As federal immigration agents descended upon the Twin Cities as part of Operation Metro Surge, activists calling for their departure zeroed in on the hotels where they stayed as prime sites for protest.
Spurred by calls from residents and complaints from hotel workers, the Minneapolis and St. Paul city councils took steps to make clear their displeasure with the hotels, but found themselves hamstrung to do much more. Here’s what happened and why, despite the outcry, immigration agents still don’t face much trouble finding a place to stay in the Twin Cities – at least not yet.
Activists began protesting Twin Cities hotels believed to be housing ICE agents as early as Dec. 5, just days after Operation Metro Surge began. Their actions started with megaphones and chants but quickly evolved into clamorous mashups of drumkits, accordions and brass instruments. A Jan. 9 protest at Minneapolis’ Depot Renaissance hotel led to 30 arrests, with police stating that protesters had caused $6,000 in damages.
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Christa Sarrack, president of Minnesota’s hospitality union, Unite Here Local 17, has been vocal with officials on behalf of her members who are struggling. Even after news of the drawdown of federal agents, she told MinnPost that a “very significant number of people are not going to work because they do not feel safe going.”
But while Unite Here represents workers at 18 Twin Cities hotels, employees at hundreds of others in the region are not unionized — including those at the two Minneapolis hotels that have drawn the most protest.
Unionized or not, any hotel considering a “No ICE” policy would face significant hurdles, said Stephen Barth, a professor of hospitality law at the University of Houston’s Conrad H. Hilton College of Global Hospitality Leadership. While federal agents are not a protected class under the Civil Rights Act, the majority of hotels are franchised through national brands who set a high bar for banning any guest.
“I think the entire ecosystem would prefer to just be as accommodating as they can for the broadest possible audience that they can,” Barth said.
But, he added, it could be a tough line to walk. If the presence of federal agents at a hotel keeps other guests away, whether because of safety concerns or protests, “you have to balance that decision with your responsibility under your franchise agreement,” he said.
When a Hilton-affiliated hotel in Lakeville cancelled rooms booked by immigration agents in January, Hilton quickly dropped the hotel from its system. The hotel, which now operates as the Lakeville Inn, was also removed from the list of hotels approved for federal lodging programs.
Barth said that people should be aware that at most hotels, banning a group of patrons is not a quick or singular decision. It’s likely going through an ownership group, any third-party management companies and the brand itself.
“Try to give them a little grace because they are in a very challenging situation,” he said.
Without simple actions from hotels, local leaders took their own stab at the issue in recent weeks.
In Minneapolis, the City Council delayed the renewal of liquor licenses held by the Canopy by Hilton and Depot Renaissance hotels, as several members cited a need to investigate safety concerns – including unsecured weapons – raised by residents and workers.
Still, that wasn’t enough to stop City of Minneapolis officials, both before the delay and after looking into the complaints, from recommending to approve the license renewals. The council did just that in an 8-5 vote on Feb. 19.
Nonetheless, Ward 2 Council member Robin Wonsley, who voted against renewal, expressed gratitude to the body for using its authority “to make sure that players who are complicit, be it intentionally or unintentionally, are put on notice around that complicity and the effects.”
In St. Paul, Ward 6 Council member Nelsie Yang made clear in a council meeting on February 11 that “there isn’t any action we can take that could require hotels to refuse service to federal agents.”
Instead, she introduced a resolution that, while non-binding, “strongly urges hotels operating within the City of Saint Paul to refrain from housing federal immigration agents.” It passed unanimously.
For Minneapolis, though, it’s possible that the issue is not yet settled.
Amy Lingo, the city’s licenses and consumer services manager, told the City Council that the expressed concerns around worker safety and instances of unsecured guns in hotel rooms had nothing to do with the hotel’s ability to sell liquor.
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Instead, she said, “this would be a conversation for the hotel code.”
Hotels require a city license to operate, and those licenses are annually reviewed in November, Lingo confirmed.
The actual revocation of a hotel license is rare and reserved for significant breaches. In June 2025, the Brooklyn Center city council revoked the license for an extended stay hotel in after determining that it was operating a fully staffed recuperative care facility in some of its rooms.
But even barring an obvious code violation, Minneapolis’ City Council could potentially place “reasonable conditions” on a hotel license “to preserve the public peace and protect and promote good order, livability and security.”
Wonsley – with agreement from her more moderate colleague Linea Palmisano (Ward 13) – told fellow Council members that placing conditions on licenses could be a pathway to “make sure that the things we heard from our residents are not repeated.”
