Minneapolis Live Blog

LIVE UPDATES: Feds Arrest Two More Suspects Tied To Minnesota Church ‘Riot’

Donald Trump

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Minneapolis

Minnesota

Tim Walz

Trump Administration

White House border czar Tom Homan arrived in Minneapolis on Monday to address the ongoing illegal immigration raids and anti-ICE protests, but did not appear publicly until Thursday morning, when he spoke at a press conference.
Homan, who has been in meetings with federal, state, and local officials since he touched down in the Twin Cities, made clear that he wasn&#8217;t there for &#8220;photo ops or headlines.&#8221;
President Donald Trump sent the former acting ICE chief to Minneapolis to replace Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, who was known for parading through the city flanked by fellow agents in a more aggressive show of force.
Homan indicated that he was there to clean up a mess.
&#8220;I&#8217;m not here because the federal government has carried out its mission perfectly,&#8221; Homan said.
&#8220;I come here looking for solutions. I do not want to hear that everything&#8217;s been done here has been perfect. Nothing&#8217;s ever perfect. Anything can be improved on. And what we&#8217;ve been working on is making this operation safer, more efficient, by the book. The mission is going to improve because of the changes we&#8217;re making internally. No agency organization is perfect,&#8221; Homan said.
&#8220;President Trump and I, along with others in the administration, have recognized that certain improvements could and should be made. That&#8217;s exactly what I&#8217;m doing here,&#8221; he said.
During his meetings with local officials, Homan has already made strides. Homan met with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, all of whom have been critical of the immigration raids.
Still, they were able to agree on some things, including a loose pledge from Ellison to allow ICE into county jails and a promise from police chiefs to respond to 911 calls when agents are under assault.
&#8220;I&#8217;ve heard many people want to know why we&#8217;re talking to people who they don&#8217;t consider friends of the administration. Bottom line is you can&#8217;t fix problems if you don&#8217;t have discussions,&#8221; Homan said. &#8220;What we did agree upon is not to release public safety arrests back in the community, and they could be lawfully transferred to ICE.&#8221;
If Ellison can deliver on his word, the federal presence in the state will decrease, Homan said.
&#8220;Attorney General Ellison, and he has clarified for me that county jails may notify ICE of the release dates of criminal public safety risks so ICE can take custody of them upon the release from the jail,&#8221; Homan said.
&#8220;More agents in the jail means less agents in the street. This is common sense cooperation that allows us to draw down on the number of people we have here. Yes, I said it, draw down the number of people here because we have the efficiency and safety of the jails and the prison,&#8221; he said.
Homan has opposed the strategy of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Bovino, whose focus has been on meeting quotas rather than expending federal resources on hunting down the worst criminal illegal immigrants roaming Minneapolis, Homeland Security sources recently told The Daily Wire.
That all looks to be changing with Homan&#8217;s arrival in the Twin Cities.
&#8220;All operations will be targeted, but the prioritization [is] going to be criminal aliens, public safety threats, and national security threats&#8230; we&#8217;ve got a lot of them to keep us busy&#8230; if you&#8217;re in the country illegally, you&#8217;re never off the table,&#8221; Homan said.
Homan also appeared to depart from Noem&#8217;s earlier messaging regarding Saturday&#8217;s fatal shooting of Alex Pretti. Hours after the shooting, Noem labeled Pretti a &#8220;domestic terrorist&#8221; who intended &#8220;to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement.”
Unlike Noem, Homan made clear that he wouldn&#8217;t speak on the incident until the investigation concludes. He also noted that if any agents are not adhering to their &#8220;standards of conduct &#8230; they&#8217;ll be dealt with.&#8221;
&#8220;From day one, I said on any of these shootings as a career law enforcement officer, we&#8217;ll let &#8230; the investigation play out and let it go where it goes. I&#8217;m not going to come out making any comments I think is right, wrong. Do I have an opinion? Yeah, my personal opinion, but I&#8217;m not going to share that with you. I&#8217;m going to tell you, let the investigation play out and see where it goes.&#8221;

Border Czar Tom Homan Speaks In Minneapolis During Operation Metro Surge

Homan’s Presser Sheds Light On Trump Admin’s Shift On Minneapolis Immigration Raids

