Tangle - Operation Metro Surge ends, DHS shuts down.

Episode Date: February 17, 2026

At 12:01 on Saturday, February 14, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) partially shut down after lawmakers in Congress failed to come to terms on a deal to fund the department through September. Senate Democrats are demanding funding be tied to reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), a stance they have maintained since Alex Pretti and Renee Good were killed by federal agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Ad-free podcasts are here!To listen to this podcast ad-free, and to enjoy our subscriber only premium content, go to ReadTangle.com to sign up!Who is ICE?At the heart of the issue we’re covering today are the enforcement actions taken by DHS agents in Minnesota. To get a full perspective on this issue, we highly suggest reading our Friday edition answering readers’ questions about ICE and CBP — who these agents are, what authority they have, and the scope of DHS’s immigration enforcement. You can read that piece here.You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠, our “Under the Radar” story ⁠here and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Take the survey: How long do you think the DHS shutdown will last? Let us know.Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast was written by: Isaac Saul and audio edited and mixed by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Lindsey Knuth, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of our take. I'm associate editor Audrey Moorhead, and I'll be your host today as we talk about the latest on the Department of Homeland Security shutdown and the end of DHS operations in Minnesota. Before we dive in, at the heart of the issue we're covering today are, of course, the enforcement actions taken by DHS agents in Minnesota. To get a full perspective on this issue, we highly suggest to listening to our Friday episode answering reader questions about ICE and CBP.

Who are these agents? What kind of authority do they have? And what's the scope of DHS's immigration enforcement? You can find a link to that episode in today's show notes. Just as a reminder, that episode is for premium subscribers only. So if you're a free listener and you want to hear the whole thing, you'll need to upgrade your membership. Now for our quick hits.

Number one, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Whitkoff and President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, met with Iranian officials in Geneva, Switzerland on Tuesday for a second round of talks over sanction relief and a potential nuclear agreement. Separately on Tuesday, Iranian state media reported that parts of the Strait of Hormuz, which connects the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean,

will be closed for a few hours due to security precautions. Number two. On Thursday, the Trump administration repealed the 2009 EPA endangerment finding, a standard that was used to set regulations on greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. Number three, at least two people were killed and three injured in a shooting at a youth hockey game in Rhode Island on Monday. The suspected shooter took his own life, and law enforcement officials said he appeared to be targeting family members. Number four, civil rights leader, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, died on Tuesday at the age of 84. authorities have not revealed a cause of death, but Jackson was hospitalized in November for a severe neurodegenerative disease following his 2017 Parkinson's diagnosis.

Number five, the board of Warner Brothers Discovery said it will reopen discussion with Paramount over a potential acquisition, setting a seven-day window for Paramount to make a final offer. Warner Brothers had already accepted an acquisition offer from Netflix, which has agreed to the seven-day negotiation window. This morning, Democrats are refusing to fund the Department of Homeland Security until Republicans agree on reforms to immigration enforcement tactics. That means 90% of Homeland Security workers, including personnel at the TSA, Secret Service, Coast Guard, and FEMA are working without a paycheck. Now into today's topic on DHS funding in Minnesota. At 12.01 a.m. on Saturday, February 14th, the Department of Homeland Security partially shut down after lawmakers and Congress failed to come.

to terms on a deal to fund the department through September. Senate Democrats are demanding funding be tied to reforms to immigration and customs enforcement and customs and border patrol. A stance they have maintained since Alex Pretti and Renee Good were killed by federal agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Separately, President Donald Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, announced on Thursday that DHS would be ending Operation Metro Surge and leaving the state. Homan called the operation, which produced over 4,000 arrests, a success. And he said, that 1,000 DHS agents have been withdrawn from the state so far. Funding for DHS and several other agencies lapsed earlier this month over objections from Democrats to the actions of DHS's

immigration enforcement agencies, partially shutting down the government for four days. The department temporarily ceased some of its operations until February 4th, when Republicans and Democrats agreed to pass a year-long funding bill that excluded DHS in order to negotiate its funding in isolation. Democrats have indicated that they will not support. a continuing resolution to fund DHS, insisting any further action be tied to agency reforms. Among the requested changes are mandatory body cameras for DHS agents, a ban on roving patrols, mandated coordination with local police, more stringent warrant requirements, a ban on agents wearing masks, and a requirement that agents carry identification.

