More than six months after federal agents descended on Minnesota, the toll of the immigration crackdown on the Twin Cities continues to mount.

The latest revelations about the far-reaching and deeply felt impacts of the campaign known as Operation Metro Surge come in a Human Rights Watch report published Thursday.

Based on more than 130 interviews, video analysis, and government arrest data, the report documents a dizzying array of abuses over the multi-month siege of Minneapolis and St. Paul — from lethal violence to free speech violations, unlawful detentions, and more.

While many of the abuses are well-known — including the killings of Minnesota residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents — others occurred in the shadows of the infamous campaign.

Among the most troubling accounts are those provided by healthcare and mental health professionals.

According to the report, the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Minnesota saw a 120 percent increase in calls and a “significant increase” in the number of people struggling with suicidal thoughts or actions during Metro Surge. One medical provider knew of at least three teenagers who attempted to take their own life after their parents were detained in the crackdown, with one of the adolescents doing so on a “frequent” basis.

“One goal of the report is to bring light back to the full scope of the harm, and not only the harm that we saw in terms of violence in the streets, in terms of abusive detentions,” Reagan Williams, the author of the new report, told The Intercept, “but also the effects that that had for aspects of daily life for everybody here — the impact it had on people’s ability to leave their homes, to go to doctor, to go to school, to go to work.”

Human Rights Watch found the combination of violence and racial profiling that defined the crackdown caused many Minnesotans to forgo medical care.

The day after Good was killed, nearly a third of one healthcare provider’s patients — mostly Somali or Spanish-speaking immigrants — did not show up for pre-scheduled appointments. Another provider said the number of in-person visits at their office dropped by as much as 50 percent.

When Williams arrived in the Twin Cities, her focus was the kind of violent interactions documented in viral videos proliferating from Minnesota. She soon learned those weren’t the only issues community members were desperate to discuss.

“People that we talked with expressed emotions of exhaustion, fear, frustration, immense stress,” she said. “They expressed particular concerns for children, medical providers in particular, the impact of missing school, of knowing violence is happening in their communities — for immigrant children and children of color, the fear of having a parent taken, of themselves being taken.”

“Children are particularly vulnerable to long-term impacts of this kind of acute violence and stress,” Williams added. “Those are impacts that will continue on.”

“Near-Total Impunity”

Described by Trump administration officials as the largest immigration enforcement operation in history, the crackdown in the Twin Cities began in December and stretched into February. Thousands of officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Border Patrol conducted roving arrest operations throughout the area.

More than 4,000 immigrants were arrested during Metro Surge. At roughly 100 arrests per day, it was the highest per capita arrest rate in the country; 64 percent of immigrants arrested in the campaign had no criminal record.

“In Minnesota, US citizens and immigrants alike were racially profiled in the ordinary course of their day — approached by federal agents while driving, while at work, or while shoveling snow,” the report said. “Minnesota residents of Somali and Latin American descent were notably targeted, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of these communities are US citizens or have green cards.”

A hotline run by the National Lawyers Guild recorded 524 cases of the U.S. citizens detained during the surge, though the figure is believed to be a significant undercount. A survey by the U.S. Immigration Policy Center at the University of California, San Diego earlier this year found that nearly a third of Minneapolis residents experienced an interaction with federal agents; of those interactions, nearly half occurred “at or near a school, healthcare facility, childcare facility, courthouse, or place of worship.”

The new report follows a fresh tally from Minneapolis officials, announced last week, estimating that Metro Surge cost the city nearly $700 million. A nonprofit serving tenants in Minnesota described the economic fallout as a “crisis,” the Human Rights Watch report said, with an 85 percent increase in people seeking rent payment assistance.

In one Minnesota school district, attendance dropped by nearly a third during the government operation. At least 14 incidents of immigration enforcement reported at or near campuses, including the arrest of a preschool teacher, a special education staff member, and a parent at a school bus stop.

“If I told you every time ICE was near a school,” the district’s superintendent told Human Rights Watch, “you’d stop reading my messages.”

Considering the sweeping impacts of the crackdown, Human Rights Watch is calling for an overhaul of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE and Border Patrol; congressional investigations into the actions of officials involved in the operation; legislation to prohibit immigration arrests at sensitive locations such as schools and hospitals; and a host of other reforms.

To date, the report said, “The many abuses committed by federal agencies during Operation Metro Surge have so far been met with near-total impunity.”

All nine defendants have now been sentenced in federal court for their roles in a drug smuggling ring that mailed a record number of fentanyl pills from Arizona to the Twin Cities hidden in stuffed animals.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Bryan gave Stardasha Christina Davenport-Mounger, 26, of Minneapolis, a one-year prison term last week after she previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute the drug from August 2022 to February 2023.

The others, all from either St. Paul or Minneapolis, were also indicted and sentenced on the same charge following the early 2023 seizure of two packages with 280,000 fentanyl pills that were sent through the U.S. Postal Service from Phoenix to the Twin Cities metro area.

Authorities called the seizure, which amounted to over 67 pounds with an estimated value of more than $2.2 million, the largest ever in Minnesota. Just 2 milligrams of fentanyl can kill a person, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Davenport-Mounger’s sentence, which includes three years of supervised release after incarceration, was a variance from the federal advisory guidelines, which called for her to spend between 121 and 151 months in prison. Federal prosecutor Campbell Warner asked for 121 months, while defense attorney Ira Whitlock asked for a downward departure or variance.

Davenport-Mounger and several of her co-defendants traveled to Phoenix to buy fentanyl from a supplier. They hid the pills inside large stuffed animals, putting them in boxes lined with dog treat bags, “presumably to prevent a drug-sniffing dog from alerting them,” court documents said. They wrapped the packages to resemble birthday presents and mailed them to the Twin Cities.

“Unfortunately, police did not catch every package, meaning kilograms of pills made their way to the Twin Cities and were distributed to others,” Warner wrote in a presentencing memo.

Although Davenport-Mounger did not play a leadership role in the conspiracy, she was also not a minor participant, Warner said. Her latent prints were recovered from all the seized packages, meaning she flew to Phoenix at least twice as part of the conspiracy.

Whitlock called Davenport-Mounger a “minor participant” in the case who “followed the directions of her lover and co-defendant (Cornell Montez Chandler Jr.).”