It was clear after the killing of Renee Good on Jan. 7 that Operation Metro Surge the Trump administration’s pretextual immigration crackdown in Minnesota was a failure.
Far from cowing the people of Minneapolis, Good’s death at the hands of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer stiffened their resolve and led even more Minnesotans to join the fight against the president’s masked paramilitaries.
A less fanatical White House might have used that moment to stage a tactical withdrawal, to pull back on the assault and recalibrate in the face of stiff resistance. But in the actually existing Trump administration, immigration policy is dictated by rigid ideologues. They met Good’s death with insults, slander and the promise of further repression.
Kristi Noem, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said that Good was engaged in “domestic terrorism.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called Good a “deranged lunatic.” Vice President JD Vance said her actions were “an attack on law and order” and “an attack on the American people.” He also said the officer who shot Good was protected by “absolute immunity.” (He later backtracked, video evidence notwithstanding.)
We know what happened next. On Saturday, officers with Customs and Border Protection detained, beat, shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse who had been observing and filming ICE and CBP operations.
Like Good’s death, Pretti’s was caught on camera, and like Good’s death, it was egregious. Images and video of Pretti’s killing exploded on social media. Before the White House could even respond, there were protests, demands for accountability, calls to abolish ICE and palpable discontent across the political spectrum.
And when the administration did address the killing, it returned to the same lies and distortions it had used to discredit Good. “This individual went and impeded their law enforcement operations, attacked those officers, had a weapon on him and multiple dozens of rounds of ammunition, wishing to inflict harm on these officers,” Noem said, as if video of the confrontation did not exist. Stephen Miller, the president’s homeland security adviser, called Pretti a “domestic terrorist” and accused Senator Amy Klobuchar of “fanning the flames of insurrection” to stop deportations.
By Sunday, the Trump administration had begun to backpedal. By Monday, they were scrambling to appease public anger. Officials announced that they would remove Gregory Bovino, the highly visible CBP field commander, from the area.
Homeland Security said it would pull some CBP agents from Minnesota, and Trump said he would withdraw ICE officers as well. “At some point, we will leave,” he said. “We’ve done, they’ve done, a phenomenal job.”
This was no longer a setback; it was a rout. The White House had failed to achieve its strategic objectives — both the mass removal of immigrants from the Minneapolis area and the suppression of political opposition through force and fear. It had also lost significant public ground on what was once its strongest issue.
When Trump took office last January, he held a net eight-point advantage on immigration, according to an average compiled by the pollster G Elliott Morris. Now he has a net 10-point disadvantage.
Individual polls show an even steeper decline: Trump is 18 points underwater on immigration in the latest New York Times–Siena poll, and 61% of respondents say ICE’s tactics have gone too far. Trump’s overall approval has dropped below 40% in recent surveys from YouGov, Reuters and The Economist.
The president’s retreat in the wake of Pretti’s death especially following Good’s has emboldened Democrats. Senate Democrats have promised to filibuster a forthcoming Department of Homeland Security funding bill unless it includes serious limits on ICE and CBP. Representative Hakeem Jeffries has pledged to impeach Noem if she does not resign. There are also signs of internal strain.
Gettysburg was meant to force a reckoning. Gen. Robert E. Lee intended his invasion of the North to demonstrate Confederate superiority, win foreign recognition and shift the strategic balance of the Civil War. It was a calculated offensive to secure political and diplomatic gains, if not end the conflict outright.
What Lee did not anticipate was the resolve of the Union defenders. There was Brig. Gen. Gouverneur K Warren, whose quick thinking secured Little Round Top. There were the soldiers who held Culp’s Hill against repeated assaults, and the II Corps troops who repelled the final attack on the Union centre. The result was a decisive defeat. Lee lost the initiative and spent the remainder of the war fighting defensively. The Confederacy never recovered.
ICE and CBP still roam the streets, and Trump’s authoritarian ambitions remain intact. But surveying the wreckage of Operation Metro Surge this administration’s crushing defeat at the hands of another band of tenacious Northerners Minneapolis increasingly looks like MAGA’s Gettysburg.
The New York Times