FRANKLIN, Wis. – Costco is set to break ground on its first Milwaukee County location this week. The store will be located at 27th and Drexel in Franklin. 

“This has been a long and exciting planning process, and I know many people in Franklin are happy to hear this news,” said Franklin Mayor John Nelson. “I want to thank the Costco team for choosing our community to build its first store in Milwaukee County.”

The 164,000-square-foot facility will be built on more than 20 acres of land at South 27th Street and West Drexel Avenue — a site Northwestern Mutual used as its Franklin campus.

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The facility will feature a 12-pump gas station at the south end of the development and 868 parking spaces. 

The store is set to open in November 2026. 

Costco stores

What we know:

Costco currently has several stores surrounding Milwaukee County, but none within its borders. The Franklin store will be the company’s first in the county.

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.

Locally grown food is typically more sustainable and fresher than imported groceries, but even in Indiana, where almost two thirds of the state is farmland, local veggies can be hard to find.

Some Indianapolis residents grow fruits and vegetables in their own backyards. Others might join a community garden. Many frequent the local network of farmers markets.

At least half a dozen community supported agriculture groups, known commonly as CSAs, provide another way to shrink the divide between Indianapolis dwellers and their food systems. From Greenwood to Noblesville, neighbors have banded together to create local agriculture cooperatives, buying food in bulk from nearby farmers — some even within city limits.

How CSAs work

Every week during the growing season, the Fisher family, Amish farmers in Montezuma, pack blue mail bins full of cucumbers, carrots and corn and send them to Indianapolis. A driver totes the bins about 80 miles east to the Irvington CSA, which has been connecting neighborhood residents with farm- to- Irvington produce for almost two decades. 

“It connects me to the food I eat,” Alyssa Chase, an Irvington CSA coordinator said. “I’ve been to the farm. I know exactly where it’s grown, and I know whose hands are picking it.”

The CSA model is simple. Participants pay farmers, usually smaller scale growers, an upfront fee to help cover season start-up costs. Then each week, the customers receive a delivery.

There’s no guarantee of bounty. CSA members might be blessed with an abundance of greens one week, but they also share with growers the risks involved with farming.

Not only does the local delivery model provide urbanites with fresh food and family farms some much-needed support, it’s more eco-friendly than the grocery store. A bustling network of refrigerated planes and trucks import 90 percent of Indiana’s produce, said Rachel Brandenburg, a food distribution manager at the Indiana State Department of Agriculture.

Indianapolis area farmers also offer slightly non-traditional, more tailored CSA programs, via monthly subscription boxes. Farmers markets offer a way to purchase local produce a la carte (even in the winter). Free food stands like in Fletcher Place and the White River State Park,’s U-Pick garden offer local produce at no cost.

“We’ve got a pretty robust system of urban growers here in Indy, some really shining examples who take the mission to their farms, the mission of feeding their neighbors,” Brandenburg said.

Starting in May each week at the Irvington CSA, members stop by the Downey Avenue Christian Church to pick up fresh produce. The first month can bring greens lettuce, kale and Swiss chard. Next sweet red strawberries appear in the bins, then cucumbers followed by carrots, squash, tomatoes and corn as summer turns to fall.

How to find fresh food near you

The Irvington CSA eventually spilled over into Greenwood, which now runs a separate CSA program delivering produce from the Fisher Farm to the southern suburbs. 

Similar programs have popped up across much of Indianapolis:

Kheprw’s Community Controlled Food Initiative offers year-round local produce pick-ups in Midtown, and Tuttle Orchards delivers subscription produce boxes across several area locations, with weekly pick ups at North Mass Boulder, Irvington Vinyl and Books, JCC Indianapolis, Geist Coffee, Wasson Nursery and Indiana Artisan.

Warfleigh resident Ben Matthews delivers his CSA boxes locally — by bike.

Bountiful Farm and Floral, a small urban farm, delivers produce directly to the homes of Irvington members. And Soul Food Project offers CSA delivery and pick up at the Binford Farmers Market, plus at its local farms in Irvington and Martindale-Brightwood.

IndyStar’s environmental reporting is made possible through the generous support of the nonprofit Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.

Sophie Hartley is an IndyStar environment reporter. You can reach her at sophie.hartley@indystar.com or on X at @sophienhartley.