The Minneapolis surge has ended. The lessons shouldn’t be ignored.

On Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026, White House Border Czar Tom Homan confirmed that the federal enforcement surge in Minneapolis is effectively over — more than 1,000 agents have departed, with several hundred more expected to leave. A “small” security force will remain temporarily to ensure that “the coordination, the agreements we have with local state law enforcement stay in place.” But when asked whether future deployments could match the scale of Minneapolis, Homan left the door open: “I think it depends on the situation.” 

That makes what happened in Minneapolis — and what it cost — urgently relevant beyond Minnesota. The day before Homan’s initial withdrawal announcement, a vehicle pursuit by federal agents through a residential St. Paul, Minn., neighborhood ended in a multi-car crash, injuring bystanders, triggering school lockdowns and drawing a large crowd of angry onlookers. It was exactly the kind of street-level flashpoint that federal and local leaders had spent two weeks pledging to prevent.

That juxtaposition — a declaration of operational completion alongside a crash that contradicted it — captures what Minneapolis should teach us. This is not about whether the federal government has the authority to enforce the law. It does. Nor is it about whether the agents on the ground faced serious and dangerous conditions. They did. Law enforcement personnel were forced to operate amid sustained protests, threats to their safety, and an environment that grew more volatile by the week.

The lesson is about what happens when federal, state and local agencies are not set up to work together — and the human cost when that coordination is absent. Two U.S. citizens died during this operation. Thousands of officers were placed in environments they were not prepared for. An entire city’s public safety infrastructure was strained to its limits.

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