The U.S. Department of Homeland Security surged 3,000 federal immigration agents to Minnesota — a state more than a thousand miles from the southern border that’s not known for having a sizable population of immigrants in the U.S. illegally — calling it the largest such operation ever. Many people have wondered: Why Minnesota?
Vice President JD Vance, who visited Minneapolis on Jan. 22 to defend federal immigration enforcement, gave a misleading answer.
“Right now, we’re focused on Minneapolis because that’s where we have the highest concentration of people who have violated our immigration laws, and that’s also, frankly, where we see the most assault of our law enforcement officers,” Vance said during a press conference.
The vice president’s visit to Minneapolis came after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot Renee Good on Jan. 7 but before a Border Patrol agent fatally shot Alex Pretti on Jan. 24. Both were U.S. citizens.
PolitiFact asked spokespersons for the White House and Homeland Security for Vance’s evidence about Minneapolis having the “highest concentration of people who have violated our immigration laws” and received no response. (We did not examine data on assault of officers by jurisdiction.)
Dozens of other U.S. metro areas have a higher concentration of immigrants in the U.S. illegally compared with the Minneapolis metro area.
Immigrant populations by metro area
There are about 130,000 immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally in Minnesota, according to 2023 Pew Research Center data, the most recent year available.
They represent about 2% of the state’s population and about 1% of the unauthorized population nationwide.
The Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan group, estimated a slightly smaller number for Minnesota of about 100,000 immigrants in the U.S. illegally.
Government officials and nonpartisan groups that track immigration data do not have data showing the number of immigrants the U.S. illegally exclusively in the city of Minneapolis. Instead, they use metro area data; Pew Research Center uses a 15-county area that includes Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Jeffrey Passel, a Pew Research Center demographer, said the overall U.S. population of immigrants in the country illegally was probably slightly larger in 2025 than the 2023 data reflects, but there was not a large influx in the Minneapolis metro area.
Pew estimated about 90,000 unauthorized immigrants in the Minneapolis metro area. Dozens of other metro areas have larger numbers, Passel said.
Immigrants in the country illegally represent about 2.4% of the Minneapolis metro area’s population. That’s smaller than the 4.1% nationally, Passel said. In major metro areas such as Miami and Houston, the share of immigrants in the U.S. illegally was at least four times as big as the share in Minneapolis. Metro areas such as Provo, Utah; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Hartford, Connecticut; and Tulsa, Oklahoma, had higher percentages than the Minneapolis metro area.
Somalis are a small percentage of the Minnesota population
President Donald Trump has said the Minnesota focus is because of a fraud scandal involving dozens of Somalis. Somalis represent about 2% of Minnesota’s population. Somalis came to Minnesota starting in the 1990s fleeing a civil war, some as refugees while others were sponsored by family members or moved from other states. Most are U.S. citizens, either through naturalization or birth.
Since 2022, federal prosecutors have charged about 98 people with defrauding the federal government. The majority have been convicted while many cases remain pending.
Our ruling
Vance said, “Right now we’re focused on Minneapolis because that’s where we have the highest concentration of people who have violated our immigration laws.”
Vance provided no evidence to back up his statement.
Immigrants in the country illegally represent about 2.4% of the Minneapolis metro area’s population. Dozens of metro areas have larger numbers of immigrants in the U.S. illegally than the Minneapolis metro area, including smaller metro areas across the country.
We rate this statement False.
Chief Correspondent Louis Jacobson contributed to this fact-check.
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