Minneapolis Residents Hide Immigrant Children From Massive ICE Surge

As more than 2,000 federal immigration agents sweep Minneapolis–St. Paul in an Operation Metro Surge that DHS says has produced over 3,000 arrests since early December, local residents have quietly built ad hoc "underground railroad" networks to shelter families and children fearing detention. The piece follows the Indigenous Ecuadorian family of Melida Rita Wampash Tuntuam—detained despite only minor traffic offenses—whose 20‑ and 22‑year‑old children moved seven younger siblings, including a 5‑month‑old baby, into a south Minneapolis safe house after masked ICE officers twice surrounded their home. Christian nonprofit Source MN and volunteers like factory worker and mother of five Feliza Martinez are paying rent, delivering food and setting up emergency custody plans so U.S.-based children are not taken into government care if parents are seized; Martinez says she now gets terrified calls from immigrant families "every single day." The article also reports allegations that ICE agents broke down doors without judicial warrants and came to the family home after promising to send a social worker, deepening mistrust and fueling the broader wave of protests, business shutdowns and school absences already documented in Minnesota. The story captures how a federal enforcement campaign that Washington sells as targeting criminals is, at street level, fracturing mixed-status households and pitting fearful neighborhoods and church networks against a heavily militarized federal presence.