White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday torched elected Democrats in Minnesota for stoking unrest that has contributed to the shooting deaths of two Americans by federal immigration authorities.
Leavitt blamed Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for “spreading lies about federal law enforcement officers who are risking their lives daily to remove the worst criminal illegal aliens from our streets: murderers, rapists, pedophiles, human traffickers, and gang members.”
Walz and Frey have been outspoken critics of federal immigration operations in the Twin Cities area. Frey has accused ICE of “terrorizing our communities,” while Walz has repeatedly compared federal immigration enforcement to Nazis. On Sunday, Walz compared the state of illegal aliens in Minnesota to that of Anne Frank, a Jewish girl who hid from the Nazi regime in an attic for over two years before dying in a concentration camp during the Holocaust.
“Such dangerous rhetoric, as I pointed out, is exactly what has brought us to this position today, where you have elected Democrat officials across the country who are encouraging left-wing agitators and crazy people to go out and unlawfully obstruct lawful immigration enforcement,” said Leavitt.
“This rhetoric against ICE, comparing them to Nazi Gestapo, Donald Trump’s police force, is despicable, it is shameful, and it is precisely what has led to the escalation of tensions in Minneapolis and in other places across the country,” she added.
Tensions in Minneapolis have exploded following two immigration enforcement-involved shootings. A Customs and Border Protection agent over the weekend shot and killed Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse at a VA hospital, who was allegedly interfering with immigration operations in the city. Pretti’s death came just weeks after Renee Good was shot and killed in her vehicle after appearing to drive in the direction of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis.
President Donald Trump and Walz took a step toward ratcheting down tensions on Monday. The president and the governor spoke over the phone and had “a very good call,” Trump posted on Truth Social. Walz’s office released a statement that described the call as “productive.”
“[W]e, actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength,” Trump said.
Leavitt said during the press conference that Trump would agree to pull Customs and Border Patrol out of Minnesota if local law enforcement in the state would work with ICE agents to arrest dangerous illegal aliens.
.png)
.png)
