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Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey accused the Trump administration Friday of unleashing “political retribution” and an “invasion” on the state of Minnesota through federal immigration enforcement activity.
The remarks come as lawmakers gathered in the Minnesota Senate Building in St. Paul for a hearing titled, “Kidnapped and Disappeared: Trump’s Deadly Assault on Minnesota.” Tensions remain high in Minnesota following last week’s shooting death of Renee Nicole Good by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent.
“What we are witnessing right now is unprecedented. There is no modern precedent for this level of federal overreach, violence, lawlessness carried out in the name of immigration enforcement,” Omar said.
“This is not routine enforcement. This is not about public safety. This is not even about immigration. This is about political retribution,” she continued. “The president said it himself this week. It is increasingly clear that the entire purpose of these actions is to provoke chaos and fear in order to justify invoking the Insurrection Act and expand the president’s ability to rain terror upon American cities who do not vote for him.”
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‘What we’re seeing on our streets is unnecessary abuses of force. This is an invasion for the sake of creating chaos by our own federal government to interrupt the daily lives of tens of thousands of people,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey later said.
In a statement to Fox News Digital on Friday afternoon, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said, “ICE officers are facing a 1300% increase in assaults against them because of dangerous, untrue smears from elected Democrats.”
“ICE officers act heroically to enforce the law and protect American communities with the utmost professionalism. Anyone pointing the finger at law enforcement officers instead of the criminals is simply doing the bidding of criminal illegal aliens,” she added.
President Donald Trump first warned Thursday that he would invoke the Insurrection Act if people in Minnesota don’t obey the law and continue attacking federal agents there. He told reporters on Friday that the Insurrection Act was not needed amid anti-ICE unrest “right now” but said he could invoke the law if needed in the future.
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“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“In Minnesota, the Troublemakers, Agitators, and Insurrectionists are, in many cases, highly paid professionals. The Governor and Mayor don’t know what to do, they have totally lost control, and our currently being rendered, USELESS! If, and when, I am forced to act, it will be solved, QUICKLY and EFFECTIVELY!” the president wrote Friday in another post on the matter.
Trump’s warnings came after a second ICE-involved shooting in Minneapolis in recent days. An ICE agent shot an illegal immigrant from Venezuela in the leg in Minnesota after a shovel attack during an ambush, federal officials said.
“This administration has unleashed a paramilitary force into our neighborhoods, terrorizing families, escalating enforcement, and now killing a U.S. citizen in our state,” Omar said at one point in the hearing Friday. “And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Our office has received numerous reports of deeply questionable arrests. Individuals detained without explanation, without warrants, without access to counsel, and in many cases, without any discernible lawful basis at all.”
“We have heard of agents pushing people because they look Latino or Somali, forcing them into car accidents where they smash windows, cut seatbelts, carry people away. Abandoned cars with broken windows have become a normal sight of daily life in the Twin Cities,” she continued.
“They have deliberately blurred the lines between public safety threats, legal immigration and U.S. citizens, creating an enforcement campaign so indiscriminate that citizens are being swept up, arrested and carried away to this detention facilities. In Minnesota, dozens of U.S. citizens have been taken into custody and released hours later. We have yet to see charges materialize, because, in nearly all instances, no federal charges are possible,” Omar said.
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