MINNEAPOLIS — Three months ago, masked ICE agents in unmarked vehicles descended on the Twin Cities as part of Operation Metro Surge, the Trump administration’s largest and most aggressive crackdown yet of immigrants.

The agents arrested thousands of undocumented immigrants, in what the Border Patrol commander then in charge there, Gregory Bovino, called a “turn and burn” strategy. Agents also threatened journalists and activists documenting the arrests, and shot and killed two U.S. citizens — Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

Back then, community members, fed up with the presence of ICE agents in their city, took to street corners across the city with whistles around their necks, ready to alert their neighbors of the presence of federal immigration agents. Neighborhoods created a network of volunteers who drove migrants to work, doctors’ appointments and brought people food who were too afraid to leave their homes.

Today Minneapolis looks different. The crackdown has receded, and arrests of immigrants have dropped 12%. Commander Bovino was forced to retire, and the neighborhood watches that tracked ICE SUVs are no longer as active. But the surge left a mark that enforcement statistics can’t capture, including a hollowed-out local economy that immigrants and their neighbors say they are struggling to rebuild.

A sign reading “A person was stolen from us by ICE here” hangs from a utility pole at Powderhorn Park in the wake of Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis, Minn. on April 10, 2026.

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Mourners visit the memorial site for Alex Pretti, who was shot and killed by federal agents in January during Operation Metro Surge, in Minneapolis, Minn. on April 24, 2026.

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“We were left traumatized,” said Y, a woman who asked NPR to identify her by her middle initial because she worries speaking out will affect her ongoing immigration case.

NPR talked to nine immigrants about how Operation Metro Surge upended their lives and how they’re adapting today.

Together, their stories map what the crackdown left behind: shuttered restaurants, households rationing groceries, mounting debt, mental health woes, and and, for some, a serious reckoning with whether to leave the United States to return to their home countries.

The seamstress

On the evening of January 13th, Y was headed home from one of her two jobs as a seamstress.

Life was going well and the prospects were bright: she had recently bought a house, and talked to her daughter about the prospect of sending her to college.

In the blink of an eye everything changed. Y said she was surrounded by unmarked vehicles while driving home from work. This was in the height of Operation Metro Surge, when streets were empty and masked ICE agents would drive around the city in unmarked cars and make random stops in the streets.

The immigration officers, she said, arrested her despite her showing them her work permit and documentation showing she had applied for a U visa, one given to victims of specific crimes.

The Ecuadoran spent a month being shuffled around multiple detention centers in the U.S. She said before being detained, she barely had debt.

But after being released from detention with an ankle monitor while her immigration case plays out, Y said things got bad.

Y, an Ecuadorean seamstress who was detained during Operation Metro Surge and sent to a detention facility in Texas despite having a work permit, sits for a portrait beside her daughter in Minneapolis, MN on April 23, 2026. Y’s month-long detention led to her losing one of her two jobs as well as amassing around $13,000 in debts related to legal fees, lost income, and travel costs, as she had to pay her own return expenses from Texas after being released.

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Y, an Ecuadorean seamstress who was detained during Operation Metro Surge and sent to a detention facility in Texas despite having a work permit, shows the ankle monitor she is required to wear at her home in Minneapolis, Minn. on April 23, 2026. Y’s month-long detention led to her losing one of her two jobs as well as amassing around $13,000 in debts related to legal fees, lost income, and travel costs, as she had to pay her own return expenses from Texas after being released.

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With no weekly paycheck, and with mounting legal fees, her debt skyrocketed.

“It was hard to come out of detention and find so much debt,” Y said.

Y’s 18-year-old daughter asked friends and family to borrow $7,500 to post bond for her mom. The daughter also asked for help to pay for the mortgage of the house, and to pay for utilities. Y now owes more than $13,000 to friends and family members who pooled their money.

Y recently started working again, and is looking for a second job, or even a third one.

Before detention, Y was hoping to save enough money to help send her 18-year-old daughter to college. The daughter wants to be a veterinarian.

But now she worries college may be out of reach.

“My dream was to see my daughter in college — I used to tell her, ‘don’t worry, I have two jobs and I will figure a way for you to graduate from the university,’” Y said. “Now we have to find scholarships. It’s been hard.”

The day laborers

During Operation Metro Surge, the areas where day laborers used to gather to get jobs — including the Home Depot or the empty lot on Lake Street — were completely emptied.

