Transcript

"Operation Metro Surge” Ends & Colony Ridge Caves

From Morning Wire · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 16 min · 2,928 words · 35 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of ""Operation Metro Surge” Ends & Colony Ridge Caves", an episode of Morning Wire published February 13, 2026 (16 min, about 2,928 words). It mentions 10 people, works and ideas, including Tom Holman, Colony Ridge, John Bickley, Jenny Tar, Brent Sher.

What this episode is about

The Trump administration has concluded "Operation Metro Surge," boasting a significant number of arrests made by ICE in Minnesota, while also continuing to emphasize strict immigration enforcement as a priority. Additionally, Homeland Security is facing funding challenges amid partisan disagreements on immigration policy, and a Texas development accused of being an illegal immigrant haven has reached a $68 million settlement with the administration.

Key takeaways

  • ICE's retreat in Minnesota highlights a tactical shift, but mass deportation promises are still on the table.
  • Democrats celebrate the drawdown, yet the Trump administration insists prioritizing violent offenders remains a core focus.
  • Local law enforcement's cooperation marks a pragmatic approach—melding enforcement with community dynamics, but who's really winning?
  • The debate over ICE reflects deeper social divides; victories claimed by both sides only fuel a heated culture war.
  • With funding lapses on the horizon, Homeland Security's future might hinge less on numbers and more on narrative.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 3:00: John Bickley, Brick House Nutrition, Jenny Tar, Lean
  2. – 6:00: Tom Holman, Senator Amy Klobuchar
  3. – 9:00: Cameron Arand, Senator Amy Klobuchar
  4. – 12:00: Colony Ridge, Brent Sher
  5. – 15:00: Colony Ridge, Brent Sher

Notable quotes from ""Operation Metro Surge” Ends & Colony Ridge Caves"

  • I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia How. It's Friday, February 13th. This is Morning Wire.
    about Georgia How · at
  • Borders are Tom Hman announces the end of operation metro surge in Minnesota.
    about Tom Holman · at
  • Now, Senator Amy Clolobachar talked about this and she said that this will not be over until ICE is basically overhauled and essentially defunded.
    about Senator Amy Klobuchar · at
  • Daily Wire political reporter Cameron Arand is here with the story. So, Cameron, we've been watching this deadline approaching and now we have reached the point where we're expecting.
    about Cameron Arand · at
  • Nation's capital Washington DC. Why was it so controversial? It wasn't just a big development. The business model that the Daily Wire helped to uncover was that its marketing…
    about Colony Ridge · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Tom Holman — Person · Referenced official / main speaker in immigration segment · 1 mention · first at
    Central figure in the Minnesota ICE drawdown story; quoted explaining the end of 'Operation Metro Surge' and the administration’s enforcement priorities.
  • John Bickley — Person · Host · 3 mentions · first at
    Introduces the show and conducts interviews with reporters (Jenny Tarr, Cameron Arand, Brent Scher) across the episode’s major stories.
    Daily Wire immigration reporter Jenny Tar joins us now to tell us what this means for ICE operations in the Twin Cities. Morning Jenny. So a major announcement here yesterday. What do we.
  • Jenny Tar — Person · Guest reporter (immigration segment) · 1 mention · first at
    Explains the operational meaning and political reactions to the ICE drawdown in Minnesota and contextualizes Homan/Trump’s enforcement posture.
    Daily Wire immigration reporter Jenny Tar joins us now to tell us what this means for ICE operations in the Twin Cities. Morning Jenny. So a major announcement here yesterday. What do we.
  • Brent Sher — Person · Guest editor (Colony Ridge settlement segment) · 2 mentions · first at
    Summarizes the Colony Ridge controversy and details the $68M settlement terms and intended effects on illegal-immigration-linked marketing and local infrastructure/policing.
    Daily Wire editor-inchief Brent Sher has the story. Brent, great to have you back in the studio. So, look, we've been tracking this story all the way back from 2023 when Spencer Linquist broke.
  • Cameron Arand — Person · Guest reporter (Congress/DHS funding segment) · 1 mention · first at
    Reports on the impending DHS funding lapse, Democratic demands in immigration negotiations, and the SAVE America Act’s provisions.
  • Senator Amy Klobuchar — Person · Referenced politician / quoted speaker · 2 mentions · first at
    Cited reacting to the Minnesota ICE drawdown; argues for ICE accountability and changes to funding/structure.
  • Georgia How — Person · Co-host · 1 mention · first at
    Named as co-host alongside John Bickley during the show’s introduction.

Companies & orgs

  • Colony Ridge — Company · Business focus · 4 mentions · first at
    A massive Texas development that became a magnet for illegal immigrants, leading to a $68 million settlement with the Trump administration.

