The fight for Minnesota

January 18, 2026

For his article on how Minnesota became a target of Trump’s anti-immigration raids, Charles Homans looks at how the state came to be targeted by President Trump’s anti-immigration raids.

For over half a century, he writes, it has embodied the civic ideal that the president seems intent on overturning and in Minneapolis this is very clearly what the city’s residents who are confronting federal agents see themselves fighting for. Still, the largely unified local response to the arrival of federal forces comes at a time when the city is questioning precisely that ideal.

A color photograph shows two masked ICE agents carrying a handcuffed protester in a neon vest.

David Guttenfelder/The New York Times

Ideas

Trump’s Fight With Minnesota Is About More Than Immigration

The state embodies a civic ideal that the administration in Washington wants to discredit.

By Charles Homans

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