‘Minnesota Neighbors’ tells stories of regular people during Operation Metro Surge

Director Patrice O’Neill said her documentary “Minnesota Neighbors” could not begin to tell the whole story of what happened when residents stood up to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Operation Metro Surge in the Twin Cities in late 2025 and the early winter months of 2026.

“The film is a small glimpse of what happened,” said O’Neill, who has produced and directed films about communities standing up to hate since 1995.

A full house packed the Riverview Theater recently to see the film and its chronicle of events and neighbors standing up for neighbors during the height of Operation Metro Surge.

“The focus of our story is about how people used the resources they had to do something when their neighbors were literally dragged into danger,” O’Neill said.

The documentary highlights the regular people going about their everyday lives who took the time and the risk to stand up for their immigrant neighbors.

These included people who protested, who kept watch, who transported children to school, who delivered food and cooked meals and washed clothes for people in hiding from ICE.

“We started seeing events unfold in January 2026, and the story was not just our immigration policy but about racial profiling,” O’Neill said. “We were most inspired because of the massive courage and kindness of people standing together. We wanted to capture some of that and share what it takes.”

NOT IN OUR TOWN
O’Neill began filming communities fighting back against hate when her nonprofit Working Group, based in Oakland, Calif. produced the documentary “Not in Our Town,” taking place in Billings, MT.
A series of hate crimes had occurred in the early 90s, targeting African American churches and the Jewish community. The film aired on PBS in 1995 and resulted in over 100 town hall meetings being held nation-wide addressing hate crimes and how communities can resist.

“Not in Our Town” became a model for participatory documentary film making. O’Neill has filmed all over the country for more than 30 years, documenting how ordinary community members have challenged injustice.

“I think the people in the Twin Cities have been through so much and have a long history of community action,” O’Neill stated. “There were the killings of George Floyd and others.”

She said urban Native Americans have also had to deal with problems, and residents started being in touch directly with their neighbors.

“Those relationships were already in place when Operation Metro Surge took place,” O’Neill said. “When it became apparent what they were in for, people started getting prepared.”

O’Neill said she appreciated that the residents did not let the ICE incidents become the norm. “The people show so much strength,” she added.

According to O’Neill, people across the world can learn from what happened in the Twin Cities.

“The surge didn’t work because people stood up.”

O’Neill said the actual shooting of the documentary took 15 days. They finished in September, and she was editing up until the night before the world premiere at the Riverview.

CITIZENS WHO CARRIED THEIR PASSPORTS
Frederick Melo, St. Paul Bureau chief/reporter for the Pioneer Press who lives in St. Paul’s Midway neighborhood, was interviewed for the documentary. “I told them about my life and times during Operation Metro Surge,” he said.

“My wife, who is Hmong, made us all carry our passports during that time. It was a new experience for me, being born and raised in the United States.”

He said that his parents grew up under a dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. “My mom shed a lot of tears during Operation Metro Surge,” he said. “It brought back too many memories of the dictatorship.”

Melo said most of his reporting of the events was very targeted so he had to objectively ask the questions. “What is this woman going through who is in hiding? I asked without judgment, and I got a very emotional answer. And I had to be honest about what was happening.”

Melo said he did not interview any ICE officers, but it was not from lack of trying.

Melo commented on the Hmong man who was removed from his home by ICE, dressed only in his underwear and a bathrobe. ICE claimed he had been living with two sex offenders.

“It took me 45 seconds to get their names. I checked the state prison directory and found one of them had been in prison for years. And before prison, he was living in a tent. This did not involve me pulling a man out of his house in his underwear, and it took five minutes.”
Melo said ICE drove the man around and eventually released him.

Because of the history of Twin Cities Black men such as George Floyd and Philando Castille who had been killed by police, Melo said the Metro already had networks in place when the surge began. ”There was an email thread around everything on my block,” he said. “Residents were very primed to be able to turn to neighbors and learn what is happening.”

According to Melo, the Twin Cities has a strong interfaith community that leans progressive as well as more colleges per capita than anywhere other than Boston. “So you have a big Democratic Socialist movement, trans and LGBT, and a large immigrant population. Combine that with students, labor and neighbors. It’s very easy to deploy very quickly, and get people en masse on a particular street in the dead of winter.”

He said it became evident that ICE could not function very well on ice, and that became a rallying cry. In the film, a resident is quoted as saying, “You don’t mess with winter people in the winter.”
“There is also a very powerful teachers’ union, and the parents at my children’s school set their own hours and patrolled the area.”

Melo plans to attend screenings of “Minnesota Neighbors” in Boston, which is his home town. The film is also scheduled to run in several locations in California.