DHS oversees several organizations in which the majority of employees are deemed essential and are required to continue to work without pay during the shutdown. These include the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the Secret Service. However, the longer the shutdown lasts, the more likely service disruptions in these areas become. Immigration enforcement is also likely to continue with little disruption,

as ICE and CBP received significant funding through 2029 in last year's One Big Beautiful Bill Act. However, the cybersecurity and infrastructure and infrastructure, Structure Security Agency has fewer essential workers and will face more disruptions during the shutdown. Congress is on a scheduled recess until February 23rd, making a shutdown of at least 10 days likely. Simultaneously, DHS agents have begun leaving Minnesota, bringing the 10-week immigration enforcement to an end. Homan said, quote, I have proposed and President Trump has concurred that this operation conclude. A significant drawdown has already been underway this week and will continue

through the next week. Homan had taken over responsibility of the operation from DHS Secretary Christy Knoem in late January amid criticism of the agency's actions. Next, we'll break down what the left and writer saying about the DHS partially shutting down and its withdrawal from Minnesota. Then I'll pass it over to Associate Editor Lindsay Knuth, who will be reading Executive Editor Isaac Saul's take. We'll be right back after this quick break. Here's what the left is saying. The left considers Operation Metro Surge a failure, with some pointing out that it didn't accomplish its stated goals of targeting criminals. Some think that the backlash to immigration enforcement could inspire congressional reform, and others note the damage the operation did to institutional trust.

In MS Now, Zishon Aleem argued that Trump's Operation Metro Surge was a failure by every metric. It's unclear as of now how much progress the Trump administration will have made in achieving its alleged goal of capturing the worst of the worst in Minnesota by the time the operation ends. But in a review of Department of Homeland Security data in mid-January, a local Fox affiliate found that out of 2,000 people arrested by immigration and customs enforcement agents, just 5.2% were violent convicted criminals. That tracks broadly with other assessments of national data that finds that only a small fraction of the people swept up in ICE raids have violent records, and that the worst of the worst narrative is a fig leaf for far broader mass

deportations. Now, to the extent that ICE operations in Minneapolis served as a potential test drive for Trump to morph the agency into a secret police force, one could argue that causing chaos, fear, and pain was part of the point. Did Trump succeed at his goal of wrestling a city into submission? Not really. Anti-ice activists in Minneapolis were extraordinarily organized, creative, peaceful, and resilient. By setting up community patrols, monitoring immigration raids, and constantly protesting in the streets against the presence of ICE, residents of Minneapolis proved effective at exposing to the nation how the agency was acting as a militarized, racially profiling force

that often treated the law as an afterthought. In USA Today, Chris Brennan suggested that Trump's cruelty may create the immigration reform Obama wanted. Barack Obama and Donald Trump are two very different presidents, but they share something in common. Both use the power of their office to deport millions of undocumented immigrants from America. Obama's immigration enforcement was quietly efficient, flying under the radar until immigration advocates discovered what was happening. Trump has used a chaotic, smash-and-grab,

street-level approach to immigration enforcement in American cities in his second term. Both presidents faced backlashes, with Obama being derided by progressive allies as the deporter-in-chief. Trump's backlash, still very much underway, has been driven by vivid and violent encounters. Obama, during his two terms, tried to trade aggressive enforcement at immigration laws for a sweeping package of legislative reform for those laws. Republicans took the enforcement, but balked at the reform when the package passed in the Senate in 2013 with some GOP support, but then died in the House in 2014 because a majority of GOP members would not back it. Maybe instead of trading enforcement for reform, Trump's enforcement will inspire reform. Republicans can take a baby steps

approach to reform now by meeting the demands of the Democrats. Finally, the Minnesota Star Tribune editorial board asked, the surge is ending, the damage remains, now what? Whatever their views on immigration enforcement, Minnesotans should welcome the announcement by Borders'ar Tom Holman on February 12th that Operation Metro Surge soon will end, and that a significant drawdown of the more than 3,000 agents who had been sent to the state under federal orders is underway. But, as the Department of Homeland Security declares its mission accomplished and begins its retreat, many are left wrestling with an infuriating, if not incendiary question. What was the point of the bloody spectacle?

Stripped of politics and posturing, a state and a nation deserve clear answers. Homan, who said that DHS agents will now be redeployed to other cities, lauded the Minnesota mission as a law enforcement win, and said that a deeply shaken and fatigued Minneapolis is now a much safer place. By what immediate or lasting measure we ask? There has been little to no transparency to the spectacle we have just endured. Trust in government, already fragile, has been further eroded. but trust can and must be rebuilt.

