Operation Metro Surge and Federal–State Conflict

A coalition of local prosecutors has launched the "Fight Against Federal Overreach" project to coordinate legal and political pushback against Trump‑era immigration enforcement surges they say are unconstitutional and undermining the justice system. Announced Wednesday and anchored in Minneapolis, the group includes Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty and prosecutors from Austin, Texas, and several Virginia jurisdictions, and is responding in particular to aggressive ICE and Border Patrol tactics during Operation Metro Surge that left two civilians dead in Minneapolis, including Alex Pretti. Krasner blasted masked officers with hidden badge numbers and cited Vice President JD Vance’s blanket assertion of immunity for federal agents, arguing that with DOJ’s Civil Rights Division refusing to open probes and U.S. attorneys’ offices hollowed out, "the federal government are the rogue sheriffs" and local prosecutors must fill the gap because state convictions are beyond the president’s pardon power. The group points to federal officials cutting Minnesota investigators out of crime scenes in the killings of Pretti and Renee Good and says immigration arrests around courthouses are scaring victims, witnesses and defendants away from participating in prosecutions, corroding local public safety. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has defended the enforcement operations as constitutional and necessary, but the project signals a new front in the fight over federal‑state balance on immigration, with local DAs openly exploring state‑level charges and strategies to hold federal officers to account.