Kristi Noem

Tom Homan

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) announced Thursday morning that she is running for governor of Minnesota in hopes of becoming Democratic Gov. Tim Walz’s successor.
Walz, the 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee, opted not to seek a third term after being embroiled in Medicaid fraud scandals in the state, which have garnered national attention.
“Minnesota, we’ve been through a lot,” she said in her campaign launch video opening her remarks, highlighting the recent tensions with federal immigration authorities as well as the June 2025 murders of two high-profile Democratic state lawmakers.
“I’m asking Democrats, independents, and Republicans to join our campaign – it is a homegrown one born in a moment like no other. It is for people who believe in something bigger than ourselves,” the senator, who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, continued.
Assuming Klobuchar clinches the Democratic nomination, she could face a general election contest against Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth or MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, both of whom are seeking the Republican nomination.
The <a href="https://www.cookpolitical.com/ratings/governor-race-ratings">Cook Political Report</a> ranks the race as “Likely Democrat.” A Klobuchar victory would also create a vacancy in Minnesota&#8217;s U.S. Senate delegation, allowing her to appoint an interim replacement until a special election is held. Klobuchar was re-elected to the Senate in 2024 with more than 56% of the vote, defeating Republican Royce White, a former NBA player.
There’s already a closely watched Senate race in the state with the retirement of Democratic Sen. Tina Smith, as Rep. Angie Craig and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan are in a heated Democratic primary, and former sports reporter Michele Tafoya and White are seeking the Republican nomination. The contest is currently ranked “Likely Democrat,” but it’s caught the attention of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is backing Tafoya.
The electoral fireworks come at a serious moment for the state. Border czar Tom Homan has taken charge of Operation Metro Surge following the controversial fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents. The surge has led to widespread arrests of illegal immigrants and sparked protests, legal challenges, and sharp criticism from state and local officials who are calling for the federal presence to be scaled back.
Democratic leaders, such as Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Walz, have been at odds with the Trump administration over how to tackle immigration enforcement in the state.

Democratic Presidential Candidates Debate In Charleston Ahead Of SC Primary

Amy Klobuchar Jumps Into Governor’s Race As Minnesota Remains Under Federal Scrutiny

Amy Klobuchar

Congress

Fraud

Immigration

Senate

Less than two years after being announced as the Democratic Party’s vice-presidential nominee, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz announced on Wednesday that he will never again seek elected office, marking a dramatic end to a political career that spanned national prominence and a bruising state-level political battle.
“I have no political consideration, I will never run for an elected office again,” Walz said. “Never again.” Asked to clarify, he added that while he would continue public service of a different sort, he would not return to the campaign trail. “There are heroes on the streets that we don’t know their names… those grass-tops leaders… brought this administration to its knees this week to do something about it. So there’s other ways to serve, and I’ll find ’em.” 
The announcement capped a tumultuous political year for Walz, who just months earlier had launched a bid for a third term as Minnesota governor, a campaign that could have been historic in the state where no governor has won three consecutive terms. At the time, he touted his record and urged unity, saying, &#8220;I&#8217;ve always tried to do what&#8217;s right for Minnesota, and I&#8217;ll never stop fighting to protect us from the chaos, corruption, and cruelty coming out of Washington.”
Walz’s rise to national attention came in 2024, when then-Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris selected him as her running mate. The role elevated him to the national stage and, briefly, positioned him as a consequential voice for his party. Prior to that, Walz had spent six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives before being elected Minnesota’s 41st governor in 2018. 
But Walz’s 2026 gubernatorial re-election campaign was quickly consumed by controversy amid a high-profile welfare and social services fraud scandal in Minnesota that drew national ire. Federal authorities, including the Department of Justice and GOP lawmakers, alleged widespread abuse of programs administered by nonprofit groups, a situation that President Donald Trump seized on in attacking Walz and the state’s leadership. 
In early January, Walz abruptly suspended his bid for a third term, saying that campaigning would distract from addressing the fraud crisis and the broader needs of Minnesota residents. 
“Every minute that I spend defending my own political interest would be a minute I can’t spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who prey on our generosity and the cynics who prey on our differences,” Walz said at the time. 
The upheaval was compounded by federal-state tensions over immigration enforcement. Beginning in late 2025, the Trump administration deployed ICE and Border Patrol agents to Minnesota under “Operation Metro Surge,” prompting protests and the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis by federal agents, incidents that drew sharp rebukes from Walz and city officials and intensified political pressure. 
Earlier this month when he stepped out of the race, Walz said he wanted to “focus on the work that’s in front of me for the next year” and put state interests above campaign considerations. He reiterated in this most recent statement that he “will just do the work.”  
With Walz now exiting the elected political stage, the Minnesota gubernatorial field has opened up, with U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) the frontrunner among Democrats jumping into the race.