There's no doubt that Operation Metro Surge induced people to take sides. Which side can declare victory will be in the eye of the beholder, but the many Minnesotans who dedicated themselves to peaceful resistance to aggressive policy can be proud. Now for what the right is saying.

Many on the right are critical of how Operation Metro Surge ended. Some blame Trump's actions for shifting public opinion on immigration enforcement. Others believe the fault lies and Minnesota leaders' lack of cooperation. The National Review editors wrote that Trump was throwing in the towel on the Minneapolis surge. The big story here is that semi-organized resistance on the streets,

with the support of the elected leadership in Minnesota and Minneapolis, made the aggressive federal enforcement too painful to continue. The public considered the DHS operation arbitrary and heavy-handed, and the officers in camouflage lost the image battle to the agitators. Trump, who was attuned to optics and willing to shift gears at a moment's notice, realized it and stood down. This is a bad precedent, but immigration enforcement doesn't rise and fall exclusively based on what happens in Minneapolis.

Where to go from here? First, Homan, a no-nonsense professional, should be given de facto responsibility for immigration enforcement, which may have already happened. While no illegal immigrant should be immune from detention and deportation, it makes sense to focus resources on targeted arrests of illegal aliens who have committed non-immigration offenses or identity theft against citizens, and those who have final orders of removal. There was also a stronger case for removing recent arrivals in order to roll back the Biden-era flood. These priorities should be coupled with much more vigorous workside enforcement.

An enforcement regime along these lines would be more politically palatable and effective over time. In the dispatch, Nick Catogeo said Trump was eating the pieces. On February 4th, the Department of Homeland Security announced that more than and 4,000 illegal immigrants had been arrested so far under Operation Metro Surge since it began in Minnesota on November 29th. That's slightly north of 60 people per day. Not all were violent criminals, surely. Probably very few were, in fact, given the national trend lines.

Not all who were detained have been deported either. 60 arrests a day for an operation that eventually involved 3,000 immigration agents. That's one arrest daily, on average, per every 50 officers deployed. What did the White House get in return for that measly number? Nothing more or less, I think, than the near total destruction of its credibility on immigration outside of the core Republican base. And even parts of the core seem a little shaky lately. The president's job approval today and the real clear politics average is 42.1%, a new low for his second term.

Yesterday, an NBC News survey found his approval on border security and immigration, traditionally his strongest issue, at 40 to 60. 4,000 arrests, not all of which will end in deportation, at the cost of crushing one of the GOP's most consequential policy advantages over the left. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Minneapolis, which was overseeing the prosecution of suspects in the big Somali fraud scandal, has also been wrecked in the process. How does that grab you as a return on a political investment?

In town hall, Kevin McCullough said Minnesota Democrats should own it. When federal immigration enforcement finally wrapped up its operation in Minnesota, Minnesota this week, you might have expected humility from state and city leaders who spent months resisting it. You might have expected a sober acknowledgement that things went sideways. You might have expected, at minimum, a recognition that cooperation could have spared everyone a lot of pain. Instead, Governor Tim Walls and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey chose entitlement. They demanded reimbursement from the federal government. After obstructing federal law enforcement, after refusing basic cooperation, after fueling tension with reckless rhetoric,

and after helping turn a law enforcement effort into a prolonged public spectacle, they now want taxpayers to put the bill. Working with federal authorities does not mean abandoning compassion. It means protecting communities while upholding the law. Minnesota's leaders chose the opposite. Minnesota got performative governance, and Americans got stuck with the consequences. There was nothing necessary about prolonged disruption. Those outcomes were the result of choices, bad choices,

made by people more interested in pleasing activist bases than protecting their constituents. That wraps it up for what the left and writer saying. Now I'll turn it over to Associate Editor Lindsay Canuth to read Isaac's take and then to read the reader question. Thanks, Audrey. This is Lindsay filling in for Isaac today. I'll tell you his take on the shutdown and draw down and answer today's reader question.

Without further ado, here's Isaac's take. This shutdown is only just beginning. Democrats have the wind at their backs on immigration enforcement, an issue where public opinion has long favored President Trump. And since public sentiment on Trump, ICE, and CBP is vanishingly low right now, they'd be silly not to press for as many reforms as possible. As I wrote two weeks ago, the dynamics of this standoff seem ripe for long-term problems. Some Republicans are now countering Democrats with the demand to require proof of citizenship to vote.

