Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara urged residents to call 911 if they see ICE agents “kidnapping” people as the Trump administration’s illegal immigration crackdown got underway in the Twin Cities.
“We have experienced reports in this city … where people call to say that there’s folks that are masked, that they’re not sure if they’re law enforcement, that they may be kidnapping people. We have had those reports,” O’Hara said during a baffling news conference.
He issued the bizarre plea Tuesday, when Mayor Jacob Frey accused immigration authorities of “targeting Somali people” based strictly on their appearance and claimed it was “inevitable” that ICE would round up American citizens in the operation.
“The community should know that if you see something like that, that is legitimate, that you don’t know if someone is law enforcement, you should call 911, and you should provide as much information as possible,” he said, pledging that cops “absolutely have a duty to intervene” in such cases.
Around 100 ICE agents were deployed to Minneapolis on Wednesday, according to multiple reports, targeting as many as 500 Somali illegal immigrants after reports of widespread defrauding of the state’s Department of Human Services, amounting to over $1 billion in taxpayer funds.
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Crackdown in Minneapolis underway following Trump talks with Walz, Frey
(The Center Square) – A crackdown on protesters in Minneapolis appears to be underway following “good talks” President Donald Trump had with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.
The crackdown came as Border Czar Tom Homan was set to arrive in the city amid growing tensions between anti-ICE protesters and federal immigration officials, leading to two deaths in recent weeks.
Trump has characterized the calls as being positive, while reiterating his administration’s demands that the city and state turn over criminal illegal aliens.
It’s unclear whether the calls prompted what appeared to be a crackdown by local law enforcement, clamping down on protesters congregating outside a hotel suspected of housing ICE officials.
However, the Department of Homeland Security posted a video on X showing law enforcement going after “rioters.”
“Local Minnesota Police arrested violent rioters last night. Glad to see some state and local government cooperation. It’s a start,” DHS posted.
Earlier on Monday, the president announced that Walz had reached out to him, requesting the two work together.
In Trump’s Truth Social post Monday announcing Homan’s impending arrival in Minneapolis, the president said the border czar would be reaching out to Walz in an effort to obtain “criminals that they have in their possession.”
“The Governor, very respectfully, understood that, and I will be speaking to him in the near future. He was happy that Tom Homan was going to Minnesota,” the president posted.
During a press briefing at the White House Monday afternoon, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt expanded on the Trump administration’s demands for Walz and Frey.
Leavitt said the White House is demanding that the Democratic leaders “turn over all criminal illegal aliens currently incarcerated in their prisons and jails,” in addition to “any illegal aliens with active warrants or known criminal history of immediate deportation.”
The second demand is that local and state law enforcement “must agree to turn over all illegal aliens who are arrested by local police.” The third calls on local law enforcement to assist federal authorities in “apprehending and detaining illegal aliens who are wanted for crimes.”
“If Governor Walz and Mayor Frey implement these commonsense cooperative measures that I would add have already been implemented in nearly every single other state across the country, Customs and Border Patrol will not be needed to support ICE on the ground in Minnesota. Ice and local law enforcement can peacefully work together, as they are effectively doing in so many other states and jurisdictions,” Leavitt said during the briefing.
Despite the good call between Trump and Walz, on Monday afternoon, the governor appeared to clap back at the White House’s claims that his state isn’t cooperating with federal immigration authorities in a commentary he penned in the Wall Street Journal, claiming his corrections department “honors all immigration detainers.”
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Comer suggests Trump pull ICE out of Minnesota
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) said Sunday that President Trump should consider pulling Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel from Minnesota, a day after a Border Patrol agent fatally shot an American citizen in Minneapolis.
“If I were President Trump, I would almost think about, ‘OK, if the mayor and the governor are going to put our ICE officials in harm’s way and there’s a chance of losing more innocent lives, then maybe go to another city,’” Comer told host Maria Bartiromo on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” referring to Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D).
After 37-year-old Alex Pretti, a U.S. citizen, was shot and killed by a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent Saturday, Frey and Walz reiterated their calls for the president to remove ICE and CBP personnel from the state. The Trump administration surged federal immigration enforcement to Minnesota earlier this month amid a probe into social services fraud.
Days after that initial surge, an ICE officer fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Good, also a U.S. citizen, in Minneapolis.
“I just know that the situation’s bad there,” Comer added Sunday. “On one hand, there are thousands of criminal illegals in Minnesota, because that was a sanctuary city and a sanctuary state. The majority of Minnesotans, in my opinion, want them apprehended and sent back to where they came from.”
