Can Federal Agents Conduct Stops Without Reasonable Suspicion? It Depends.

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Federal agents deployed to Minneapolis have shot and killed two U.S. citizens. Can federal immigration officers stop and detain people without reasonable suspicion—specific facts that make an officer reasonably believe a crime might be happening? Where the stop happens matters. What kind of officer is doing the stopping matters. And increasingly, whether courts will tolerate a new theory of enforcement that lets officers detain entire crowds of people based on statistical probabilities rather than facts about them personally matters.

Operation Metro Surge deployed somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 federal agents to the Twin Cities. The operation has resulted in two fatal shootings of U.S. citizens, mass detentions, and school closures.

Minnesota argues that even if individual stops might be lawful under some circumstances, this operation violates constitutional limits on federal power. The federal government contends that enforcement authority has no meaningful geographic or operational limits.

How Federal and State Police Operate Under Different Constitutional Rules

State police and federal agents operate under different constitutional rules. When a state or local police officer stops you on the street, the constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures requires reasonable suspicion. That’s the standard from Terry v. Ohio—the officer needs specific facts that, taken together with reasonable inferences, create suspicion that criminal activity may be afoot. The officer cannot stop you because you’re in a high-crime neighborhood, or because you look like someone who statistically might commit crimes, or because of your race or ethnicity.

Federal enforcement operates differently near borders. Congress gave agents legal power to question anyone they believe might be an alien about their status, no suspicion required. At the actual border, agents can conduct routine searches without any suspicion about that specific person. At fixed checkpoints on highways near the border, they can briefly stop and question motorists without reasonable suspicion about those specific motorists.

Those relaxed standards apply at borders and places that work like borders. They do not apply throughout the interior of the country. Minneapolis sits roughly 1,500 miles from any international border. When agents conduct enforcement operations there, they must meet reasonable suspicion standards comparable to those binding state police. The key court ruling is United States v. Brignoni-Ponce from 1975, where the Supreme Court held that Border Patrol conducting patrols without a fixed location could not stop vehicles based solely on the apparent Mexican ancestry of occupants. The Court required specific facts that reasonably warrant suspicion that a particular vehicle contains people unlawfully present. That word “particular” matters. The suspicion has to attach to the specific person being stopped, not to people generally in a location.

The Perdomo Decision and Statistical Suspicion

Last September, in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo, the Court’s conservative majority signaled openness to suspicion based on statistics—the idea that agents can detain many people from a crowd because statistically many in that crowd likely lack legal status.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion indicated that ethnicity “alone” cannot furnish reasonable suspicion, but that it can be a “relevant factor” when considered with other factors including “the high prevalence of undocumented immigrants in a particular area” and the fact that they “tend to congregate in specific locations.”

This breaks from decades of the rule that suspicion must be about a specific person. It suggests agents can target entire neighborhoods or workplaces based on demographic composition and statistical likelihood rather than facts about specific individuals. Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent captured the implications: the decision means all Latinos “who work low-wage jobs are fair game to be seized at any time.”

The Perdomo decision involved Los Angeles and the border region. Minnesota’s case will test whether this approach applies in the interior of the country, far from any border.

Evidence of Racial Profiling in Operation Metro Surge

Minnesota’s constitutional claims are based on allegations that Operation Metro Surge personnel have engaged in systematic racial profiling—conducting stops based primarily on race or ethnicity rather than facts about specific individuals.

One plaintiff, identified as “A.A.,” describes being approached while walking to his car by two masked individuals wearing ICE vests who grabbed both his arms, searched his pockets, and handcuffed him—all before asking his name or reviewing his documents. When they finally looked at his wallet, they found documentation confirming his status. They ignored it.

In another incident on January 8, CBP agents surrounded and questioned a driver at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, with one agent heard on video stating, “I can hear you don’t have the same accent as me, that’s why I’m asking” and “I want to know where you were born.”

These incidents establish a pattern of stops appearing to be based on racial or ethnic appearance rather than specific facts creating reasonable suspicion of violations. The agents are following the approach that Brignoni-Ponce rejected fifty years ago.

The Justice Department has not substantially contested these specific factual allegations. Instead, it has argued that enforcement at the scale Operation Metro Surge represents is within the President’s power to enforce laws.

State Sovereignty and Constitutional Limits on Federal Power

Multiple states from different regions and both political parties argue that federal enforcement operations can violate the Tenth Amendment by their massive scale, effectively forcing states to divert their own resources to manage consequences of federal operations.