Sponsors

  • Lean — Product · Sponsor · 1 mention · first at
    A weight loss supplement sponsored in the episode, promoted as an alternative to weight loss injections.
    Injections, especially when you start hearing about some of the side effects that can come with them. That's where Lean comes in. It's a weight loss supplement developed by…
  • Brick House Nutrition — Product · Sponsor · 2 mentions · first at
    The company behind Lean, a weight loss supplement sponsored in the episode.
    Injections, especially when you start hearing about some of the side effects that can come with them. That's where Lean comes in. It's a weight loss supplement developed by…

Full transcript with timestamps

The Trump administration pulls ICE out of Minnesota, declaring victory after thousands of arrests.

Well, we're going to continue to enforce immigration law. That's what American people are voting for. But it has to be a priority of of of criminals.

I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia How. It's Friday, February 13th. This is Morning Wire. Homeland Security faces a funding lapse as Democrats dig in amid a heated debate on immigration.

They're not for the safety and the security of the American people. And a no vote today will confirm that. And who pays the price? Well, the American people.

And a development in Texas accused of being an illegal immigrant enclave agrees to a $68 million settlement with the Trump administration.

Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.

This episode is sponsored by Brick House Nutrition. You've probably heard about those weight loss injections that everyone's been talking about, and for good reason. The results can be pretty incredible. They work by helping regulate blood sugar and keeping your appetite in check. But here's the thing, not everyone wants to deal with weekly injections, especially when you start hearing about some of the side effects that can come with them. That's where Lean comes in. It's a weight loss supplement developed by doctors, and people are seeing some really impressive results. The ingredients in lean are backed by research showing that they can help lower blood sugar, turn stored fat into energy, and reduce those constant cravings that make dieting so hard. This stuff is no joke. I am one of those people that eats sometimes a lot when I'm stressed. But once Lean came into the picture, I was able to rein in my

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Borders are Tom Hman announces the end of operation metro surge in Minnesota. Daily Wire immigration reporter Jenny Tar joins us now to tell us what this means for ICE operations in the Twin Cities. Morning Jenny. So a major announcement here yesterday. What do we need to know about the situation?

Right. So borders are Tom Hman came out on Thursday at a press conference in Minneapolis. He's still on the ground there. He's been on the ground there since late last month and he said that the draw down that they had started a couple weeks ago of federal officers will be a complete draw down in the end. ICE will still be in the area, but it's not going to be that sweeping uh effort like we've seen there and in other cities like Chicago or New Orleans. So, is this a sign of something larger that the Trump administration is actually backing away from the promise of carrying out its its uh historic mass deportation campaign?

No, this is something that Homeman brought up that there's been a lot of backlash about this is that they're pulling out, you know, thousands of these federal officers and that there won't be this footprint on the ground. But he said they're still going to have that existing ICE office in the Twin Cities and that's about 150 ICE officers who were there before this all happened. They're based there. There's also going to be those Homeland Security Investigations agents on the ground investigating fraud. And then there's also federal officers who are there just trying to make sure that there's no anti-ICE agitators going after uh their own. And Trump is supporting this. This is something that Homeman brought up. He said that the president agreed with him that this draw down uh should take effect and that they should pull back a little bit, but he also said that this doesn't mean the mass deportation effort

is over. Here's Homeman at a press conference Thursday talking about this. And in the next week, we're going deploy the officers here on detail back to their home stations or other areas of the country are needed. We're prioritizing those biggest threat to our community, the rapists, the murders, the child molest molesters. That's the right thing to do. But I'll say it again. President Trump made a promise of mass deportation and that's what this country is going to get.

Well, as we've seen repeatedly, Trump and Homeman are pragmatists when it comes to their policies. It sounds like that's what's going on here. Now, Democrats from the state have been asking for this all along, this withdrawal. What's been their response to Hman's decision?

Right. So, a lot of calls for victory here from Democrats on the city council and at other levels of government in Minnesota. This is something they're saying was caused by those ICE watch groups that went out and, you know, agitated and got in the way of ICE law enforcement and did so in the wake of the deaths of Alex Petty and Renee Good. And so they're saying that because ICE is still in the area, continue doing that, continue going out uh and trying to obstruct essentially. Um, and they're they're saying though that they really had an effect on what the Trump administration was doing and that that was the reason that they're pulling out there. Now, Homeman said that the reason is because he brokered this unprecedented cooperation from local law enforcement and now is stationing ICE officers outside of local jails so that those law enforcement at the local level can hand over illegal immigrants and

they don't have to hold them any longer than they need to, but that they're willing to do so now. And so that's the reason for the draw down in his words. So both sides are claiming victory here. Now, Senator Amy Clolobachar talked about this and she said that this will not be over until ICE is basically overhauled and essentially defunded. Listen to what she had to say. We did not blink. And yet it is not over because as you point out there must be accountability of course for the deaths of Renee and Alex. But there also must be accountability for all of the other damage they did economic harm to our state. And now until they are overhauled and until this enormous funding that they got uh changes uh we do not know where they're going to go next.

