Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) said Trump administration officials are wrong about how Minnesota enforces immigration policies, insisting the state honors all federal and local immigration detainers.
Walz’s comments targeted the basis for why the Department of Homeland Security has increased immigration enforcement efforts in his state, claiming the “Trump administration has its facts wrong about Minnesota.”
Walz, who has been a vocal advocate against the administration’s surge of immigration officials to his state, wrote the stern words for federal officials in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published just hours after President Donald Trump and Walz shared what Trump called a “very good call.” The op-ed and phone call between the two leaders followed a weekend of flaring tensions in Minneapolis as anti-ICE protesters took to the streets and a Border Patrol agent fatally shot 37-year-old Alex Pretti.
“I have repeatedly appealed to President Trump to lower the temperature. But he refuses. I fear that his hope is for the tension between ICE agents and the communities they’re ransacking to boil over —that he wants you to see more chaos on your TV screens, protests turn into riots, more people get hurt,” Walz wrote in the op-ed.
But Walz also shared on X following the op-ed’s publication that the phone call between himself and Trump on Monday morning was “productive.”
“I spoke to the President earlier. We had a productive conversation and I explained to him that his staff doesn’t have their facts straight about Minnesota,” Walz said on X, linking to his piece.
Walz argued in the piece that the Trump administration’s “pretext” for surging immigration officers in Minneapolis was that if federal authorities did not step in to assist, Minnesota’s “immigration laws would otherwise go unenforced.” But Walz wrote that the administration was wrong about Minnesota not cooperating with federal immigration detainers, the number of noncitizens in its jails, and the way local law enforcement reported illegal immigrants in custody.
He pointed to the recent killings of 37-year-old Renee Good and Pretti by federal immigration authorities as part of a “campaign of organized brutality.” Walz also reaffirmed his assertion that Minnesotans are protesting in response to the surge “loudly and urgently, but also peacefully.”
“This assault on our communities is not necessary to enforce our immigration laws. We don’t have to choose between open borders and whatever the hell this is,” Walz wrote.
About an hour before Walz’s opinion editorial went live, Trump posted on Truth Social that he and Walz were on a “similar wavelength” following their call about immigration operations in the state, writing, “Crime is way down, but both Governor Walz and I want to make it better.”
“I told Governor Walz that I would have Tom Homan call him, and that what we are looking for are any and all Criminals that they have in their possession. The Governor, very respectfully, understood that, and I will be speaking to him in the near future. He was happy that Tom Homan was going to Minnesota, and so am I!” Trump wrote, referring to his border czar.
TRUMP SAYS HE AND WALZ ARE ON ‘SIMILAR WAVELENGTH’ AFTER PHONE CALL OVER ICE OPERATIONS IN MINNESOTA
Walz’s office also said that during part of the call, Trump “agreed to look into reducing the number of federal agents in Minnesota.”
On Monday afternoon, Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino and several Border Patrol agents were ordered out of the state, according to multiple reports.
