ICE Minnesota Raid is Pure Theater as Texas & Other Red States Swell with Illegals
.The Great Replacement thrives as Trump continues blue state immigration enforcement theater.
The Trump administration has deployed thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to Minnesota in what amounts to little more than political theater. Two Americans are already dead from this operation, yet the state hosts a fraction of the illegal immigrant population found in Republican strongholds like Texas, Florida, and Georgia.
The numbers tell a damning story. Minnesota is home to roughly 130,000 illegal immigrants, representing about 2.2% of the state’s population according to Pew Research. That figure accounts for less than 1% of the national illegal population of 14 million that Pew highlighted. A controversial 2018 Yale study by researchers affiliated with Princeton claimed the national figure could be as high as 22 million. Even accepting the highest mainstream estimates, Minnesota’s 130,000 represents a drop in the bucket.
Meanwhile, red state strongholds such as Texas harbor approximately 2.1 million illegal aliens and Florida houses around 1.6 million. Georgia contains an estimated 339,000 illegal aliens. Yet Minnesota received an invasion force of roughly 3,000 federal agents, more than three times the number of Minneapolis police officers. The administration deployed this overwhelming force to a state where illegal immigrants represent a far smaller share of both population and workforce than they do in Republican-governed states.
The deployment has already turned deadly. On January 7, 2026, ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen during an enforcement operation in south Minneapolis. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called the federal narrative “bullshit” and stated the video shows Good was “backing up and trying to get out” rather than attacking agents.
The violence escalated on January 24 when Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse at the Minneapolis VA and U.S. citizen. Video showed Pretti filming agents with his phone before being pepper sprayed, taken to the ground, and then shot. Federal officials claimed he posed an armed threat. State officials, his family, and civil rights groups strongly dispute that account.
The administration has also targeted Minnesota’s Somali population, which represents roughly 2% of the state’s population or about 107,000 people. The Trump administration announced plans for the Minnesota immigration crackdown in December, citing reports of widespread fraud involving defendants who are largely of Somali descent. Altogether, Somalis represent a minuscule portion of America’s immigrant population. Recent Census based analyses put the Somali descent population nationwide at approximately 250,000 to 260,000 people, with Minnesota hosting the single largest concentration.
Put differently, the Trump administration sent thousands of heavily armed federal agents to confront a community that makes up roughly 0.08% of the American population. The operation has sparked massive resistance. Thousands of Minnesotans organized on January 23 for the “ICE Out of Minnesota: A Day of Truth and Freedom” protest, with hundreds of businesses closing in solidarity.
The federal response has included opening criminal investigations into Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) and Mayor Frey for alleged conspiracy to impede immigration enforcement. The Pentagon placed 1,500 active soldiers on standby for potential deployment to Minnesota, and Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act.
Meanwhile, red states with far larger illegal immigrant populations have largely escaped federal scrutiny. Analysis by the Cato Institute found that 95% of non-citizen population growth between 2019 and 2023 went to red states. Florida added roughly 750,000 illegal aliens during that period, while Texas gained about 450,000. Georgia’s illegal population increased by 75,000 or more.
The misplaced priorities extend beyond raw numbers. Florida had the highest percentage of illegal immigrants among its total population at 7.1% in 2023. Nevada followed at 6.9%, then Texas at 6.7%. These states tout themselves as pro-growth economic powerhouses while depending heavily on illegal alien labor. Nevertheless, they’ve faced nothing approaching the militarized crackdown Minnesota has endured nor has there been a coordinated campaign to continue to crackdown on employers hiring illegals in those states.
The administration’s priorities become even clearer when examining what a serious immigration enforcement effort would require. In a rational world, the Trump administration would be pursuing systematic workplace raids across blue and red states alike. It would be implementing an immigration moratorium, ending birthright citizenship and chain migration, mandating a nationwide E-Verify system, and seriously reducing the legal immigration system.
Instead, the administration has turned immigration enforcement into a red versus blue state culture war. This approach ignores the fundamental reality that mass immigration, both legal and illegal, that depresses worker wages and demographically displaces White Americans is a national phenomenon facilitated by both political parties. Businesses and high-ticker donors in Republican states benefit enormously from illegal alien labor while Republican governors denounce sanctuary cities. Democratic politicians champion immigrant rights while presiding over exploitative labor systems that benefit corporate interests.
The evidence is overwhelming. States led by Republican governors saw their illegal immigrant populations grow at roughly 41% from 2019 to 2023, compared with about 30% in Democratic led states. Nearly two-thirds of the more than 132,000 immigrants with prior convictions arrested by ICE between September 2023 and July 2025 were apprehended in states with Republican governors.
This data demolishes the narrative that blue states are immigration havens while red states crack down. The reality is that red state economies also depend heavily on illegal alien labor. Texas, Florida, and Georgia have positioned themselves as economic growth engines precisely because they offer cheaper labor costs than blue states with stronger worker protections. The illegal alien immigrant workforce enables lower wages, fewer benefits, and weaker organizing power across multiple industries in these states.
The construction industry in Texas employs illegal immigrants at rates approaching 15% of the workforce. Agriculture relies on illegal labor at roughly 14% nationally, with even higher concentrations in states like Florida and Georgia. The leisure and hospitality sector depends on unauthorized workers at 8%. Yet the Trump administration deploys thousands of agents to Minnesota, where these industries employ far fewer unauthorized immigrants than in Republican governed states.
If the administration were serious about enforcement, it would target the employers, landlords, and corporate interests that profit from illegal labor. Systematic workplace raids, aggressive prosecution of employers who hire unauthorized workers, and dismantling of exploitative labor recruitment networks would strike at the economic incentives driving illegal immigration. But such measures would threaten powerful Republican donors and corporate interests that benefit from cheap labor.
The Minnesota operation reveals the administration’s true priorities. This is security theater at its worst. If Trump doesn’t implement an immigration moratorium, terminate birthright citizenship and chain migration, implement E-Verify nationally, and seriously overhaul the legal immigration system, his administration would be an utter failure on immigration. And if we’re being honest, it would further confirm this author’s suspicion that Trump is a generic Republican in populist clothing.
Trump’s immigration act closes with two dead Americans and zero progress on credibly pushing back against mass migration. In sum, Trump’s bombastic rhetoric and enforcement pageantry earn social media applause, inflame the Left, fracture the nation, and preserve unchecked legal and illegal mass migration—precisely as the Great Replacement’s architects intended.
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While this is all undeniably true, Trump has also painted himself into a corner with the action in Minnesota. At this point any reduction in force there will be seen as capitulation to the leftist mob and will certainly mean a loss of legitimacy for the administration. Truly just the dumbest and most namedly theatrical move he could have made
To contextualize some data:
Most red states cooperate with ICE by detaining illegals who have been arrested for non-immigration offenses (in some cases even before being charged) and transfer custody to the feds. This increases the immigration arrests in those states, considerably.