MN-Gov.-Tim-Walz-speaks-at-HRC-Dinner

Walz Calls It Quits: ‘I Will Never Run For An Elected Office Again’

Elections

Politics

Chaos persists in Minnesota as state officials continue to defy federal authorities in a high-stakes showdown, President Donald Trump publicly warns Iran to “come to the table” as U.S. warships arrive in the region, and new data shows the American population growth fell dramatically last year.
It’s Thursday, January 29, 2026, and this is the news you need to know to start your day. Today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below:
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<h2 style="text-align: center;">Minnesota Chaos Continues</h2>
Chaos continues in Minnesota as state officials continue to defy the White House in a high-stakes showdown over ICE operations. Fingers on both sides of the aisle are pointing at Minneapolis Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey for fanning the flames. Around 200 activists stormed into the Minnesota Capitol on Tuesday. They were angry that Governor Tim Walz met with border czar Tom Homan. They demanded charges against the agents who shot protesters Alex Pretti and Renee Good. The activists went into Walz&#8217;s office in what they called a “slow march” for immigration justice, shouting slogans like “ICE out now!” and “No one is illegal,” “Abolish ICE,” and other statements. The White House has attempted to negotiate with Minnesota’s elected officials. Homan met with top officials, including Mayor Frey. But Frey, who continues to uphold Minneapolis&#8217;s sanctuary city policies, has insisted that local police will not cooperate with ICE and will not give them access to their jails. Frey said bluntly that Minneapolis “does not and will not enforce federal immigration laws.”
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Trump Threatens Iran And Rubio Testifies In Senate</h2>
On Wednesday, President Trump publicly warned Iran to “come to the table” after U.S. warships arrived in the region. And on Capitol Hill, Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the president’s foreign policy to skeptical lawmakers. Trump posted on Truth Social that Iran needs to make a deal or risk “major destruction,” far worse than Operation Midnight Hammer in June. Rubio testified in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and gave an additional rationale for moving more military assets into the Middle East. “We have 30,000 to 40,000 American troops stationed across 8 or 9 facilities in that region. … All are within the reach of an array of thousands of Iranian one-way UAVs and Iranian short-term ballistic missiles,” <a href="https://x.com/StateDept/status/2016575448499569001">said</a> Rubio. “We have to have enough force and power in the region just on a baseline to defend against that possibility.” Rubio also defended the Trump administration’s Venezuela policy, saying it is seeking progress toward democratic elections in the country, but without risking regional destabilization.
<h2 style="text-align: center;">U.S. Population Growth Plummets</h2>
Amid President Trump’s border crackdown and mass deportation effort, new data shows the United States population growth fell dramatically last year. This week, the Census Bureau released new data showing that last year, the U.S. population grew by just 1.8 million, or 0.5%. With the exception of 2021, when COVID was at its peak, last year saw the slowest population growth in the history of the United States. The previous year, the United States grew by 3.3 million people, so roughly a 50% decline in one year. These numbers run from July 2024 to July 2025, so President Trump was only in office for half of that time. If the current pace holds, it’ll be an even more dramatic dip this coming year.

MRN_260129_V1

Morning Brief: Minnesota ICE Showdown Escalates, Trump Warns Iran & U.S. Population Growth Collapses

