Senate with a winning margin of just “312 votes.”

Source

https://www.justfactsdaily.com/in-fact/n0000718

ICE & The 5-Year Old Boy

ABC News claims that ICE’s account of its care for a 5-year old boy in Minnesota is disputed by “school officials” who say that the “boy’s mother was home and begged for him.”

IN FACT, both ICE and the school officials agree that the mother would not open the door of her home to take custody of her son. Instead, people who were not the boy’s parents asked to take him. However, ICE officers and police officers are not allowed to hand children to non-parents unless a parent selects a caregiver or there are extenuating circumstances like child abuse. Here are the details:

• ICE says that the father of the boy left his son in his car and fled when ICE tried to detain the father.
• Both ICE and the school officials say that ICE took the boy to the home of his mother, but the mother would not open the door.
• The school officials claim that ICE wanted to use the child as “bait to” to detain the mother.
• ICE claims they wanted to give the boy to his mother and “assured her” that she would “NOT be taken into custody.”
• School officials say that neighbors, a school official, and “another adult living in the home” asked to care for the boy.
• ICE says that the father decided to keep his son with him after the mother refused to open the door.

Source

https://www.justfactsdaily.com/in-fact/n0000730

Murdering Americans

U.S. Senator Ed Markey (D–MA) claims that “anyone who supports funding DHS and ICE is supporting the murder of Americans.”

IN FACT, DHS and ICE prevent the murder of Americans by deporting criminal aliens, who have committed roughly 611 homicides per year in the U.S. for decades. Under Obama, ICE was forced to release at least 124 criminal aliens who were later charged with murder-related crimes committed in the U.S.

Moreover, ICE’s killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti may not constitute murder under the Supreme Court’s 1989 ruling in Graham v. Connor, which states:

The “reasonableness” of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight. …
The calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments — in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving — about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation.

Source

https://www.justfactsdaily.com/in-fact/n0000734

Crime and Illegal Immigrants

In 2018, the U.S. Government Accountability Office published a study of non-citizens in U.S. prisons and jails during 2010–2016.[1073] The study:

• found that these non-citizen inmates had been arrested/transferred for the following crimes committed within the U.S. during 1964–2017:
  • 1,097,800 drug offenses.
  • 505,400 assaults.
  • 219,900 burglaries.
  • 169,200 weapons violations.
  • 133,800 sex offenses.
  • 33,300 homicides.
  • 24,200 kidnappings.
  • 1,500 acts of terrorism.
• double-counted some crimes because the “data did not allow” the study to “distinguish between a new arrest and a transfer from one agency to another.”
• did not count some crimes because it only covered “a portion of the total population of criminal aliens incarcerated at the state and local level” since there “are no reliable population data on all criminal aliens in every U.S. state prison and local jail.”[1074]

Based on data from the U.S. Department of Justice, the Congressional Research Service determined in 2016 that:

Until recently, the proportion of noncitizens incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails corresponded closely to that of noncitizens in the U.S. population, but unreported incarceration data since 2013 has hindered such comparisons.[1075]

In 2023, non-citizens who remained in the U.S. accounted for:

• 7% of the U.S. population.[1076]
• 16% of federal arrests for non-immigration crimes.[1077]
• 19% of federal drug arrests.[1078]
• 10% of federal arrests for violent crimes.[1079]
• 29% of federal arrests for property crimes.[1080] [1081] [1082]

Source

https://www.justfacts.com/immigration#crime_removable

PolitiFact Covers Up Biden's Role in the Murder of Laken Riley

The “fact checker” PolitiFact asserts that President Biden had nothing to do with the murder of a nursing student by an illegal border crosser because “Biden does not decide who is released into the country.”

In reality, the president has vast powers to decide who is allowed into the U.S., and the person charged with this murder was let in as a direct consequence of Biden’s actions.

This murder is not an isolated instance. Homicides committed by non-citizens are hundreds of times more common than other types of murders that media outlets often focus on.

Source

https://www.justfactsdaily.com/politifact-covers-up-bidens-role-in-the-murder-of-laken-riley#biga