(AFP) – Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said Tuesday he was hopeful the unprecedented US federal immigration enforcement operation underway in the state would end within days. US President Donald Trump’s sweeping detention and deportation push, prosecuted by waves of masked, heavily armed agents, has left two US citizens dead and fueled massive protests in the Midwestern state.
“Minnesota has asked that this surge of folks leave. I spoke with (Trump’s border czar) Tom Homan yesterday. I spoke with Susie Wiles, the president’s chief of staff this morning,” Walz told a briefing. “We’re very much in a ‘trust but verify’ mode. But it’s my expectation — and we will hear more from them I think in the next day or so — that we are talking days, not weeks and months, of this occupation.”
In Minnesota’s largest city, Minneapolis, thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in recent weeks have conducted raids in what the Trump administration claims are targeted operations against criminals. The crackdown has seen detentions of broad categories of immigrants — and sometimes US citizens. The operations have sparked mass protests in the city, and the fatal shootings of US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti less than three weeks apart last month led to a wave of outrage.
Speaking at an event to address the impact of ICE on small businesses, Walz described the sprawling deployment to his state as “a federal retribution campaign.” “We’ve seen the terror in the streets. We’ve seen the violence in our streets. We’re seeing the economic destruction of this.”
Opposition Democrats have been calling for sweeping reforms to ICE operations, including ending mobile patrols, prohibiting agents from concealing their faces, and requiring warrants. Democratic leaders in Congress are also threatening to block the 2026 funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security. The White House has indicated it is willing to negotiate, but its response has failed to satisfy opposition lawmakers so far.
A US judge on January 31 denied Minnesota’s bid to force ICE to suspend its operation in the state.
© 2024 AFP
