It was just after 6am, and just below zero outside, when the 30-pound press-labeled body armor was starting to feel nearly unbearable. 

This was the Daily Mail's second day embedded with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers out of the department's hectic Minneapolis hub, weeks after two Americans were killed by federal officers. 

The blacked-out Nissan's back seat felt like a clubhouse. The two ICE officials - an agent and a public affairs officer - shared war stories about Operation Metro Surge.

The 12-hour shifts often stretched to 14 or 16 hours. Going out on the government-funded per diem had become a chore, with activists watching to confront any ICE agent. They missed their families back home in Texas and Arizona. 

Border Czar Tom Homan is clued in, with a keen sense of how outrage in the city has enhanced the dangers faced by agents, and how it hinders operations that can be painstakingly difficult even in normal circumstances. 

He said at a press conference in Minneapolis on Wednesday that 700 federal immigration agents will be withdrawn from the frigid city and sent home. He noted how it was not a 'perfect operation.'

The number of federal officials will drop to around 2,000, about 1,000 short of the peak deployment of approximately 3,000 agents. Anti-ICE protests from Minnesota to the Grammy's stage have called for the agency to lessen its deployments, if not dissolve altogether. 

Back in the deadly cold, the truck hummed as it pumped heat into the cramped cab on the ice-packed street. A block and a half away, a Laotian man with a criminal history of rape and kidnapping was presumably starting his day.

But after 90 minutes with no movement at his residence, the team called it and moved to another target nearby who was expected to be at work soon.

Idling behind a Hispanic and Asian food market, the team was eager to make an arrest with the press in tow. After another hour passed, the mood grew restless.

But the scene reflected the slow-moving, tedious watch-and-wait game that is not captured in the news footage or headlines. 

Buzzing online was a video of agents surrounding a car with their guns drawn in a south-side neighborhood. 

'You can record, but you guys need to stand back,' an agent barks at a camera-wielding onlooker as another demands that a suspect open the door.