“But on the other hand, I think this situation’s only going to get worse and I really think that there are so many cities in the United States that have issues with criminal illegals, that I think [federal immigration enforcement] would be better received in other cities,” he continued.
On Sunday, Trump told The Wall Street Journal that federal personnel will leave Minnesota “at some point.” On Monday morning, the president wrote on Truth Social that his border czar, Tom Homan, will head to the state later in the day.
“He has not been involved in that area, but knows and likes many of the people there,” Trump noted. “Tom is tough but fair, and will report directly to me.”
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Opinion – The videos don’t lie. End ICE’s presence in Minnesota.
Enough is enough. It is time to restore law and order — to pull federal immigration officers out of American cities. Time for ICE agents to stop shooting American citizens. Time for President Trump and his cronies to stop calling peaceful protestors “domestic terrorists.” And it’s also time for officers and agents who killed protestors to be held accountable.
What has happened to America? Five years ago, when George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis by a white police officer, millions of people across America and around the globe turned out in protest. The Black Lives Matter movement launched what the New York Times called “the largest movement in U.S. history.” All four officers involved in subduing Floyd were charged with violating his civil rights. Officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder and sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison.
Yet this month, two Americans have been killed in Minneapolis by federal agents. Outside of Minneapolis city limits, public protests have been largely non-existent. Why? Where’s the outrage?
In many ways, what happened to Renee Good and Alex Pretti, is more outrageous than what happened to George Floyd, because this was not a random act by four local policemen. This was part of President Trump’s organized crackdown on illegal immigration, targeted so far only on cities or states with Democratic mayors or governors.
Why did Trump unleash ICE agents on Minneapolis? It was not because the Twin Cities had any serious crime problem, or a large undocumented population, or had requested federal help. No, it started after Nick Shirley, a right-wing YouTube content creator, posted a video alleging, without proof, fraud at childcare centers in Minneapolis, many of which were run by Somali immigrants.
The Trump administration first appropriately responded by suspending childcare funds to Minneapolis pending an investigation of the city’s childcare program. But that wasn’t enough for Trump or his deputy White House chief of staff, Stephen Miller. After all, Gov. Tim Walz (D) and Mayor Jacob Frey (D) were easy targets. So Trump used the unrelated excuse of alleged childcare fraud to justify sending 2,000 ICE agents into Minneapolis to conduct a massive, anti-immigrant round-up campaign.
The result has been a national public relations disaster. ICE officers breaking into homes with no arrest warrant, marching a grandfather out of his home in freezing weather wearing nothing but shorts and clogs and wrapped in a blanket. It has been ICE officers detaining a five-year old boy and whisking him off with his father to a Texas detention center and immigration officers shooting three people in the last three weeks: Julio Sosa-Celis (shot in the leg but survived); and Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who were killed.
Good and Pretti were two average Americans we could all identify with. They were not professional agitators. They did not have criminal records. They were simply two citizens of Minneapolis who didn’t like what ICE agents were doing to their city. Exercising their every right under the Constitution, they turned out to protest. They did nothing to justify their deaths.
Renee Good, 37, mother of three, had just dropped her 6-year old son off at school when she stopped to join a protest against ICE agents in the neighborhood, temporarily blocking one lane of traffic with her SUV. She did not, as Trump accused her of doing, run over an ICE agent with her car. After telling an agent “That’s find dude, I’m not mad,” she turned to the right to drive away from the scene — at which point officer Jonathan Ross shot her three times through the windshield.
Watch the video. The video does not lie. Trump lied.
Pretti, also 37, was an ICU nurse at the local Veterans Affairs hospital. Joining another neighborhood protest, he tried to protect a woman targeted by federal agents when he was pepper-sprayed and thrown to the ground. One agent then pulled a gun from Pretti’s pocket, which he had a license to carry. Five second later, another officer fired ten shots.
Watch the video. Pretti did not, as Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino claimed, “brandish” his weapon at officers. He was holding up his cellphone, not a gun. The video does not lie. Bovino lied.
No wonder even some Republican senators are expressing concerns over what’s happening in Minneapolis. They know it reminds people of horrific scenes from Bashar al-Assad’s Syria or Vladimir Putin’s Russia. And they know voters will decide in November whether that’s what they want in American cities.
Bill Press is host of “The Bill Press Pod.” He is the author of “From the Left: A Life in the Crossfire.”
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