Dive Brief:
- Minneapolis leaders this week addressed how they will respond to reported Trump administration plans to send federal immigration agents to the Twin Cities to target Somali immigrants.
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Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Wednesday signed an executive order prohibiting federal, state and local agencies from using city-owned parking ramps, garages or vacant lots to stage immigration enforcement operations. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said in a Tuesday press conference that “the Minneapolis Police Department does not work with federal law enforcement for the purpose of conducting immigration enforcement.” He added that law enforcement officers “absolutely have a duty to intervene” if they encounter federal agents violating residents’ rights or using excessive force.
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The U.S. Department of Justice sued Minneapolis and St. Paul, Hennepin County and Minnesota on Sept. 29, alleging their “welcoming city” policies are unlawful and interfere with federal immigration enforcement efforts.
Dive Insight:
President Donald Trump this week denigrated Minnesota’s Somali immigrants multiple times, sometimes using crude language, following news reports that people of Somali descent have been convicted in COVID-related fraud schemes. In a Thanksgiving social media post, he wrote that “hundreds of thousands of refugees from Somalia are completely taking over the once great State of Minnesota. Somalian gangs are roving the streets looking for ‘prey’ as our wonderful people stay locked in their apartments and houses hoping against hope that they will be left alone.”
Minneapolis is home to the largest Somali community in the U.S. More than 80,000 Somali people live in Minnesota, and “almost all of them are both documented and citizens,” Frey said.
The New York Times reported Tuesday that the Trump administration is deploying “strike teams” made up of about 100 Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, agents and other federal officials to target undocumented Somali immigrants in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region.
At a news conference Thursday, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz expressed concerns about the administration’s immigration enforcement efforts. He said federal immigration agents “cause massive chaos, and then when Minnesotans step up and express their First Amendment rights, we have to send our [law enforcement officers] in” because “our responsibility is to make sure that they're safe.”
Residents are “confused on why St. Paul Police, Minneapolis Police, State Patrol is showing up on this,” he said.
The press release announcing Frey’s executive order states, “While the City cannot prevent ICE from being in Minneapolis, we will do everything in our power to keep our communities safe.” It adds that “The Minneapolis Police Department is here to protect everyone. If there is illegal or dangerous conduct, MPD officers will respond to assess and de-escalate any situation that is a threat to people or property, and ultimately, maintain public safety.”
Logan Kennedy, assistant professor of criminal justice and criminology at East Carolina University, told Smart Cities Dive the legality of local law enforcement intervening in federal immigration enforcement is murky. While federal agents don’t necessarily have jurisdiction over local police, the federal agents “cannot be stopped from doing something in the course of their employment.”
Whether local law enforcement can intervene based on probable cause that the agents are committing a crime is “something that’s being hashed out in the courts right now,” Kennedy said.
