By J. Patrick Coolican | Editor-in-chief
Good morning, Reformers,
Press release this morning:
“The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce announced today that it received the National Association of State Chambers’ inaugural Pathfinder Award for demonstrating extraordinary service to their members and leadership in their communities for its role in convening state, local and federal leaders to deescalate tensions during Operation Metro Surge.”
Giving:
You’re amazing!!!!
Max Nesterak was a Fulbright Scholar to Germany and jokes about how everyone there claims their ancestors were part of the underground resistance (or at the very least, just cooks).
Here’s what I remember about Operation Metro Surge, and which the documentary evidence shows: Icy silence of big business — until not speaking became untenable.
You can read Reformer freelancer Brian Martucci’s report on Jan. 16, more than a week after the killing of Renee Good and well into the swarming of our streets with masked federal agents routinely violating people’s constitutional rights.
Headline: Big Minnesota companies keep quiet as Trump’s immigration crackdown squeezes the state
Target, for instance, remained silent after video surfaced on Jan. 8 of federal agents arresting two Target employees at a Richfield store, later found to be U.S. citizens.
The chamber’s (in)famous letter calling for “an immediate deescalation of tensions and for state, local and federal officials to work together to find real solutions,” only came a day after the killing of Alex Pretti, on Jan. 25.
The January letter also claims that chamber members were “working every day behind the scenes with federal, state and local officials to advance real solutions.”
Ah, behind the scenes, the kind that can’t be verified.
As I wrote at the time, Operation Metro Surge was not a moment for diplomacy because you don’t negotiate on constitutional rights. It was a time for non-violent confrontation.
What ultimately chased the feds out of here, I strongly suspect, was national embarrassment, not “behind the scenes … real solutions.”
I get it: Businesses in Trump’s second term can’t mess with him, lest he slap a tariff on their imported goods or take a controlling stake in them or whatever..
And, I’m skeptical of the effort to get corporations to be engines of social progress or act like anything other than what they are: Profit-seeking machines that must be taxed and regulated.
But do us a favor and don’t claim credit for the real sacrifices made by Minnesotans and small businesses that put 4th Amendment signs on their doors.
To the Reformer:
ByAlyssa Chen
The winter surge of 3,000 federal immigration agents to Minnesota eventually led to over 2,300 immigrants leaving the country, according to updated federal data from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement obtained by the Deportation Data Project.
The figure is a modest increase from the Reformer’s previous tally of 1,760 people who were deported or left the country after being arrested by ICE in the surge. The new total includes 2,019 immigrants who were explicitly recorded as being deported, as well as 315 immigrants who left the country after being arrested but under circumstances that are unclear from just looking at the data.
The 2,300 immigrants deported during the winter surge, in turn, make up around 2% of the state’s undocumented population.
A driver pinches the bridge of his nose as ICE agents pull him over and detain him and his passenger Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026 on Bottineau Blvd. in Robbinsdale. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)
By Max Nesterak
Unionized doctors at two Twin Cities area hospitals began a four-day strike on Monday in what’s believed to be the first walkout by private-sector hospital doctors in U.S. history.
Doctors clad in their white coats walked picket lines outside Allina Health’s Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids and Unity campus in Fridley, carrying signs that read “patients over profits” and “burn out hurts.”
Union leaders say the strike — and potential disruption to patient care — is a necessary last resort after negotiating for more than three years for a first labor contract governing wages and working conditions.
“We need to be able to stand up for ourselves,” said Dr. Amber Galarowicz, an Allina hospitalist and bargaining team member for the union Doctors Council SEIU. “The voice that we’ll be able to have for our patients far outweighs the next four days.”
By John Boehler and Alicia Granse
Public records obtained by the ACLU-MN indicate that some Minnesota municipalities allowed such broad access to their ALPR systems that, in January, nearly 300,000 searches were run against their cameras. Records showed that many searches related to “civil immigration” instead of any active criminal investigation.
Local law enforcement does not have the time or resources to vet 300,000 monthly searches to ensure compliance with state law. Instead, they trust outside law enforcement agencies and third-party vendors to do that work for them.
The public should be educated about the potential for misuse.
IN OTHER NEWS
Trump EPA to strip greenhouse gas limits for power plants, a key Biden climate policy | Reformer via States Newsroom
US Supreme Court blocks Trump rule limiting mail voting, sides with Dem states | Reformer via States Newsroom
Minneapolis Public Schools to offer first look at plan that could close or merge schools | Star Tribune gift link
Trump has made more stock trades than all of Congress combined | Bloomberg gift link
OH BY THE WAY
Sorry about the paywall but this piece by Antonia Hitchens about Trump’s Washington construction projects is worth highlighting.
“One former Administration official … suggested that I consult a relevant book, ‘Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics.’ Its author, Frederic Spotts, argues that Hitler, a painter in his youth, saw himself as an artist reshaping the cultural essence of Germany. The former official said, ‘It opens with this very memorable scene of Hitler in the bunker toward the end of everything, and he’s obsessing over these architectural models of Linz, Austria, which is where he was from, and how he was going to make it this European cultural city.’”
OK.
We get a lot of scenes of Trump playing out his fantasy, remaking history to become the builder he never was in New York City by running roughshod over rules, laws, bureaucracies, banks. No one can thwart his loathsome aesthetic vision this time.
As part of the legal fracas over the ballroom, we see the absurd power the White House has assumed for itself, with very little resistance from the Roberts court.
“‘If the government decides, very quickly, to bulldoze the Statue of Liberty,’ the judge asked, ‘nothing can be done?’
‘I think that’s right, yes,’ a lawyer for the Administration responded.”
Here, Hitchens paints this incredible scene:
“Paolo Zampolli, a former modelling scout who is now Trump’s special envoy for global partnerships, told me that the President is just trying to give D.C. ‘a facelift.’ We were sitting near a large fan in his Dupont Circle row house. The air-conditioning was broken, and the Tate brothers were mingling upstairs with a handful of diplomats and Administration officials. ‘The city has so much potential, but the marble is crumbling,’ Zampolli said, dabbing sweat from his face with a handkerchief.”
The Tate brothers, in case you haven’t heard, have been accused by many women of trafficking them. The details are horrific.
A song for the late Cannonball Adderley’s birthday.
Have a great day all! JPC
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