St. Paul Mayor Says Hmong Residents Sheltering Indoors Amid ICE Surge

St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her, sworn in Jan. 2 as the city’s first Asian American and first female mayor, says the Trump administration’s 'Operation Metro Surge' immigration crackdown has left many of the city’s 66,000‑plus Hmong residents too afraid to leave their homes, devastating businesses at the Hmong Village Shopping Center. In an on‑camera walk‑through with CBS News, Her points to rows of shuttered vendor stalls that would normally be open and relays owners’ accounts that sales have fallen 60–70%, leaving many unable to cover booth rents of about $1,400 a month. She says parents now tell children to lock the door and not go outside while they’re at work, and that even naturalized‑citizen Hmong — including her own parents — are avoiding public spaces; she herself now carries a passport, despite being a U.S.‑born mayor. DHS insists the 3,000‑agent Twin Cities surge is targeting 'the worst of the worst' convicted violent offenders and touts 3,000 recent arrests, but Her counters that U.S. citizens are being detained based on how they look or sound and that 'if you’re legally here you shouldn’t have anything to fear' is simply not true on the ground. The account reinforces social‑media reports of emptied immigrant corridors and raises hard questions about whether federal tactics advertised as precision strikes are in practice terrorizing entire refugee communities and choking local economies.