Eight Minnesota suburbs left their camera networks open. During a federal operation last winter, agencies from inside and outside the state searched that data for civil immigration purposes.
Reported by a named outlet and not contradicted, but we have not obtained the underlying record. Specifics are presented as reported, not as established.
A Minnesota Star Tribune investigation published on July 20, 2026 reported that roughly thirty state, county and federal agencies searched automated license plate reader data held by at least eight Twin Cities suburbs for immigration-enforcement purposes between November and March, during the federal operation known as Metro Surge. The suburbs named were Fridley, Eagan, South St. Paul, Crystal, Robbinsdale, Brooklyn Center, Hopkins and Shakopee. The Mille Lacs County Sheriff's Office was identified as one of the searching agencies. Fridley, which held the most-searched network, later told its council that immigration-related searches of its cameras fell from 107 in January 2026 to zero in February after it restricted access to Minnesota agencies and disabled immigration searches.
This is what a sharing default does. Not one of these suburbs decided to help with immigration enforcement; several say the searches were a use their program was never meant to serve. They decided something far more ordinary — to leave the network open, because openness is how the product is sold and how it is configured out of the box. Everything that followed was a consequence of a checkbox nobody debated at a council meeting. The Fridley figures are worth sitting with for a moment: 494,812 searches against one small city's cameras in a single month, of which 107 were immigration-related. The immigration searches are the story that broke, but the half-million is the system working exactly as designed. Retention determines how far back someone can look. Sharing determines who is looking. A city can win a hard-fought fight over retention and still have handed the entire archive to agencies whose names never appeared on any agenda. That is why every dossier on this site carries outbound sharing as its own field, and why "not established" is printed in full rather than left blank.
The Minnesota Star Tribune reported on July 20, 2026 that around thirty state, county and federal agencies searched camera data held by at least eight Twin Cities suburbs for immigration-enforcement purposes between November and March.
The suburbs identified were Fridley, Eagan, South St. Paul, Crystal, Robbinsdale, Brooklyn Center, Hopkins and Shakopee.
The Mille Lacs County Sheriff's Office was identified as one of the agencies that searched Twin Cities suburban camera data for civil immigration purposes.
The Fridley Police Department reported 107 immigration-related searches against its cameras in January 2026 and zero in February 2026.
The Fridley Police Department reported 494,812 total searches against its cameras in January 2026, falling to 22,480 in February 2026 after access was restricted to Minnesota agencies.
Fridley Deputy Director Patrick Faber stated that before February 2026 the city's network was open to out-of-state law-enforcement agencies and was searched heavily, and that some of that access was used for immigration-related searches, a purpose the program was never meant to serve.
Some local law-enforcement officials told the Star Tribune that civil immigration searches do not fit their understanding of a lawful use of license plate reader data in Minnesota.
Whether any individual search violated Minnesota law is not established here. Reporting describes state law as permitting ALPR data to be shared in support of an active criminal investigation, and civil immigration enforcement is not a criminal investigation — but Unsurveilled has not reviewed the statute against these specific searches, and no court or state authority has ruled on them. We record what the records show and what officials said about it, and we stop there.
The Fridley search totals are the department's own account of its audit data, presented to its council. They are the best figures publicly available and they have not been independently examined by anyone outside the department, including us.
On July 20, 2026, the Minnesota Star Tribune published an investigation built on automated license plate reader audit records. It reported that roughly thirty state, county and federal agencies searched camera data held by at least eight Twin Cities suburbs for immigration-enforcement purposes between November and March, during the federal operation known as Metro Surge.
The suburbs named were Fridley, Eagan, South St. Paul, Crystal, Robbinsdale, Brooklyn Center, Hopkins and Shakopee. The Mille Lacs County Sheriff’s Office was identified as one of the searching agencies.
None of these places is a border town. None of them adopted a policy of assisting immigration enforcement. What they did was leave the sharing configuration open — which is the configuration these networks arrive in, and which is the feature the product is sold on.
Fridley held the most heavily searched of the networks, and in late July its police department put figures in front of its own city council. They are the clearest picture anyone has published of what an open ALPR network actually does.
| Month | Immigration-related searches | Total searches |
|---|---|---|
| January 2026 | 107 | 494,812 |
| February 2026 | 0 | 22,480 |
Between those two months the department restricted network access to Minnesota agencies and disabled immigration-related searching. Deputy Director Patrick Faber told the council that before February the network had been open to out-of-state law enforcement and was searched heavily, and that some of that access was used for immigration-related searches — “a purpose the program was never meant to serve.”
Read the right-hand column again. The immigration searches are why this became a story. The half-million is what the system does on an ordinary month with the door open, and nothing about that number was a scandal to anybody until somebody printed it.
We are not saying any of these searches was unlawful. Reporting describes Minnesota law as permitting ALPR data to be shared in support of an active criminal investigation, and civil immigration enforcement is not a criminal investigation. Several local officials told the Star Tribune that these searches do not fit their understanding of lawful use.
That is officials’ characterisation of the law and of their own programs. It is not a ruling, and we have not put the statute against these specific searches ourselves. The distinction matters enough to state plainly: what is documented is that the searches happened and that officials were surprised by them. Whether any of them broke the law is an open question we have listed above, and it is the kind that gets answered by a court or an attorney general, not by us.
Every jurisdiction dossier on this site carries outbound sharing as its own field, next to retention, and prints “not established” when we do not know. People sometimes ask why we do not simply fold it into a general “privacy policy” summary.
This is why.
Retention answers how far back can someone look. Sharing answers who is looking. They are independent, and a community can fight hard for one while handing over the other without noticing. A city that cuts retention to seven days and leaves its network open to anyone with a login has reduced the depth of the archive and not touched its reach. Fridley’s own figures show the reach shrinking by 95% the month it closed the door — no cameras removed, no contract cancelled, no retention change.
That is the cheapest surveillance reform available to any council in the country, and most of them have never been asked for it.
If your city runs ALPR cameras, three questions belong in writing to your council this month:
The records request generator produces all three. If you get an answer, send it to us — a sharing configuration is exactly the kind of fact that turns a decision record into a dossier.
Reported by a named outlet and not contradicted, but we have not obtained the underlying record. Specifics are presented as reported, not as established.
Not yet obtained
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Ask which outside agencies can search your city’s data
Sharing configurations are set once, usually by nobody in public. Ask for the list of agencies with access, not for a reassurance that it is limited.
Questions this story leaves open
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