People enter and exit a Home Depot in the Twin Cities, MN on April 22, 2026. Day laborers often seek work opportunities outside of home improvement retail outlets, with such locations becoming a common target of immigration enforcement operations.

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V, a day laborer from Ecuador who went into hiding and lost employment for weeks during Operation Metro Surge, waits for work along East Lake Street in Minneapolis, Minn. on April 22, 2026.

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But months after the operation ended, migrant workers have started to return for work.

V, an Ecuadorian man who asked NPR to identify him by the initial of his first name because he’s undocumented, said “everything changed” for day laborers.

He’s now behind on his rent, he said. Work has been slow and his hourly wage is down.

49-year-old R, another worker, used to get hired every day for work by camping out at the Home Depot lot. She told NPR she’d get paid anywhere from $20 to $25 per hour for cleaning offices and homes.

R, a day laborer from Ecuador who cleans houses for a living, waits for work outside a Home Depot in the Twin Cities, Minn. on April 22, 2026. Although she has returned to work following Operation Metro Surge, R has seen both a decline in work opportunities as well as a decrease in hourly wages being offered.

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A week ago she went back to work. These days when she gets hired, she’s getting offered $15 to $17 per hour.

“It’s like starting again from zero,” R said. She asked NPR to use her first initial because she’s undocumented.

“ICE destroyed our lives psychologically and physically,” she said.

The restaurant owners in the brink of closing 

The Hernandez family have owned the Mexican restaurant El Tejabal in Richfield, Minn., for nearly two decades. It is a staple in the community.

Owners Miguel Hernandez, Sr., and Rosa Zambrano said the surge in immigration agents created chaos in their restaurant: employees stopped coming, customers stopped eating in. They lost about 60% in sales.

“We won’t recover because those sales are not going to come back, and we still have to pay rent, and the cost of food has increased,” Zambrano said in Spanish.

Miguel Hernandez preps food at El Tejaban Mexican Grill, the family-run restaurant that he has owned with his wife Rosa Zambrano for nearly two decades, in Richfield, Minn. on April 22, 2026. The couple fears that they will need to close their restaurant when their current lease ends, as the business suffered dramatic revenue losses during Operation Metro Surge and has struggled to recover in the months since.

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Miguel Hernandez reads an order slip at El Tejaban Mexican Grill, the family-run restaurant that he has owned with his wife Rosa Zambrano for nearly two decades, in Richfield, Minn. on April 22, 2026;

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Rosa Zambrano discusses administrative details with her daughter Diana and an employee in the office at El Tejaban Mexican Grill, the family-run restaurant that she has owned with her husband Miguel Hernandez for nearly two decades, in Richfield, Minn. on April 22, 2026.

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The couple said they’ve decided to close in about two years, when their lease is up. They said they’ve crunched the numbers and realized there’s no chance for them to fully recover.

Both Zambrano and Hernandez Sr. are 60 years old and they were hoping to save some money for their retirement. That’s not possible anymore.

“We are not saving money to continue the business,” Zambrano said. “We are saving to pay rent.”

Daughter Dianna Hernandez, 27, works at the restaurant and during the surge she said she had to lock its doors because of the presence of ICE agents in the parking lot.

Rosa Zambrano, Dianna Hernandez, and Miguel Hernandez at El Tejaban Mexican Grill, in Richfield, Minn. Dianna’s parents have owned the restaurant for nearly two decades.

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She doesn’t want to see the restaurant close — but she acknowledges Operation Metro Surge changed their lives, even though she and the rest of the family are U.S. citizens.

“This is where I grew up, this is all I know and to just think and hear them say we are going to close in two to three years, and the way it’s ending, I hate it for them,” she said.

The family who lost it all

Many people who talked to NPR have relied on their children, their community and their savings to continue to live. But others are facing economic ruin.

“The economic, emotional, traumatic impact of everything that we went through here in Minneapolis is going to be felt for years,” Myrka Zambrano, with the advocacy group Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee, said.

A bill making its way through the Minnesota Legislature would create a $100 million relief program for small businesses impacted by the crackdown. But Zambrano said that’s not enough, especially when so many immigrants are struggling with other issues like food security and housing.

Pablo Alcaraz and María Peñalosa, a couple that has been living in the U.S. for more than 20 years, are struggling, too.

