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Minnesota faith leaders are sounding the alarm regarding the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) surveillance of churches during and after Operation Metro Surge, President Donald Trump’s violent immigration crackdown in the state earlier this year.
A motion filed in federal court on August 13 revealed that DHS agents surveilled multiple churches in the Twin Cities — as well as schools, libraries, and restaurants — following the launch of Operation Metro Surge in December 2025. The surveillance operation in the Twin Cities lasted through the spring of 2026, and culminated in the prosecution of the Minnesota 15, a group of activists facing federal conspiracy charges after organizing protests against Trump’s deportation campaign.
The months-long surveillance operation included sending undercover agents inside University Baptist Church and Prince of Peace Church, both churches in Minneapolis. Federal agents recorded meetings in the churches and wrote up lists of attendees. They also took down license plate numbers of attendees, and used their license plate information to find their names, then searched for their images on social media.
“It is deeply disturbing that churches can become targets of government surveillance,” particularly when they “care for their neighbors, provide safe places for people to gather, and work together for justice,” Reverend Cody J. Sanders, interim pastor at the University Baptist Church, said in a statement.
Sanders learned that an undercover agent had worn a wire to a self-defense class in his church in May.
Sanders told Truthout that “it was a shock” to find out that his church had been surveilled, but that it “made sense.”
“Intimidation and fear tactics became commonplace during the ICE occupation of the Twin Cities last winter,” he said. “It was infuriating that the government had violated the sacredness of our churches by sending agents to spy on activities taking place here.”
On September 4, a federal court is scheduled to determine whether DHS violated an action protecting houses of worship from immigration enforcement activity in the Twin Cities. The injunction, issued in February, involves churches and other places of worship across the country and forbids DHS and its agencies — including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) — from conducting arrests, interrogations, or investigations at any of the involved sites. In August, an alliance of churches filed a motion ordering the U.S. government to explain why it should not be held in contempt for violating the injunction in the Twin Cities.
“Both the injunction and pending contempt hearing arose from the efforts of multiple religious groups coming together with legal support to protect religious freedom,” Sanders told Truthout.
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Other faith leaders have also decried the effects of the surveillance, saying it has only compounded the trauma of Operation Metro Surge, in which federal immigration agents killed protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti and detained over 3,500 people.
“In the Twin Cities, we experienced Operation Metro Surge as a violent paramilitary occupation, one from which our communities are still recovering,” said Reverend Susie Hayward in a statement. “To learn that federal agents entered our holy spaces against our expressed will, for the purpose of surveillance connected to religious practices grounded in love of neighbor, compounds that trauma.”
“Faith communities here in Minnesota — and religious leaders across the country — are now watching closely to see whether the courts will uphold the protections they have already ordered.”
Faith leaders are also warning that surveillance can result in a chilling effect, leaving community members afraid to speak openly, organize, or even attend their places of worship.
“This winter, Minnesotans of faith responded to extraordinary federal violence with prayer, song, nonviolent action… for the federal government to respond by surveilling churches and the people gathering inside them is not only an attack on religious freedom, it is an attempt to intimidate people out of exercising their most basic constitutional rights,” Minister JaNaé Bates Imari, who is also based in the Twin Cities, said in a statement.
“The church does not exist by permission of the government, and our sacred spaces cannot become places where people must wonder whether practicing their faith or standing with their neighbors will put them in a federal file,” she added.
“Government surveillance inside houses of worship and places of prayer is unfortunately not new,” Sanders noted. “Many of our Muslim friends and neighbors have experienced this reality far more pervasively than Christian communities like ours.”
An amicus brief filed by free speech groups in August said that surveillance by the Trump administration and DHS in Minnesota represents an “.”
Though the September 4 hearing is an attempt to force the Trump administration to respect places of worship, the court case is part of a larger battle. Regardless of Trump’s attacks and surveillance, Sanders told Truthout, “We will continue to serve our community and engage in our ministries of peace and justice. We cannot afford to let fear and paranoia distract us from our mission. And the best antidote to fear is to strengthen the bonds of community and solidarity.”
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