President Donald Trump accused Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey of breaking the law on Wednesday after Frey stated that “Minneapolis does not and will not enforce federal immigration laws.”
“Could somebody in his inner sanctum please explain that this statement is a very serious violation of the Law, and that he is PLAYING WITH FIRE!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday in response.
Frey made the comment in a social media post the previous day, saying he had “made it clear” to White House border czar Tom Homan, who Trump has dispatched to Minneapolis to take over his Administration’s immigration operations in the area, that local officers would not carry out federal immigration enforcement.
Trump had appeared to soften his tone toward the mayor, as well as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, earlier this week as the President sought to quell bipartisan backlash to his immigration crackdown following the second fatal shooting by federal agents in the city in less than three weeks.
He characterized Frey’s statement as surprising in his Tuesday post, noting that it came after what he called “a very good conversation” with the mayor—before ratcheting up the rhetoric again with his accusation.
Frey engaged further, responding to the President that “the job of our police is to keep people safe, not enforce fed immigration laws."
Courts have repeatedly ruled that the federal government cannot force states and cities to enforce its immigration laws and have rejected challenges to so-called sanctuary city policies that limit local law enforcement’s cooperation with federal enforcement operations.
In the Supreme Court’s 1997 Printz v. United States ruling, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the majority opinion that “it is incontestible that the Constitution established a system of ‘dual sovereignty.’ Although the States surrendered many of their powers to the new Federal Government, they retained ‘a residuary and inviolable sovereignty.’”
Scalia reiterated the court’s ruling in a prior case that “the Federal Government may not compel the States to enact or administer a federal regulatory program.” Requiring local law enforcement officers to help enforce aspects of a federal law—in the case at issue in Printz, background check requirements for firearm purchasers—“plainly runs afoul of that rule,” he wrote.
I understand nobody wants to be a bootlicker in the difference between “feds vs police” debate, and there are centuries of examples of police brutality and lack of accountability to justify people feeling that way.
But, for the sake of reality, you should understand that there very much is a difference when it comes to local/city police and turning people over to ICE/federal custody.
I’m not trying to get you to believe the police are the good guys, or saying that they won’t capitulate. That’s not the point. I’m just trying to remind people of facts that most people seem to have forgotten in the chaos.
The push by federal officials (in particular Homan) to force local police to cooperate, has been at the core of Border Patrol and ICE invasions of U.S. cities since the very beginning.
If police capitulate, then the administration will have terrorized American cities and murdered civilians, to get what they wanted from the beginning. My own state created a law last year making it a potential felony for city police and officials not to cooperate with ICE.
Again, I honestly don’t care what your viewpoints are on police, but by lumping feds, state police, and city cops all together as one, you’re doing what the Trump administration has been pressuring cities to do this entire time.
This is not about supporting police or being a bootlicker, it’s about understanding this is part of the take over of city and state autonomy by the federal government.
It gets especially messy in blue cities within red states where you often have city police at odds with federal and state-federal partners in invasions of cities that have been ordered by their own state governors. Literally, think about federal/state forces invading a city and ignoring orders of a local police department (which has already happened). If the city police retaliate or try to reign them in, it could potentially kick off a civil war (officially).
It should be pretty fucking obvious, this is intentional and that they’re antagonizing local officials the same way they’re antagonizing protestors. Demanding aggression against the federal government is playing into their hands. That definitely doesn’t mean city officials should be capitulating, but it also doesn’t seem like most people are really aware of the bigger picture strategy being used by the federal government in these very tense situations.
Whatever the city of Minneapolis and the state of Minnesota do in this situation, is going to set the tone for the entire country.
July 2025: If we can’t arrest that bad guy in the safety and security of county jail, we’ll arrest him in the community," Homan said, “and when we arrest him in the community, if he’s with others that are in the country illegally, they’re coming, too.”
This is a fucking shake down.