Husband and wife Pablo Alcaraz and Maria Peñalosa pose for a portrait outside their home in Inver Grove Heights, Minn. on April 22, 2026. The couple, who had to close their business Garibaldi Mexican Restaurant in West St. Paul after suffering dramatic revenue losses during Operation Metro Surge, have lost their only source of income.

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The commercial space that was previously home to Garibaldi Mexican Restaurant sits empty in West St. Paul, Minn. on April 28, 2026. The restaurant, which was owned by Pablo Alcaraz and his wife Maria Peñalosa, had to close after suffering dramatic revenue losses during Operation Metro Surge.

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The couple have work permits and a U visa — a type of visa given to victims of specific crimes.

Their whole life they had worked towards one dream — to open a restaurant.

But now the nonstop hum of the industrial fridge inside their cluttered trailer is a reminder of what could have been.

“It’s so unfair that in a few months the government has ended the work of 20 years,” Peñalosa said. “They ended our dreams.”

Their restaurant, Garibaldi Mexican Restaurant, went out of business as a direct result of Operation Metro Surge.

Before Operation Metro Surge, the couple said they would make about $15,000 in monthly profit, on average.

During Operation Metro Surge, sales evaporated. There were many days, he says, when they made almost nothing in profit.

Now they are living on the frozen meat and other food from the restaurant, but Alcaraz said they are likely to run out in a month.

“Once we run out of it, that’s when the problems will start,” he said.

Pablo Alcaraz becomes emotional as he and his wife Maria Peñalosa discuss the closure of their restaurant at their home in Inver Grove Heights, MN on April 22, 2026. The couple, who had to close Garibaldi Mexican Restaurant in West St. Paul after suffering dramatic revenue losses during Operation Metro Surge, have lost their only source of income.

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Peñalosa, the wife, said she worries about her husband’s mental health. He doesn’t want to leave his bed, and is depressed, she said.

Alcaraz recognizes he’s desperate. He said that because he had to close the restaurant and has some debt, he doesn’t know whether he’ll be able to open a new restaurant or another business.

“How am I going to move forward? I’m practically dead,” he said, with tears in his eyes. “I need a credit line to open a restaurant, to pay rent, to reopen. I don’t have it. They killed me.”

This story was supported by the journalism non-profit the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.

A Minneapolis restaurant in the North Loop is testing smaller plates and lower prices as it looks for a way to bring more diners back.

Salt and Flour started testing the new menu this week. The full menu, with prices capped at $15 and many items in the $10 range, goes into effect next week.

The summer menu includes fire-kissed pizza and grilled octopus. Owner Brian Ingram said the lower prices are meant to attract bigger crowds as consumers cut back due to rising unemployment and inflation.

“We need people to start dining out more often,” said Brian Ingram.

“As we did our market research and looked at what could make you dine out more often, we thought the $15-$20 mark, maybe that is the sweet spot,” said Ingram.

Ingram said he needs customers to start eating out again if he is going to stay open. He said the restaurant has 50 employees and empty tables.

“We’ve got 50 employees and an empty restaurant. How do you bring people back and make them feel comfortable about coming back?” said Ingram.

John Spry, a finance and economics expert at the University of St. Thomas’s Opus College of Business, said the move is one way restaurants can stand out in this economy. He said more businesses are being forced to get creative and aggressive, and that can benefit customers.

“This is a form of differentiation. This is a common business strategy,” said John Spry.

“You are getting the quality of their chef, but smaller plates at a smaller price point,” said Spry.

Ingram said other restaurants are also trying to figure out how to adjust to current conditions. He said Salt and Flour plans to keep the pricing strategy through the summer.

“We have to figure out how to exist in this place, and that goes for every restaurant out there. How do you live in this new world?” said Ingram.

New roofs and better insulation. Updated appliances, new paint and security improvements. And a sense that it’s all transformative — and overdue.

More than 50 years after the nation’s only Native-preference Section 8 housing project was established, Little Earth in south Minneapolis is undergoing a $50 million remodel that will last two years and cover all of its 212 units.

The work, which started early this year, will be so extensive that some of Little Earth’s more than 1,000 residents will have to move to hotels in phases while it goes on. But most residents are looking forward to the updates.

“It’s about damn time,” said Contessa Ortley, who has lived at Little Earth all her life. “[The units] are so old that it’s good to see them coming over and having some people get in there and actually fix them properly.”

It’s the first remodel of this scale since the housing complex was founded in 1973. 