I suspect that push has no chance of gaining traction. The only question is how much Democrats will get. They are dug in and they have the public sentiment on their side for now. Republicans don't have an urgent bargaining chip to play, only the passage of time and the hope of any distracting new story to get Democrats to break. For a taste of the mood in the Democratic caucus right now, I reached out to Representative Jake Ockincloss, whom we profiled last year. As negotiations move forward,

Ockincloss articulated a sentiment that is permeating Democratic circles right now. He told me this is not a time to be precious about process. This is a moment to be ruthless in power. Americans don't want open borders and Americans do not want a paramilitary. Democrats can claim that lane. That's what he said to me. And in other words, Democrats believe the time to capitalize is now. Not only are the shootings of U.S. citizens Alex Preti and Renee Good fresh in the minds of Americans, but new reports are surfacing that show incredibly poor behavior from DHS agents. Last month, ICE agents shot an unauthorized immigrant during an enforcement operation in Minnesota.

Homeland Security Secretary Christine Ome said the shooting was in self-defense after three men had attempted to murder a federal law enforcement officer. The ICE agents claimed two men attacked them with snow shovels while they were trying to apprehend a third, leading to a struggle on the ground, fearing for their lives, one of the agents shot one of the attackers. But that story was a lie. surveillance footage and witness testimony reportedly shows the ICE agent shot the man while he stood in his doorway. No bystanders assaulted federal agents and there was no struggle.

Both ICE agents are now under investigation themselves for making untruthful statements. This is now a pattern. DHS agents make up a story exaggerating violent encounters with members of the public and Nome in the White House blast their versions of events from their megaphones. Then the video evidence comes out. Most Americans don't like illegal immigration, but no one likes being lied to. Instead of rallying opposition from their base against protesters, lies like this are turning off a lot of people who just a few months ago were mostly worried about issues on the border. Naturally, even amid the shifting tide of public opinion, the Trump administration is claiming victory in Minnesota. The quote-unquote drawdown, as borders are Tom Homan calls it, follows a quote-unquote great success in Minnesota. Homan is a serious guy, but the This is an unsurious claim. Some, like Zishon Aleem, have criticized Holman because the administration is not actually arresting, quote, the worst to the worst, end quote, as evidenced by a Minnesota-Fox affiliate's January analysis that just 5.2% of the 2,000 people arrested by DHS agents in Minnesota were convicted violent criminals.

While I agree with Aleem that this operation has obviously not been a success, I also don't find this attack line that persuasive, even when CBS and Barry Weiss deploy it. First, the analysis Aleem and Weiss were elevating looked at the 212 people DHS described as, quote, the worst of the worst, end quote, of the 2000 it apprehended. That's already roughly 10%. It isn't some gotcha to say this group represents a fraction of the total number arrested when DHS is already telling us that. Second, as DHS spokesperson Trisha McLaughlin is noted, we shouldn't define the worst criminals only as, quote unquote, violent. Drug trafficking, distribution of child pornography, burglary, fraud, DUI, embezzlement, solicitation of a minor in human smuggling are all categorized as nonviolent crimes, an arbitrary classification that doesn't make them more palatable.

Has Trump's deportation effort been less focused on the most horrifying crimes than he often said publicly? Absolutely. But that doesn't mean we should minimize the crimes of about 100 of the people ICE arrested in January. At the same time, those arrests certainly don't prove DHS has succeeded. neither has anything Tom Homan has said since stepping in for Christyneome. Homan has also said that DHS is now getting cooperation from local prisons to apprehend and remove non-citizens with deportation orders. As I've said before, this would be a good thing. If someone is in jail with a deportation order, I should be able to take custody of that person and remove them. That would be simple and cost-effective.

It would prevent dangerous confrontations on the street, and someone with a deportation order who gets arrested doesn't have much of a case to stay. But given Republicans' losses over the last few months, even if that small concession is real, and I haven't seen or heard any hard evidence of it yet, aside from Homan's claim, a little cooperation from local jails is not a great success. More to the point, we just watched DHS get run out of town by a wave of civil disobedience. The resistance we saw in Minnesota is usually bulldozed by local law enforcement, even in our country. Yet this time, because of how poorly agents dealt with that resistance, public opposites

grew and law enforcement folded. In fact, DHS's actions were so unpopular that the entire department has shut down. That's how much political capital has been lit on fire in the failure that was Operation Metro Search. Where do we go from here? At DHS, I wonder how Nome still has a job. The department's functioning is bad enough. She's already being supplanted by Holman, and the Salacious Palace intrigue isn't helping either. Yet Trump is reluctant to, quote, give the media a scalp, end quote, to the point of defiance. So defiant, he's apparently willing to fumble his signature issue just to stand up to criticism. It's not how I'd play it, but fortunately for Noem, I'm not the president. Meanwhile, in Congress, Democrats are dug in, and they're probably right to be.

