Commentary

My mother was born in Minnesota, as were my grandparents. She described skating on the lake in the 1950s with black racing skates when she had wanted white figure skates for Christmas. My grandpa, the buyer of the skates, was a kid of about five in the 1920s. At the time he asked the milkman, who had a handlebar mustache, how to grow one. The milkman instructed him to put black goo from the chicken coop wherever he wanted hair. The young Minnesotan endured a whole day of the stink.

The Minnesota of today sounds nothing like these stories. The strife in the state’s capital is played out by strong posturing on both sides. Rather than trying to follow the spirit of national immigration law, some continue the conflict for partisan or personal advantage. Rather than cooperate with the will of national voters who want fewer illegal immigrants through a careful application of the law, participants are grandstanding, cutting corners, seeking legal loopholes, claiming special privileges, making casual comparisons to Nazis, and taking the law into their own hands. Neither side is blameless.

The conflict stems from past administrations that allowed masses of illegal immigrants into the United States, including through the destruction of border fences. In Texas, this included U.S. Border Patrol using bolt cutters and forklifts to cut and lift fences bought by taxpayers. This shocked many Americans of both parties and led to demands for tougher enforcement of existing immigration laws.

The result is Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents chasing illegal immigrants throughout the country and generally doing their jobs in the most professional way they know how. But, the lack of training and compassion by some, up to and including the fatal shooting of two protesters in Minneapolis, is again shocking the nation. Recordings of such incidents have turned the immigration issue from a boon for Republicans, to a potential burden in the upcoming midterms. A national poll in January found that 54 percent of respondents believe ICE deployments to U.S. cities have gone too far, while only 24 percent believe ICE has not gone far enough.

A buildup of mistakes has impacted the Trump administration’s approval rating on immigration, which dropped from 50 percent in February 2025, to 39 percent after the second fatal shooting. At their peak, there were approximately 3,000 federal immigration agents in Minneapolis, including ICE and border patrol. Others include FBI, Homeland Security police, and Bureau of Prisons tactical units. Compared to the 1,200 local police in the city, the federal presence feels overwhelming to many residents. But, the vast majority of these agents are not breaking the law. When they do, the media hypes it without acknowledging that ICE is doing a job for which the federal government has a voter mandate: to enforce federal law.

U.S. citizens who do not like the law have a constitutional right to peacefully protest. But, some protesters push the boundaries of “peaceful” to include the blocking of roads with their cars, harassment of ICE officers, obstruction of federal police, and doxxing of agents. These tactics increase risk for agents and their families, leading to masks that obscure their identity, increase a feeling of unaccountability, and rare instances of excessive force on replay by the media. That leads to an atmosphere of anger for many regular citizens, and a negative spiral into increasing levels of confrontation. Counter-protesters are also increasing the temperature, including in one incident by reportedly spraying an elected official with vinegar and yelling a death threat.

Even if some Minnesotans do not agree with a particular elected representative or federal law, they do not have a right to obstruct that representative or the law’s enforcement. The same applied to civil rights in the South when the federal government desegregated schools. Many southerners did not like it, but this did not give them a right to obstruct law enforcement. Protesters in Minnesota need more of the nonviolence methods advocated by Gandhi and Martin Luther King, which require a sober and disciplined approach. These two promoted love and understanding, rather than moral judgement, of the adversary. When individual protesters engaged in violence or property destruction, Gandhi and King canceled entire protests.

That is moderation. The Trump administration has also moderated its stance. It replaced Greg Bovino in Minnesota with Tom Homan, the administration’s border czar. On Jan. 29, Homan acknowledged mistakes and indicated that he would decrease the federal presence while still enforcing the law through more targeted operations. On Feb. 2, Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem said all Homeland Security officers in Minneapolis would immediately be issued with body cameras.

Now, Minnesota politicians should do their part. State and local officials who condemn ICE in the strongest possible terms, and refuse to cooperate with federal officials, do not calm the situation. They increase citizen alarm, which increases the size and militancy of protests. The city of Minneapolis bans its police from helping ICE, and its county sheriff refuses to assist. Were they to cooperate more with federal authorities by facilitating the transfer of illegal aliens to ICE after their arrest, then there would be no reason for ICE to act so prominently in their city. That is consistent with the spirit of the U.S. Constitution, which makes federal law primary over local laws.

ICE agents must also follow the law. America is great because we are a democracy and a nation of laws. When individuals take the law into their own hands, or officers act outside the bounds of the law and proper procedure, America is weakened as an ideal.

It’s time to strengthen America by both accepting that the federal government has a mandate to enforce immigration laws, and insisting that this be done in the most professional and compassionate way possible, and entirely consistent with existing legal protections for the individual.

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