Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
Editorials & Other Articles
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
ICE Is Strangling the Minneapolis Economy by Ryan Cooper
President Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, announced Thursday that Operation Metro Surge—the violent occupation of Minneapolis and surrounding regions by DHS kidnapping squads—was going to end. At a minimum, it’s unclear how honest Homan was being; if the Minneapolis city council is any judge, ICE kidnappings were still ongoing Thursday, and Homan said that some officers would remain. On Wednesday, one particularly violent kidnapping in St. Paul left three cars wrecked and someone being taken out in an ambulance.
Given the Trump administration’s outrageous dishonesty about every possible subject, it would be wise to assume that the occupation—with kidnapping squads regularly snatching people off the streets, with cars full of ICE goons hanging menacingly around workplaces, schools, and even day cares—will continue until proven otherwise.
It follows that a substantial fraction of the Twin Cities population will keep staying at home for fear of being black-bagged and deported, quite possibly to one of the most infamous torture dungeons in history: the “Black Beach” in Equatorial Guinea. Bars, restaurants, and other venues are seeing serious declines in business, particularly in immigrant neighborhoods.
It’s a localized economic heart attack not unlike the one that hit the planet in March 2020. And if ICE really is leaving Minneapolis, it’s a safe bet that another city will be swarming with kidnappers soon.
Recall that the coronavirus pandemic caused probably the sharpest economic contraction in world history. In just one month, the American economy lost about 20 million jobs, and the unemployment rate soared to 14.8 percent. The reason is that a modern economy is built on a heavy circulation of money—your income is my spending, and vice versa. When cities locked down and everyone who could stayed home, a huge share of economic activity vanished overnight.
Given the Trump administration’s outrageous dishonesty about every possible subject, it would be wise to assume that the occupation—with kidnapping squads regularly snatching people off the streets, with cars full of ICE goons hanging menacingly around workplaces, schools, and even day cares—will continue until proven otherwise.
It follows that a substantial fraction of the Twin Cities population will keep staying at home for fear of being black-bagged and deported, quite possibly to one of the most infamous torture dungeons in history: the “Black Beach” in Equatorial Guinea. Bars, restaurants, and other venues are seeing serious declines in business, particularly in immigrant neighborhoods.
It’s a localized economic heart attack not unlike the one that hit the planet in March 2020. And if ICE really is leaving Minneapolis, it’s a safe bet that another city will be swarming with kidnappers soon.
Recall that the coronavirus pandemic caused probably the sharpest economic contraction in world history. In just one month, the American economy lost about 20 million jobs, and the unemployment rate soared to 14.8 percent. The reason is that a modern economy is built on a heavy circulation of money—your income is my spending, and vice versa. When cities locked down and everyone who could stayed home, a huge share of economic activity vanished overnight.
https://prospect.org/2026/02/13/ice-minneapolis-economy-trump-homan-operation-metro-surge/