“It’s just such a big deal that [it] is being invested in this way,” Joe Beaulieu, executive director of Little Earth Residents Association, said of the scale of the investment. “It shows that our people are cared for, they’re cared about, that their safety is important to us, that we want to make sure that our people have better than decent living conditions.”

The complex has a mix of units ranging from studio to four-bedroom units. Funding for the remodel is coming from multiple levels of government — federal, state, county and city — as well as private foundations. 

Minneapolis is kicking in almost $23 million, making it the city’s sixth-most-expensive development project last year, when the money was invested. “[It] really is a precious resource and something that we wanted to preserve,” said Linnea Graffunder-Bartels, senior project manager of Community Planning and Economic Development for the city. “Some of the rehab work that’s going to happen now is replacing systems that have been in place since original construction.”

Little Earth was founded in response to the Indian Relocation Act of 1956, which encouraged Native people to leave their reservations and move to cities to assimilate. That left many Native Americans disconnected from their reservations, their families, cultures, traditions and languages. 

Little Earth was founded to provide temporary housing to Native Americans who faced housing discrimination, while also providing them with a culturally connected community. 

“It was so new that it was loved and cherished,” said Cathee Vick, director of housing advocacy at Little Earth Residents Association. “I don’t think it was built to last as long as it has, and I do think people planted their roots because of the fight to get what they got.”

Graffunder-Bartels said the remodel became a priority after a federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) inspection in 2021 that identified urgently needed repairs and improvements. “That inspection result put Little Earth’s rental assistance funding at risk. At that point, HUD said, ‘These things need to be reinvested in, or else,’” she said. 

All Little Earth rental units are eligible for rental assistance. The funding commitments from different levels of the government come with the requirement that that affordability will be maintained till 2057. The new funding will also allow the Little Earth Residents Association to continue its work with those experiencing homelessness and people with disabilities by reserving 22 units for each type of need; these units will also come with supportive services. 

The remodel will take place in a phased manner, Vick said. Residents of some units will be temporarily moved to hotel units while their apartments undergo work.

The remodeling will include better insulation, new windows, repairs, new paint, new roofs, stucco, updated appliances, windows and walls, as well as energy efficiency improvements for water and insulation. It will even provide space for growing food and wildflowers. 

“[It’s] amazing we got it done,” said Tom LaSalle of LaSalle Development Group. “And we have to guard it carefully, especially with what’s going on right now,” he added, pointing to funding cuts in DEI-related projects under the Trump administration. LaSalle’s organization is leading the remodeling work and has also helped put together project funding. LaSalle has been involved in the development of Little Earth housing since its inception. 

LaSalle said that in addition to changing the landscaping of the project, the remodel will include culturally appropriate details such as colors, artwork, and access to more trees and wildflowers. 

The project, like any housing complex, is not without its complications. LaSalle said that density is a challenge because of the number of bedrooms packed in relatively small acreage. Members of multiple tribes represented at Little Earth have cultural differences as well, making for a “difficult social project.”

Talaya Hughes, a resident of Little Earth and an undergrad student at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, is a teen recovery coach who said she wants to help “bring culture back to our community and reconnect our youth to our roots.” She is excited by the idea of better sound insulation and improvements in heating and energy efficiency. But as a young woman, she said, she has safety at top of mind. “Before remodeling, what could have been worked on was the violence here,” she said. 

Drug use and homelessness plague the neighborhood. Little Earth housing is near a large encampment under Hwy. 55, the site of homeless encampments. 

“I don’t think it was built to last as long as it has, and I do think people planted their roots because of the fight to get what they got,” said
Cathee Vick, director of housing advocacy for the Little Earth Residents Association seen on April 21, 2026. Credit: Dymanh Chhoun | Sahan Journal

“It’s difficult,” Vick said. “We don’t want our kids to see this. You can’t go underneath the bridges. You got to walk in the middle of the road.” That’s a big inconvenience for Little Earth residents with family members living in the Red Lake building nearby, or for those going to employment classes at the American Indian Opportunities Industrialization Center.

Vick added that conversations are going on about how to address “this very sensitive but needed subject” and come up with possible solutions. “Because we do need help,” she said. 

LaSalle said that the remodel aims to address some of the security issues with AI-driven security that monitors cameras and alerts security personnel to any suspicious activity. 

“We need to give everyone an equal opportunity, and a new renovation is good for the community, to give them a safer environment,” Ortley said of safety issues around her home. ‘“We shouldn’t be discriminated against or less valued than others.”