We've been tracking the situation in Minnesota for weeks now with you Jenny. So, it's a fascinating uh turn here. We'll see if things truly do deescalate. Thank you so much for reporting.

Thank you. Homeland Security seems poised to experience a lapse in government funding on Saturday at midnight amid an intense debate on immigration reforms.

Daily Wire political reporter Cameron Arand is here with the story. So, Cameron, we've been watching this deadline approaching and now we have reached the point where we're expecting to see a DHS shutdown. What's the latest in Congress? So, it looks extremely likely at this point that the Department of Homeland Security will face a lapse in federal government funding um potentially up to the next week, maybe even longer. So, on Thursday, there was a test vote as well as a push for maybe a stop gap funding bill to get this funding in place before the Friday deadline. Um but those efforts have failed, right? And so what we're seeing now is this negotiation process is going at a very slow pace at this point. So it remains to be seen what could end up happening in terms of the actual federal immigration reform negotiations at this point. Um Democrats saying that they're not too pleased with what they've gotten

from the White House, but we know very very few details as to what those negotiations and what those potential reforms and room for compromises would actually look like. At this point, we have almost no details that are public yet.

What are Democrats asking for uh in terms of their negotiables? So, they're looking at they want an end to masking for ICE agents, no more roving patrols. Most importantly, this is going to probably become one of the key points of debate we're going to see soon is over the type of warrants used for immigration arrests. Right now, the federal authorities usually use administrative warrants to execute some of these arrests. Right now, Democrats really want to push for judicial warrants, which does make this a lot more difficult to make some of these key arrests. So, what we're seeing right now is some of those demands being pushed.

Obviously, a lot of this centered on some of the tension that we saw in Minnesota and we saw a draw down today of Operation Metro Surge. So, we are seeing some changes from the Trump admin on the immigration front. Now, to be clear, a DHS shutdown isn't going to have a ton of immediate impact on immigration uh because they're receiving funding from some other sources. Can you explain that?

Correct. And a lot of people miss the really critical part of this is that the one big beautiful bill funded the vast majority of Trump's immigration agenda with ICE and Customs and Border Patrol. Right? So, this was already funded. Now, the problem is some of the other agencies that Homeland Security has, TSA, FEMA, the Coast Guard, people could be missing paychecks if this drags out, right? And these were not well funded or properly funded through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, right? So, that's what we're seeing with this now. So, during the last government shutdown, we saw longer lines at TSA, people calling out sick. It was a 43-day long shutdown.

So when we talk about the direct impact on Americans, those are the things that we could be seeing and issues we could be encountering with this that aren't even related to immigration. But simply because this is a DHS shutdown, these are the agencies that would be most heavily impacted by this. There was a push from a Democrat to essentially say, "Hey, we'll fund the agency, but we're going to split it off on the immigration stuff." And John Barazzo said yesterday that is not happening. and he's the Senate majority whip and he holds quite a bit of power in this process.

Now, there was also some other major moves made in Congress this week, including with the Save America Act. That's a major election policy bill. Can you tell us what the Save America Act would do?

So, the Save America Act would require not only voter ID nationwide, it would also require at the time when you register to vote, documentary proof of citizenship. And so that is a bit more strict than what you would maybe see in some states. Other states like Arizona already have laws on the books that are similar to this where you basically have to prove that you are a citizen. Um Democrats have said that this is going to make it harder for some people to get certain types of documents. But obviously, as I said, this law or similar policies are already in the books in many states. Now, what happened in Congress was the Save America Act did pass the House this week and now there's a push in the Senate to get that through and ultimately to President Trump's desk.

Well, certainly a busy week in Washington. We'll see how long the DHS shutdown lasts. A few days, we'll be fine, but if it goes, you said more than a week or so, it'll really affect people. Cameron, thanks for reporting.

Thank you. A settlement has been reached in the lawsuit against Colony Ridge, the massive Texas development that became a magnet for illegal immigrants.

Daily Wire editor-inchief Brent Sher has the story. Brent, great to have you back in the studio. So, look, we've been tracking this story all the way back from 2023 when uh Spencer Linquist broke this story. What is the latest?

