'It feels like an invasion': Minnesotans stunned as federal agents flood their state

MINNEAPOLIS - The federal officers arrived weeks ago. But since the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good, their numbers have swelled - and people here say the weight of it all is inescapable. Federal officers are flooding the sidewalks of their neighborhoods, honks and whistles sound when they are near and, occasionally, the smell of chemical agents wafts by. Neighbors who live near the street where Renee Good was killed say the community has had no time to recover.Charly Triballeau / AFP via Getty Images Federal officers have smashed car windows and arrested people they said were obstructing enforcement operations.Mostafa Bassim / Anadolu via Getty Images Immigration officers have been flooding neighborhoods, knocking on doors in pursuit of non-U.S. citizens.Scott Olson / Getty Images Federal officers regularly detain protesters outside the Whipple Federal Building.Charly Triballeau / AFP - Getty Images The Whipple Building, which holds an ICE facility, has been the site of daily protests.Octavio Jones / AFP - Getty Images The Trump administration said it would target for arrest anyone interfering with immigration enforcement.Stephen Maturen / Getty Images The scale, the sustained intensity and the aggression demonstrated by law enforcement deployed here appears to be greater than immigration enforcement operations that took place in other blue cities like Chicago, Los Angeles and Charlotte, North Carolina, all of which are larger than Minneapolis in land mass and population. The officers are in unmarked cars idling on neighborhood streets. They are going door to door, residents said. They are seen inside of stores and in retail parking lots, including at the Target in Richfield , south of Minneapolis, the day after Good was killed. Residents' videos of violent arrests are proliferating on social media, including one of a woman dragged from her car. Some videos provided to NBC News by activists show officers smashing car windows or spraying chemicals point blank into the faces of residents. “It feels like an invasion,” said a woman who asked not to be named out of fear of retaliation. She was protesting at the Whipple federal detention facility at 7 a.m. on a frigid, 12-degree morning. The woman, a restaurant owner, said she closed her business temporarily because she was trying to protect her employees who were immigrants. “It feels very much like a Nazi Germany situation to me. It needs to stop, and people need to know what’s going on.” The focus of Operation Metro Surge, as the Trump administration has branded this latest immigration effort, appears to have broadened beyond mass deportations and has included confrontations with anti-ICE protesters . The shooting of Good and the scope of the deployment has heightened the tense mood in a nation already bitterly divided over immigration issues and the Trump administration’s tactics. Interviews with neighbors, community leaders and organized protesters reveal a sense of being under invasion. On Wednesday night, a man was shot in the leg after DHS said he attacked a federal officer with a snow shovel or broom handle. “Fearing for his life...

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