Their demands sound reasonable to most Americans, and the political moment favors them. But just as Trump is resisting criticism by not axing Noem, Republicans won't want to give an inch while governing with a trifecta. Further, recalcitrance is also not how I'd want that to play out, but unfortunately for all of us, it looks like more gridlock is on the horizon. We'll be right back after this quick break. Today's question is from Debbie from Texas. She asked, Senator John Kennedy introduced two bills in November 2025 to prevent members of Congress from receiving pay during government shutdowns.

Do you know the status of those bills? If either were to pass, what impact might it have on reducing or shortening shutdowns? We said, yes, Senator John Kennedy, a Republican from Louisiana, has introduced two bills aimed at withholding pay to members of Congress during government shutdowns. The first bill, the No Shutdown Paychecks to Politicians Act, would withhold pay from senators and representatives in Congress if the government shuts down. The second bill, withhold member pay during shutdowns act, does much of the same but with one important difference. Since the 27th Amendment requires that any congressional pay change apply after the next Congress. is elected, the second bill technically pauses payments in escrow to be dispersed at the beginning of the next Congress. Our understanding is that this stipulation only applies to this Congress.

In any payments normally distributed during shutdowns will be withheld, not delayed, from future Congresses. Both define a government shutdown as a, quote, lapse in appropriations for one or more federal agencies or departments, end quote, meaning they would apply to the current situation. Additionally, both bills remain in committee. However, Senate Senator Kennedy's idea has gotten some traction. In December, the Senate Rules Committee advanced a resolution in the spirit of his second bill, the one that holds payments in escrow, that would apply only to senators and only have to be passed by the Senate. That resolution also modified the disbursement date, from after the next Congress is elected to, quote,

only when the period of the government shutdown ends, end quote. If passed, the resolution will come into effect after the midterm elections in November. The resolution's advancement brings the picture into some focus. First, it's the likeliest measure to pass because, A, it's already cleared committee, B, it considers constitutional concerns, and C, it will not need approval by the House. Second, and most importantly, the resolution shows how the action has been watered down significantly, from members of Congress won't be paid at all, to payments will be deferred until after the next election, to senators won't be paid until the shutdown is over. Because of that, watering down, Kennedy's resolution may well pass, but it likely won't be able to prevent any

shutdowns during this session of Congress. After this term is over, however, and of our interpretation is correct, it may incentivize future senators to work towards solutions. Although without a companion resolution passing the House, its effectiveness will be limited. Now passing it back to Audrey for the rest of the day's news. Thanks, Lindsay. Now for our under-the-radar story. On Sunday, Indonesia's military announced that it is preparing up to 8,000 soldiers to be deployed to Gaza for humanitarian reasons, expecting the force to be ready by the end of June. Indonesia is the first country on the Board of Peace to commit to providing stabilization troops, whose presence, within a broader international stabilization force,

is a key element of the second phase of the Israel-Humas ceasefire, brokered by the U.S. Indonesian Army spokesperson Brigadier General Donny Pramono said that though the troops, quote, can be dispatched at short notice, any deployment will require formal approval from the Indonesian government. The Associated Press has the story, and it'll be linked in our show notes. And finally, here's our Have a Nice Day story.

Shedley Appelon was 33 weeks pregnant when she suddenly became dizzy and lost control of her vehicle on a Florida interstate on February 6th. She crashed into a pond where her sinking car prevented her from opening the driver's side door, but a passerby who saw the crash

and swam roughly 30,000. feet out to Apollon's vehicle, was able to open the back door of the car and help her back to shore. Shedley was quickly transported to the hospital and gave birth to a healthy newborn the same day, which also happened to be Apollon's 29th birthday. She and the baby are in good health, according to Dr. David Rubet, the chief of trauma and general surgery at HCA, Florida, Lawnwood Hospital. Good Morning America has the story, and it'll be linked in our show notes. All right, that is it for today's edition. Thank you so much for listening to me and to Lindsay today. We hope you enjoyed our main topic and our other sections, and as always, we would love to hear your thoughts and your feedback. See you next time. Peace.

Our executive editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul, and our executive producer is John Wohl. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by managing editor Ari Weitzman with senior editor Will Kback and associate editors Audrey Moorhead, Lindsay Canuth, and Bailey Saul. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. To learn more about Tangor, Once to sign up for a membership, please visit our website at reetangle.com.