This is the beginning of the end of this saga, or at least it could be. Some necessary background for what made Colony Ridge such a disturbing tale for the country is this place was massive. It was hailed by the developers as the fastest growing development in the whole United States. There was projected growth of over 200,000 people by geographic size. It was bigger than nation's capital Washington DC. Why was it so controversial? It wasn't just a big development. The business model that the Daily Wire helped to uncover was that its marketing strategy was completely aimed exclusively at illegal immigrants or at least foreign populations. It was all in Spanish. They were advertising to you that you could buy land in the United States. They advertised unconventional bank loans where you didn't need a social security number. I mean, the strategy was pretty obvious and it worked. Illegal immigrants just poured in in Texas. So

after our reporting, and again it was in 2023, there was just a ton of scrutiny on Colony Rage. The Blaze did a great documentary on it. The Washington Post, the New York Times, they both sent reporters there to see what we saw. And ultimately, the Biden administration saw the same thing and they sued the development. But the interesting thing is here, the Biden administration brought the lawsuit. the Trump administration, their Department of Justice, is the one settling this lawsuit with Texas's Republican attorney general. So, the the settlement that they reached lays the groundwork not only to put an end to the scheme, but also to be a major boost for the surrounding communities around Colony Ridge who are really hurt by this, you know, fastest growing ever development that brought a 100,000 people right to their, you know, small little town in Texas. Now, this settlement has come out. We know the details of what was

agreed to here. Can you walk us through that? The top line is that it's $68 million, not in payments to anybody, but rather payments to fix what they created in Colony Rage. $20 million will go to building a police center inside Colony Rage. With this massive influx of a foreign population, the cartel came. It's been a hub for violent crime, for drug activity. It's really been a nightmare in Colony Ridge. Now, they're going to have they're going to hire a new police force just for that area. So, part of the settlement is to build that.

The other $50 million or so dollars is to actually make infrastructure improvements inside Colony Ridge. We talked about the bad land that they were getting, flood issues, just terrible land. They are now spending $50 million to fix that. And then with the provisions, it kind of makes interesting who's going to benefit from this. Because first of all, now to buy in Texas, you can't get an unconventional loan. It has to be a traditional loan. You have to have either a Texasisssued ID, which illegal immigrants cannot get in Texas, or a legal visa issued since Donald Trump took office. That's a provision in there. It's a visa issued in 2025. So these are not going to go to an illegal immigrant population.

All right. So this is designed not just to fix the problems but create a nice place for Americans to live.

Yeah. And that's exactly how Har Dylan who led this settlement for the Department of Justice. That's how she's framing this. She pledged that her team will always go after schemes that encourage illegal immigration. Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas, I mean he was more focused just on the illegal immigration aspect of this. He hailed the deal and said that it halts the development of a de facto illegal immigrant community in Texas. So yeah, I mean this really may be a positive ending to a major problem in Texas. And to give us a shout out here, it this really all began with Daily Wire reporting. It's amazing to see where this story went. Brent, thanks so much for reporting.

Yeah, of course. Another story we're tracking, new developments in the Nancy Guthrie case. Here with more is Daily Wire reporter Lyndon Blake. The FBI is now offering a reward up to $100,000 for any information leading to the location of Nancy Guthrie or the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in her disappearance. The suspect that was found on her Ring doorbell footage is now being described as a man approximately 5'9 to 510 with an average build. In the video that you see, he's wearing a black 25 L Ozark Trail hiker pack backpack. This is important to help identify him and the FBI says they are seeking any information that will help ID that person. Thanks for waking up with us and if you're listening to the show now you can watch for free on Daily Wire Plus. We'll be back later this evening with more news you need to know.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in ""Operation Metro Surge” Ends & Colony Ridge Caves"?

John Bickley (Host), Georgia How (Host), Jenny Tar (Guest), Cameron Arand (Guest), Brent Sher (Guest), Lyndon Blake (Guest).

What is ""Operation Metro Surge” Ends & Colony Ridge Caves" about?

The Trump administration has concluded "Operation Metro Surge," boasting a significant number of arrests made by ICE in Minnesota, while also continuing to emphasize strict immigration enforcement as a priority. Additionally, Homeland Security is facing funding challenges amid partisan disagreements on immigration policy, and a Texas development accused of being an illegal immigrant haven has…

What is mentioned in this Morning Wire episode?

10 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Tom Holman, Colony Ridge, John Bickley, Jenny Tar, Brent Sher, Cameron Arand. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is ""Operation Metro Surge” Ends & Colony Ridge Caves"?

The episode runs 16 min; the transcript is about 2,928 words in 35 timestamped sections.

More from Morning Wire

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated February 15, 2026.