MINNEAPOLIS – Federal immigration officers are facing resistance in nearly every city targeted by President Donald Trump’s intensified enforcement campaign. However, it was in Minnesota—a state frequently clashing with Trump’s administration since 2026—where a 37-year-old woman tragically lost her life after being shot by an immigration officer, not far from where George Floyd was killed in 2020.

Trump has notably focused his efforts on several Democratic strongholds during his second term, but Minnesota has emerged as a principal target. This state, which became a flashpoint during his first presidency following Floyd’s death and the ensuing protests, remains a significant point of contention.

Recently, Trump stirred controversy by calling Minnesota’s Somali community “garbage” after a large federal probe exposed COVID-19 and medical aid fraud linked to organizations serving Somali immigrants, among others. These revelations prompted Minnesota’s Democratic Governor Tim Walz, who was Kamala Harris’ running mate in the 2024 election, to announce his decision not to seek reelection.

In a separate incident in June, a Democratic state legislator and her husband were killed by an apparent Trump supporter. Despite conservative claims that the shooter was actually a leftist acting under Walz’s influence, the victims’ family recently urged Trump to remove a social media post that echoed these conspiracy theories.

As tensions reminiscent of the upheaval following George Floyd’s death linger, the Trump administration declared on Tuesday that it would deploy over 2,000 federal officers to Minneapolis and St. Paul. This initiative is being described as the largest immigration enforcement action in history.

Amid that mounting tension, the Trump administration announced Tuesday that it was sending more than 2,000 federal officers to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul in what it claimed would be the biggest immigration enforcement operation in history.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who killed Renee Good during a protest Wednesday against the immigration raids opened fire just blocks from where, in 2020, a Minneapolis police officer shot and killed George Floyd. The parallels were painful and frightening for many in the area, including Stephanie Abel, a 56-year-old Minneapolis nurse, who is keeping her gas tank full and cash handy in memory of the chaos that followed that slaying.

“I thought the federal government would realize that now is not the time to be toying with people,” Abel said. “What are they going to try to do to get Minneapolis to ignite?”

Floyd’s death sparked the biggest domestic disturbance of Trump’s first term. The president, who is still publicly bitter about the unrest, contends it should have been met with a stronger show of force.

That’s the approach Trump has adopted in his second term, trying to cow blue states by surging military and immigration agents into their cities and insisting that anyone who doesn’t comply with federal demands will face severe consequences.

Immigration operations that started last summer in liberal strongholds such as Chicago,Los Angeles and Portland also generated large protests. Good is at least the fifth person killed during ICE enforcement efforts.

Federal investigators have Somalis in their sights

The Twin Cities operation is intertwined with a conservative effort to make Minnesota the poster child for government fraud. Though prosecutions for the fraudulent use of hundreds of millions of dollars of federal COVID-19 and health aid by social service groups began in the Biden administration, Trump and conservatives have seized on the scandal in recent weeks.

In November, Trump called Minnesota “a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity” after a report by a conservative news site, City Journal, claimed federal money was fraudulently flowing to the militant group al-Shabab. There has been little, if any, evidence, proving such a link. Nevertheless, the president said he would end Temporary Protected Status for Somalis in Minnesota.

The allegations got a new charge late last month when conservative influencer Nick Shirley posted an unconfirmed video claiming that day care centers in Minneapolis run by Somalis had fraudulently collected over $100 million in government aid.

The Trump administration on Tuesday said is withholding funding for programs that support needy families with children, including day care funding, in five Democratic-led states over concerns about fraud. Joining Minnesota on the list were California, Colorado, Illinois and New York.

‘Leave our state alone’

Minnesota’s place on a list of targeted blue states is not unexpected.

Under Walz, Minnesota has become something of a beacon for liberals as an example of a state that expanded the public safety net even as the nation swung to the right. Since Trump’s first election, the state has seen large increases in education spending, free school breakfasts and lunches, and improved protection of abortion rights.

Trump lost Minnesota by only 4 percentage points in 2024, making it significantly less liberal than California and New York. Still, it has been reliably Democratic throughout the Trump years, a rarity in the swingy upper Midwest.

The state’s political tilt reflects the size of the Twin Cities metro area and its robust population of college-educated liberals, which overwhelm the state’s more conservative rural reaches.

It’s the sort of cleavage that has defined national politics during Trump’s years in office.

“Minnesota is a microcosm of a lot of the tensions we have in our society,” said David Schultz, a political scientist at Hamline University in St. Paul. “We’re a country that’s hugely polarized, Democrats-Republicans, urban-rural.”

On Thursday, Minnesota was an ominous indicator of the damage those divisions can inflict. Minneapolis schools remained closed after immigration agents clashed with high school students at one campus on Wednesday. The state’s National Guard remained on standby at Walz’s directive.

Walz begged Trump to ease up, saying Minnesota’s residents are “exhausted” by the president’s “relentless assault on Minnesota.”

“So please, just give us a break,” Walz said during a news conference Thursday. “And if it’s me, you’re already getting what you want, but leave my people alone. Leave our state alone.”

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Riccardi reported from Denver. Associated Press reporters Giovanna Dell’Orto, Rebecca Santana and Tim Sullivan in Minneapolis contributed.