Census Bureau

Iran

Marco Rubio

Morning Wire

United States

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner spoke outside City Hall on a chilly Tuesday morning, flanked by activists holding signs that read in bold: &#8220;ICE OUT OF PHILADELPHIA.&#8221;
“This is a small bunch of wannabe Nazis. In a country of 350 million, we outnumber them,&#8221; said the George Soros-backed district attorney, holding his glasses in one gloved hand and gripping the podium with the other. “If we have to hunt you down the way they hunted down Nazis for decades, we will find your identities, we will find you, we will achieve justice.&#8221;
This is far from the first time that a high-profile political figure has compared Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to Nazis or Gestapo, fanning the flames of the ongoing far-left agitation against these individuals. Amid the unrest over arrests and deportations in Minneapolis, top Democrats and commentators have repeatedly encouraged the public to view ICE as evil, malicious, and aligned with Adolf Hitler&#8217;s forces.
In June 2025, Massachusetts Rep. Stephen Lynch <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/democrats-renew-trump-hitler-comparisons-call-ice-gestapo/ar-AA1GC7jB#:~:text=Democrats%20on%20the%20Oversight%20Committee,D%2DMd.%2C%20said.">compared the deportations</a> to a &#8220;Gestapo operation,&#8221; saying, &#8220;When you compare the old films of the Gestapo grabbing people off the streets of Poland and you compare them to those nondescript thugs who grabbed that graduate student, [it] does look like a Gestapo operation.&#8221;
He added: &#8220;You know my dad served in the Second World War &#8230; I think he&#8217;s looking down right now and he&#8217;s happy that I&#8217;m fighting today&#8217;s Nazis.&#8221;
&#8220;This is not Germany,&#8221; <a href="https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1961091509995938105">screamed Connecticut Rep. John Larson</a> at an event opposing ICE in August 2025. &#8220;That is the SS and the Gestapo. This is the United States of America. Unmask yourselves.”
&#8220;Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo is scooping folks up off the streets,&#8221; Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said in May 2025, as the president&#8217;s deportation efforts ramped up. &#8220;They’re in unmarked vans, wearing masks, being shipped off to foreign torture dungeons. No chance to mount a defense. Not even a chance to kiss a loved one goodbye. Just grabbed up by masked agents, shoved into those vans and disappeared.&#8221;
At the time, Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons slammed Walz&#8217;s comparisons, saying that crimes against ICE had risen 400%, due partially to careless &#8220;politically motivated rhetoric.&#8221; Since then, particularly in the wake of the shooting of Renee Good, a woman who was shot by an ICE agent as she rammed him with her car, violence against ICE has skyrocketed.
<div id="attachment_1034967" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://drwordpress.dailywire.com/news/with-ice-facing-historic-violence-dems-fan-flames-by-labeling-immigration-agents-nazis/us-immigration-ice-shooting-9" rel="attachment wp-att-1034967"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1034967" class="wp-image-1034967 size-large" src="https://drwordpress.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2254675964-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/GettyImages-2254675964-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/GettyImages-2254675964-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/GettyImages-2254675964-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/GettyImages-2254675964.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" /></a>(Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP via Getty Images)</div>
As of January 24, the Department of Homeland Security reported that officers are facing an 8,000% increase in death threats and more than a 1,300% increase in assaults. Those numbers are directly correlated to the rhetoric of politicians comparing ICE to Nazis, according to Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin.
&#8220;Threatening rhetoric and this unprecedented violence against our law enforcement is incited by sanctuary politicians through their repeated vilification and demonization of law enforcement,&#8221; McLaughlin said earlier this month. &#8220;Comparing ICE day-in and day-out to the Nazi Gestapo, the Secret Police, and slave patrols has consequences.&#8221;
