ICE in Minnesota: From 4,000 agents to 400

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - A pair of court filings shed new light on the Trump administration’s drawdown to the enhanced immigration enforcement operations known as Metro Surge in Minnesota. According to sworn affidavits from top regional officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agencies, there should be just over 400 federal officers and investigators in Minnesota to deal with ongoing immigration enforcement operations by the end of the week.

Details provided in civil rights lawsuit

What we know:

Two top regional officials with Immigration Enforcement and Border Protection have provided sworn affidavits detailing the specifics of the Operation Metro Surge drawdown.

READ MORE: ICE in Minnesota: Sharp drop in weekly immigration habeas filings

The court filings were requested by U.S. District Court Judge Eric Tostrud as he weighs an ACLU civil rights lawsuit claiming that enhanced immigration enforcement operations over the last few months in Minnesota involved racial profiling and the unlawful, warrantless arrests of individuals without probable cause.

Tostrud said he needed additional details about the impact the Trump administration’s drawdown might have on future enforcement practices in the state before issuing a ruling on the matter.

4,000 immigration arrests

What they're saying:

The affidavits were filed by Marty Raybon, Sr., CBP’s Lead Field Coordinator for ICE’s Metro Surge operation and Sam Olson, ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Field Office Director in Minnesota.

Olson described Operation Metro Surge as an "exclusively federal operation" between ICE ERO, ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and other partners, with a mission to significantly increase "at-large" arrests of "illegal aliens in the Twin Cities metropolitan area, focusing on criminal aliens and individuals with executable final orders."

Administration Border Czar Tom Homan had previously announced the end of the operation two weeks ago, with officials touting more than 4,000 arrests.

Border Protection winding down MN deployment

By the numbers:

Border Patrol is winding down deployment in Minnesota:

• According to the sworn affidavits, between ICE and Border Protection, some 4,000 federal agents were assigned to Operation Metro Surge at various times.
• Raybon reports that the drawdown for Customs and Border Protection began on Feb. 4 when the agency demobilized approximately 680 officers and agents, leaving approximately 349 CBP officers and other personnel in Minnesota.
• Raybon wrote, in the last few weeks, the agency continued to reduce its staffed manpower in the state, with the final 67 or so agents and employees set to return to other assignments this week.

ICE staffing to remain slightly elevated

Dig deeper:

As for ICE’s current staffing levels, Olson stated that the agency had approximately 270 Enforcement and Removal officers and 700 Homeland Security Investigators detailed to the local St. Paul Field Office after deploying some 3,000 at various times during the surge.

By the end of the week, Olson expects those numbers to drop and then hold steady, moving forward at 107 EROs with another 300 or so HSI agents on the ground.

He says typical Enforcement and Removal Operations staffing in the St. Paul field office is roughly 190 officers covering a five-state region of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Iowa with approximately 80 of those assigned specifically to the Twin Cities.