ICE as domestic state terror: operation Metro Surge and the production of fear in Minneapolis

This article examines how Operation Metro Surge generated domestic state terror in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during Donald Trump’s second presidency. Drawing on qualitative thematic analysis of contemporaneous news reporting, NGO, civil and legal documentation produced between December 2025 and March 2026, the study analyses how immigration enforcement practices operated beyond their formal administrative remit. The findings show that terror was produced through a patterned configuration of practices. These practices worked together to generate uncertainty, constrain behaviour, and discipline publics far beyond those directly targeted for immigration enforcement. Conceptually, the article treats terrorism as a method, applying action-based criteria that focus on systematic violence or threat oriented towards producing fear and coercing behaviour among broader audiences. It argues that Operation Metro Surge meets these criteria while remaining embedded within formally lawful administrative action. The study contributes to scholarship on democratic backsliding, authoritarian governance, and immigration enforcement by specifying a street-level mechanism through which democratic erosion enables fear-based governance from within the administrative state. In doing so, it challenges actor-centred exclusions in terrorism studies and demonstrates how Trump’s second presidency in the United States provides a concrete example of domestic state terror emerging under conditions of democratic decline without formal regime breakdown.