But top Democrats have only leaned into these comparisons more. Walz himself drew some serious criticisms for comparing Minnesota children of illegal criminals to Anne Frank, a young Jewish girl whose diary tragically chronicled how she hid from the Nazis until she was ultimately captured and killed.
&#8220;We have got children in Minnesota hiding in their houses, afraid to go outside,&#8221; Walz, who did not respond to requests for comment, said on Sunday. &#8220;Many of us grew up reading that story of Anne Frank &#8230; Somebody is going to write that children&#8217;s story about Minnesota, and there&#8217;s one person who can end this now.&#8221;
His remarks drew condemnation from even the Holocaust Museum, which pointed out that &#8220;Anne Frank was targeted and murdered solely because she was Jewish,&#8221; and said that &#8220;leaders making false equivalencies to her experience for political purposes is never acceptable.&#8221;
<div id="attachment_1034969" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://drwordpress.dailywire.com/news/with-ice-facing-historic-violence-dems-fan-flames-by-labeling-immigration-agents-nazis/us-immigration-ice-shooting-10" rel="attachment wp-att-1034969"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1034969" class="wp-image-1034969 size-large" src="https://drwordpress.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2257841940-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/GettyImages-2257841940-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/GettyImages-2257841940-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/GettyImages-2257841940-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/GettyImages-2257841940.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" /></a>Demonstrators protest against ICE outside the state office of Senator Amy Klobuchar (Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT / AFP via Getty Images)</div>
&#8220;Despite tensions in Minneapolis, exploiting the Holocaust is deeply offensive, especially as antisemitism surges,&#8221; the Holocaust Museum said in a statement.
In an interview with CNN on Tuesday, Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/moulton-says-ice-comparisons-nazi-germany-not-extreme-cnn-interview?utm_source=chatgpt.com">said it was not extreme</a> to compare ICE to Nazis: &#8220;I don&#8217;t think that the comparisons with Nazi Germany are extreme.&#8221;
&#8220;Because that’s what happened too,&#8221; he said. &#8220;That’s why ordinary German citizens began to accept the idea that certain members of their community would be singled out — I mean, they have ICE tip lines — would be directly targeted in violation of the laws of the land, and it would be done by agents of the state. But, that’s what’s happening today in Minneapolis.&#8221;
And California Governor Gavin Newsom, who backtracked on some of his rhetoric comparing ICE to state-sponsored terrorism in an interview with Ben Shapiro two weeks ago, has taken to nicknaming Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino, &#8220;Gestapo Greg.&#8221;
“Gestapo Greg says filming ICE agents with your cell phone is assault and justifies them shooting you in cold blood,” the California governor’s press office wrote on &#8220;X&#8221; on January 25. Earlier this year, he cautioned Americans against believing that &#8220;calls of fascism and authoritarianism are hyperbole.&#8221;
Asked by The Daily Wire on Wednesday if Newsom stood by his &#8220;Gestapo Greg&#8221; remarks on Bovino, Newsom spokesman Izzy Gardon responded: &#8220;Absolutely. Gestapo Greg is in S.S. solider cosplay.&#8221;
And asked whether the governor wants Democrats like Tim Walz to tone down their rhetoric comparing ICE to Nazis, Gardon responded: &#8220;What do you call masked men who gun down Americans in cold blood?&#8221;
Interestingly, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has refrained from going so far as to compare ICE to Nazis, though he is vociferously against ICE, told the federal immigration agents to &#8220;get the f*ck out of Minneapolis,&#8221; and accused them of causing chaos and distrust in the city.
Another high-profile Democrat who has not gone the Third Reich rhetoric route: Zohran Mamdani, who has heavily criticized ICE, called for their abolishment, and said &#8220;they wear masks because they know that what they are doing is wrong.” Mamdani and Frey didn&#8217;t immediately respond to requests for comment from The Daily Wire.

