Minnesota Democrats said they won’t cooperate with federal arrests of illegal immigrants, and that left a deal to end deadly clashes between protesters and agents in Minneapolis on the verge of collapsing.
President Trump issued a warning Wednesday after Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said the city “will not participate in unconstitutional arrests of our neighbors or enforce federal immigration law.”
The president said he was surprised by Mr. Frey’s statement. The two talked Monday about ways to de-escalate increasingly violent clashes between protesters and federal law enforcement officers tracking down illegal immigrants in the city.
Two anti-ICE activists have been killed.
“Could someone in his inner sanctum please explain that this statement is a very serious violation of the Law and that he is PLAYING WITH FIRE!” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Trump’s Truth Social warning followed an offer Monday from the White House to Minnesota officials: Agree to honor detainers against illegal immigrant criminals held in the state’s jails, and Customs and Border Protection will pull federal agents off the streets.
The deal also would require local police to help U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents apprehend illegal immigrants wanted for crimes, particularly violent offenses.
Such an agreement appeared less likely Wednesday as Democrats in the state and on Capitol Hill worked to generate public opposition to the Trump administration’s roundups of illegal immigrants and the resulting deadly confrontations with protesters.
Cooperation was further frayed by the release of a preliminary report on the shooting death of anti-ICE activist Alex Pretti that did not find he brandished or fired his concealed firearm before agents fatally shot him while trying to subdue him on a Minneapolis street.
“The job of our police is to keep people safe, not enforce fed immigration laws,” Mr. Frey responded to the president on social media. “I want them preventing homicides, not hunting down a working dad who contributes to Minneapolis and is from Ecuador.”
Officials from the Homeland Security Department, which oversees ICE, said their roundup of illegal immigrants isn’t focused on innocent dads. It has resulted in the detainment and deportation of hardened criminals, including gang members, murderers and child rapists.
“There are 1,360 criminal illegal aliens in Minnesota’s jails. What we want is the commitment that they are going to honor those detainers and turn them over to ICE — at least give us a notification before they’re released,” Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said. “Criminal illegal aliens should not be released back onto our streets to terrorize more innocent Americans.”
The chief federal judge in Minnesota said Wednesday that ICE had defied 96 federal court orders in Minnesota this month alone.
Judge Patrick Schiltz, a George W. Bush appointee, delivered the count as part of a severe scolding to the government’s deportation agency. He said it had become far too loose with its adherence to the law.
On Wednesday, the White House posted media reports about an illegal immigrant who killed a mother and injured two others in back-to-back drunken driving crashes. After the first crash, he was arrested on a vehicular homicide charge. A day later, ICE placed a detainer on him. Minneapolis officials refused to honor the detainer and released the immigrant.
He was accused of another vehicular homicide months later and was eventually arrested. He was released once again by Minneapolis officials who refused a second detainer request from ICE.
“Fortunately, ICE tracked this criminal illegal alien down and deported him back to his home country where he belongs,” the White House said. “This is the dangerous policy that Governor Tim Walz, Mayor Frey, Attorney General Keith Ellison and other Democrats support.”
The death of Mr. Pretti, who had worked as an ICU nurse and was actively impeding ICE activity in Minneapolis, only spurred more resistance to cooperation with the Trump administration.
A preliminary report issued by Customs and Border Protection found Mr. Pretti, 37, obstructed a CBP officer and resisted arrest moments before the shooting, but he did not brandish his concealed firearm as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem first reported.
The two agents who fired at Mr. Pretti have been put on administrative leave.
Democrats want an independent investigation of the shooting. Earlier this month, an agent fatally shot Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother and anti-ICE activist, after she hit him with her SUV.
“CBP’s initial report to Congress on the cold-blooded killing of Alex Pretti dismantles the sickening lies advanced immediately by Secretary Noem,” Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, told The Washington Times. “What the report reveals is an unjustified use of deadly force by untrained federal agents against a man peacefully exercising his First and Second Amendment rights and tending to a fellow citizen shoved to the frozen ground.”
New video footage that surfaced Wednesday shows Mr. Pretti spitting at federal law enforcement officials and kicking out the taillight of their SUV. The footage is dated Jan. 13, 11 days before he was fatally shot, and depicts another violent encounter with agents.
Activists continue to gather and harass agents, including at hotels where they are thought to be staying. Democratic officials are not discouraging those actions.
“Minnesota needs impartial investigations, the departure of federal forces, and an end to the campaign of retribution against our state,” Mr. Walz said.
• Stephen Dinan contributed to this report.
