NEW REPORT: America’s Voice “End the ICE Tax” Finds Mass Deportation Is Driving Up Costs and Straining Minnesota’s Economy

The Twin Cities know first hand the pain and violence of ICE raids; Another casualty is to the economy

MINNESOTA – A new report from America’s Voice, “End the ICE Tax,” reveals how the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda is driving up prices, eliminating jobs, and gutting local economies. This cruelty carries a steep price tag, and the Twin Cities rank among the metro areas hardest hit by the enforcement surge:

Key findings from the report include:

• In 2025, ICE arrests in the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington metro area jumped 679 percent, from an average of 60 arrests per month in 2024 to 467 per month after the enforcement surge began, according to Brookings’ analysis of Deportation Data Project records. This represents one of the largest increases among the 86 U.S. metro areas Brookings identified as 2025 “surge cities.”
• Nationwide, the 2025 ICE enforcement surge eliminated an estimated 668,000 jobs, including some estimates as high as 297,000 jobs held by American-born workers. Applying the surge’s national job losses to the Twin Cities’ 2024 employment base suggests an estimated 14,200 jobs lost in the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington metro area alone.
• Nationwide, consumer spending drops 6.2 percent and foot traffic falls 2.7 percent at the average business in the weeks after ICE enforcement hits a metro area — and the damage lingers.
• Local reporting confirms these findings on the ground: Minneapolis businesses lost an estimated $10 million to $20 million in sales each week during Operation Metro Surge, according to city estimates. Dan Swenson-Klatt subsequently closed his 20-year-old Butter Bakery Cafe after enforcement drove away many of his Latino and Somali customers, saying: “We don’t have the savings… we don’t have the resources to maintain this.”
• Home health care prices have risen 10.7 percent nationally over the past year, with immigrants making up nearly 40 percent of that workforce — a workforce Minnesota’s aging population will need even more in the years ahead.

To read the full “ICE Tax” report, click here.

The report calls the cost of deportation to American consumers the “ICE Tax“: the price families pay every day because the government is choosing mass deportation led by ICE agents over the economic well-being of everyday Americans. America’s Voice’s new campaign calls on the Trump administration and Congress to reverse course and end the “ICE Tax” by stopping the mass deportations that are squeezing American families in every corner of the country.

Statement from Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice:

“Minnesota families have already paid a painful price for this administration’s mass deportation agenda that resulted in unprecedented violence, unchecked lawlessness and total chaos. Now we have the receipts on the economic damage too: ICE arrests in the Twin Cities surged nearly sevenfold, and the toll shows up in lost jobs, shuttered storefronts, and higher prices for every family in this state, whether they wanted this fight or not. Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda – supported by his allies in Congress – has cost Minnesota dearly. It’s time to end it, and end the ICE tax with it.”

Read about the report in Spanish here.