California’s brief, led by Attorney General Rob Bonta, states: “These aggressive and military-style tactics approved by the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and carried out by CBP Commander Greg Bovino ignore basic rules about how police should operate, state sovereignty, and the sanctity of life.”

The operational impact documents the constitutional violation. Approximately 100 schools in Minneapolis Public Schools closed temporarily, affecting 30,000 children. Customer-facing businesses reported 50 to 80 percent revenue losses. Minneapolis police worked over 3,000 overtime hours in approximately 2-3 days during the operation’s initial phase (January 7-9).

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s brief documents that since DHS deployed similar personnel to Illinois in September 2025, they have killed one Illinois resident, shot another, and conducted military-style raids on residential buildings, detaining entire buildings’ worth of residents including children.

If federal agencies can deploy thousands of personnel to any state without constitutional constraint, every state faces potential similar deployments.

Potential Retaliation Against Minnesota

Minnesota advances another constitutional argument: that Operation Metro Surge constitutes retaliation against Minnesota for policy choices, particularly its adoption of policies limiting cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

President Donald Trump stated that Minnesota is “corrupt” and “crooked” because its officials accurately reported election results that did not declare him the winner. He singled out Democratic officials by name, stating he would “quickly put an end to the travesty” in Minnesota.

In early December 2025, the Trump administration began threatening “an escalation” targeting Minnesota specifically. On January 4, 2026, it announced the “largest ever” operation would be directed at the Twin Cities.

Federal courts have recognized that the government cannot choose to enforce laws more harshly against those who exercise constitutional rights or to force states to change their own policies. The government’s response is that it has not explicitly conditioned Operation Metro Surge on policy changes—it has chosen to deploy enforcement resources where it believes the need is greatest.

The Legal Standard for Temporary Court Orders

Judges use four criteria to decide whether to pause operations. Minnesota must demonstrate: whether Minnesota is likely to win the case; whether damage that cannot be fixed will occur absent a temporary court order; that weighing the interests of both sides favors the plaintiff; and that a temporary order serves the public interest.

On whether Minnesota is likely to win, the analysis is contested. The government has strong authority written into law to conduct enforcement. Minnesota has credible constitutional arguments that enforcement authority has limits when exercised at this scale, with apparent racial targeting, and with apparent retaliatory motive.

On damage that cannot be fixed, Minnesota’s case is strong. Schools have closed. Businesses have lost most of their revenue. Police have diverted thousands of hours of resources. Two civilians have been killed—Renée Good on January 7 and Alex Pretti on January 24, both U.S. citizens, both shot by federal personnel. Harm does not get more permanent than death.

Weighing the interests of both sides may favor Minnesota. The government has an interest in enforcing the law, but that interest must be balanced against Minnesota’s sovereign interests in exercising basic law enforcement responsibilities and protecting its residents’ constitutional rights. The government’s interest can be served through more limited, constitutional operations that comply with reasonable suspicion requirements and avoid racial profiling.

The public interest likely favors Minnesota. The public has an interest in federal government respecting constitutional limits, in states retaining capacity to exercise sovereign functions, and in federal enforcement operations not creating chaos and danger in American cities.

What the Outcome Means

Federal procedural rules require that such orders be decided promptly—typically within fourteen days.

If granted, the temporary order would require substantial reduction in the number of federal personnel deployed or strict limitations on enforcement tactics. Either outcome would signal that federal agencies face constitutional limits when deploying large-scale enforcement in state territory.

If the government prevails, it establishes that federal authority functions with minimal constraint from constitutional rules about federal versus state power, at least at the scale Operation Metro Surge represents.

The case tests whether federal authority over enforcement operates with minimal constitutional constraint, or whether the balance of power itself imposes limits—not by preventing federal enforcement, but by requiring that such enforcement meet constitutional standards, respect state sovereignty, and operate within bounds that permit states to exercise their own core functions.

The Supreme Court’s September 2025 decision in Perdomo complicated the legal terrain by permitting suspicion based on statistics for stops. Minnesota’s case, if it reaches appellate courts, will test whether Perdomo permits the race-based enforcement sweeps its language suggests, or whether the Court will reconsider that approach. Justice Sotomayor’s fierce dissent in Perdomo suggests that the Court’s conservatives and liberals remain sharply divided on these matters.

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