On Jan. 24, the St. Paul Police Department used 1,007.5 overtime hours so its officers could respond to the shooting of Alex Pretti.
The cost? Over $99,000.
So far, the cost of Operation Metro Surge is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars across dips in business revenue, workers’ lost wages and unexpected costs to local and state government departments, among other things.
Quantifying the economic impact of the immigration enforcement surge has been a topic of debate this legislative session — and at least one bill would fund a nonpartisan study to gauge those impacts on Minnesota’s state government, counties, cities, towns, school districts, child care providers and businesses.
Related: Bill seeks $10 million for Minnesota cities to help with costs incurred during Operation Metro Surge
That bill remains in committee with less than a month left in the legislative session, however. Similar to other DFL proposals on the topic, the measure has drawn criticism from GOP lawmakers, who also point to the costs of illegal immigration and protest activity.
Regardless, it’s clear that businesses lost revenue and local governments had to cover unexpected costs, and some initial numbers on impacts like those have been published. Spread across legal documents, legislative hearings and other sources — noted below and linked at the end of this article — here is some of what the figures show:
Costs to local governments and law enforcement
- $6 million: The amount of overtime paid by the Minneapolis Police Department between Jan. 7 and March 28. The department canceled approximately 983 days off in January, according to a lawsuit filed by the state of Minnesota against federal officials.
- $446,780.60: Costs to the St. Paul Police Department for surge-related activities between Nov. 25, 2025, and Feb. 19. Most of those costs were for overtime pay, according to the lawsuit.
- $24,000: The cost of over 200 overtime hours logged by the Brooklyn Park Police Department since Jan. 1, according to Police Chief Mark Bruley, who testified at an April 21 Senate Taxes Committee hearing at the Legislature.
- $7,499: The cost of new identifying markers for St. Paul police vehicles, which were used to differentiate them from federal agents’ vehicles, according to the lawsuit.
State government costs
- $1.4 million: Costs associated with additional staffing at the Minnesota State Patrol between Jan. 1 and Feb. 24 in response to the surge, according to the lawsuit.
- $1.05 million: The cost of officers from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources to assist with surge-related activities between Jan. 1 and Feb. 24, according to the lawsuit.
- $137,000: Extra costs to the State Emergency Operations Center, which coordinates emergency responses across local, state and federal agencies, between January and February. The SEOC hired a contractor to assist with the influx of work that cost approximately $65,000, according to the lawsuit.
Businesses and workforce estimates
- $444 million: The estimated loss in revenue among Minneapolis businesses across restaurants, retail and service based-businesses, among others, according to the lawsuit.
- $165.4 million: The estimated loss in revenue among St. Paul businesses, according to the lawsuit.
- $4.7 million: The amount lost in hotel cancellations in Minneapolis between December and February, according to a February report by the city of Minneapolis.
- $100,000: The amount below projections in local sales tax receipts for the city of Richfield in January. That represents a $20 million dip in taxable business activity, according to the Senate Taxes Committee hearing.
Wages, rent and food
- $189.2 million: Estimated lost wages in Minneapolis during Operation Metro Surge. Workers in the city lost 7.9 days of work, on average, due to factors like sheltering in place and closing businesses, according to a study by the U.S. Immigration Policy Center at UC San Diego.
- $54.6 million: Estimated lost wages for St. Paul workers, who missed 11.4 days of work on average, according to the USIPC study.
- $15.7 million: Estimated monthly rent assistance needed for Minneapolis households that lost income as the result of the surge, according to the city study.
- $2.4 million: The estimated weekly cost of food needed in Minneapolis at the height of the surge, according to the city study.
Related: The ICE surge in Minnesota triggered a wave of lawsuits. What happened to them?
Here is more information and links to the sources cited in this story:
- An April 20 legal complaint by the state of Minnesota, part of an ongoing lawsuit that alleges Operation Metro Surge itself was illegal;
- A study by the U.S. Immigration Policy Center at UC San Diego, which made estimates based on a representative study of 728 adult residents of Minneapolis and 662 adult residents of St. Paul between Feb. 17 and March 6;
- A preliminary study about the impacts of Operation Metro Surge complied by the city of Minneapolis and released in February;
- Testimony from the April 21 Senate Taxes Committee hearing in the Minnesota Legislature.
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