July 30, 2026
In December 2025, the Trump administration began sending federal immigration agents to Minneapolis. By early January, the administration announced they were sending 2,000 agents into the city, in what officials called the “largest DHS operation ever” in its history, and sent over a thousand more soon after.
In the weeks that followed, federal agents killed two American citizens, sparking local, national, and international outrage. Thousands monitored and documented the government’s actions in their neighborhoods and organized material support networks to help community members stay safe. In a few cases, they gathered in large demonstrations in Minneapolis and across the country.
Minnesota’s leaders and media outlets have highlighted the ways in which Operation Metro Surge harmed their communities and their economy. Businesses shuttered and workers stayed home out of fear of encountering immigration officers, who often worked in unmarked cars and approached people in unexpected locations.
Recent research by the W.E. Upjohn Institute’s Aaron Sojourner and North Star Policy Action’s Aaron Rosenthal confirms what community leaders have reported anecdotally: DHS activity hurt workers and harmed the Minneapolis–St. Paul economy. In the weeks after the surge of DHS agents started, employment declined 2.8 percent, the number of operating businesses fell 1.7 percent, and the number of hours worked fell 1.9 percent.
As Sojourner explained, “If you take that impact on the number of hours and put that into dollars… workers in the Minneapolis–St. Paul area lost over $100 million in wages.”
In the leisure and hospitality sector, which was hit particularly hard, 4,600 jobs were lost during the surge across the entire state. This sector’s workers—both those who lost jobs and those who saw their hours cut as businesses shuttered and people stayed home—lost a total of 3.8 million working hours, resulting in $71 million in lost wages for workers in January, February, and March of this year.
Sojourner and Rosenthal’s estimates show that the number of employees at work each day in the Twin Cities metro area was in line with what would be expected based on trends in other similar metro areas before the agent surge started. Then, after the agent surge started on January 3, the number of employees clocking into work fell, dropping most sharply—by 17 percent—on January 23, when during the large Day of Truth and Freedom march, organizers called on people to protest by staying home from work, school, and shopping.
Those conclusions are based on analysis of daily data from a timekeeping and payroll platform that tracks small businesses’ hours worked, employees working, and locations open. The authors compare trends in the Twin Cities area to those in 49 other metro areas. The leisure and hospitality analysis is based on monthly data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
These findings deepen the public understanding of the consequences of increased federal immigration enforcement by the Trump administration. As debates over immigration policy continue, policymakers and researchers should continue to scrutinize the ways in which immigration enforcement impacts local workers and economies.
Sojourner recently discussed his findings in conversation with the Economic Policy Institute as part of a panel hosted by Erica Williams, executive director at DC Fiscal Policy Institute, and that also included Chloe N. East, a professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder. The conversation can be viewed online and listened to at the State of Working America Podcast.
Experts
