Boston Mayor Michelle Wu took the lead on filing an amicus brief that calls for the federal court to stop the Trump administration’s occupation of the Twin Cities in Minnesota, a surge of ICE agents Wu said has led to violence, chaos and death.

Wu co-led a coalition of U.S. mayors in filing the brief Friday in Minneapolis federal court, in support of a lawsuit filed by the State of Minnesota and the Twin Cities impacted by the ICE surge, Minneapolis and St. Paul.

“The Trump administration’s ongoing occupations of peaceful American cities are unconstitutional and illegal,” Wu said in a statement. “These politically-motivated invasions of cities, whether by ICE agents or the National Guard, endanger our residents and violate federal law.

“We urge the courts to curb the dangerous impulses of a reckless federal administration,” the mayor added.

The brief, led by the City of Boston and the Public Rights Project, calls for the court to implement a temporary restraining order to end a federal immigration operation that began late last year, and has led to roughly 3,000 arrests, at least two shootings in Minneapolis, and the death of civilian Renee Nicole Good.

Calls for the removal of federal agents from Minnesota have intensified since Good’s death. The 37-year-old mother of three was fatally shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agent in Minneapolis on Jan. 7.

The brief describes how the Trump administration’s launch of “Operation Metro Surge” has led to an “unprecedented increase of thousands of masked and armed federal law enforcement officers in the Twin Cities, effectively creating a military operation of” Minneapolis and St. Paul, Wu’s office said.

The operation has sown fear in the Twin Cities, where “residents have been tear-gassed, assaulted, dragged from their vehicles, and snatched from their workplaces and homes,” the brief states.

“It is the latest in a series of deployments across the country that constitute a perilous increase in the presence of militarized federal immigration officers and which have caused mounting fear, tensions and violence in the cities and towns amici represent,” Wu’s office said.

The coalition of 44 mayors, cities, and counties argue that “the Trump administration is invading peaceful American cities to unlawfully punish communities that do not instruct local police to engage in Trump’s deportation agenda,” Wu’s office said.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly linked his administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota to fraud cases involving federal nutrition and pandemic aid programs, many of which have involved defendants with roots in Somalia.

The crux of the coalition’s argument is that the immigration operation in Minnesota constitutes a violation of the Tenth Amendment, which protects the sovereignty of states and bars the federal government from commandeering state and local resources for federal purposes.

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Wu’s office said the argument has been upheld in cases around the country, particularly where the Trump administration has sought to strip federal funding “or otherwise punish jurisdictions with local policies disfavored by the president.”

Wu’s lead on the amicus brief represents her latest battle with the Trump administration since the president began his second term last year.

The U.S. Department of Justice sued the City of Boston last September over its sanctuary policies, namely the Boston Trust Act, which limits local cooperation with federal immigration authorities. The feds argue in the lawsuit that the policy undermines law enforcement and shields illegal immigrants who commit crime.

Wu was thrust into the national spotlight last March, for her defense of the city’s sanctuary policies before a Republican-led Congressional oversight committee. She was referred to the Department of Justice for federal prosecution by one GOP lawmaker who took part in the hearing.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.

Tear gas is deployed amid protesters near the scene where Renee Good was fatally shot by an ICE officer last week, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Minneapolis.(AP Photo/Adam Gray)