Screenshot 2026-01-28 at 3.12.00 PM

With ICE Facing Historic Violence, Dems Fan Flames By Labeling Immigration Agents Nazis

Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Nazi Germany

The Democrats’ attempt at chaos in Minneapolis has now borne fruit with the help of legacy media coverage. 
It&#8217;s also the result of two tragic incidents, and it is indeed the result of the mishandling of those tragic incidents by people inside the Trump administration. That combination means that the attempt at chaos by Democrats in Minneapolis has actually worked, to some extent. 
It has now driven the Trump administration into action. The Trump administration yesterday announced that Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol chief, has been removed from Minnesota and will apparently return to El Centro. Kristi Noem, the head of the Department of Homeland Security, is also on thin ice at this point, given her mishandling of the two tragic cases in which American citizens were shot by federal agents under disputed circumstances. 
The mishandling of those situations by both Gregory Bovino and Kristi Noem has put the administration in a particularly poor position. 
But let&#8217;s not forget that this begins with Democrats attempting to obstruct federal law.
Democrats have been obstructing federal law and attempting to dissuade the administration from enforcing the law, while the administration has been forced to actually change its tactics with regard to deportations.
The Trump mass deportation policy, which has been part of Trump&#8217;s stump speech since 2015, has suggested that all illegal immigrants have to go. The reality is that Americans are much more focused when it comes to actual deportation from the United States of America. They may be fine with the idea of mass deportation, but the place they really want to focus — and the politically easy call — is to deport the people who are committing rape and arson and sex and assault and murder.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2355-sub"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-981859 size-full" src="https://drwordpress.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/ben-banner.avif" alt="" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-768x128.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
Early on, the administration did an amazing job of specifically targeting those people. The problem is that blue states have refused to work with ICE and tolerated obstruction of federal law enforcement, and that has meant that ICE has become more targeted in its pursuit of criminal illegal aliens.
If local authorities work with ICE and you pick somebody up for rape or murder or some other crime, you check their immigration status. If they are here illegally, you call up ICE, and that person ends up being deported. 
But if local authorities don&#8217;t work with ICE, that person may end up in jail or in the system, acquitted or released for lack of evidence, and can end up running around the countryside.
That&#8217;s what&#8217;s been happening in blue states since October.
What this means is that ICE, when it goes to actually try and do deportations, ends up picking up people who may or may not have committed a crime. 
This is a point that&#8217;s been made by the White House border czar Tom Homan, who said if they let ICE in their jail, ICE could arrest the bad guy in the safety and security of the jail. That also means when ICE does pursue a criminal illegal immigrant, they now have to go and knock down a door.
That makes ICE confrontations more likely. It makes protests more plentiful. It means uglier pictures on your television. 
This is being facilitated and driven by Democrats’ sanctuary city policies. But what that also means is that those ugly pictures on your television change how people think of the issue in general. 
People like it when the law is enforced; they like law and order. They just don&#8217;t like to see law and order in progress. They don&#8217;t want to see it happen. 
This is not just true for illegal immigration. This is true for normal police operations. Policing is a very messy and difficult job. This is why you will see many circumstances in which somebody takes a video of a police officer having to do his job, and the entire online crowd will jump on the police officer for having to do the kinds of things police officers have to do, because pretty much every person who&#8217;s dealing with a cop is experiencing the worst day of their life.. And all day long, the cop has to deal with people on their worst day.  Thus, he is likely to encounter people in their most violent state. 
That means that the pictures on your television when this stuff gets broadcast are ugly. And just like everything else ugly in life, people don&#8217;t like to see the ugliness. They just like to see the result.
 When those ugly pictures involve American citizens being killed under disputed circumstances, that allows legacy media actors to treat all of law enforcement as an exercise in brutal tyranny and to start propagandizing,
Which brings us to Jimmy Kimmel.
Here’s what <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/media/tv/jimmy-kimmel-breaks-down-in-tears-over-ice-killing-in-impassioned-late-night-opener/">Kimmel said</a> last night:
<blockquote> I spent the weekend, like probably a lot of you did, looking at my phone and just feeling shocked and sick about what is happening in Minneapolis. One video after another, screaming people being torn from their families, Americans, people who were born in the United States, being pulled out of their cars for the crime of having an accent or whatever.
 Children, small children, babies being tear-gassed, taken into custody, separated from their parents, just one atrocity after another, being committed by this gang of poorly-trained, shamefully-led, mask-wearing goons. And that is what they are: they’re goons committing vile, heartless and even criminal acts. And it&#8217;s sickening to watch and it&#8217;s frustrating to watch. It&#8217;s like we&#8217;re all being forced to play a game that has no rules. They just make up the rules as they go along. </blockquote>
When you hear Kimmel label our law enforcement as jackbooted and masked thugs who are out there pursuing atrocities against Americans, that is the story that the Left would like to tell, and they facilitated that story by obstructing federal law enforcement. 
 This is the game.
Kimmel continued by lying about the circumstances under which Renee Good was shot: “They won&#8217;t even admit that it was a mistake. They say the Honda SUV Renee Good was driving was weaponized. They say the gun Alex Preti had a license to carry in an open carry state; many of these same people scream very loudly about when it was Kyle Rittenhouse carrying the gun. A gun that Alex Preti did not even draw, did not touch, a gun that was taken from him by one of the agents before he was shot dead by the other ones. They fired ten times on an ICU nurse. They&#8217;re telling us, ‘It was justified, you know.’ Is that the law and order that you voted for?”
Notice what he&#8217;s doing there. He takes some facts and then wraps a giant fiction around them. 
It is true that DHS claimed Renee Good had committed an act of domestic terrorism, and they did the same with Alex Preti.
This is why I said that failures inside the Trump administration have made Democrats’ job easier for them in order to shut down law and order. 
But notice how Kimmel wraps that into a generalized critique of all law and order in the United States, and suggests that the only possible solution is to simply allow our immigration law to go unenforced.
 Kimmel continued: 
<blockquote>“My wife and I, a family in Minneapolis, are afraid to take their kids to school. They&#8217;re afraid to go to work. And I can only imagine how people who aren&#8217;t white feel about this. How does this end? What&#8217;s the plan here? Is the plan to just keep doing this in every city that didn&#8217;t vote for Donald Trump? Does anyone on any side believe this is good leadership?”</blockquote>
What he&#8217;s doing here is also a lie. This is only happening in blue cities. Blue cities are the places that are not working with ICE. Red cities are working with ICE, so it&#8217;s not a problem. Blue cities are not working with ICE, so it is a problem.
This is all incredibly frustrating to watch if you are attempting to be objective-minded about the very difficult realities of enforcing the law, and you recognize that there has been a mechanism set up by blue states in order to obstruct the enforcement of that federal law, and that the people attempting to enforce that law are then blamed when things go wrong.
It&#8217;s deeply, deeply frustrating. 
The problem is that frustration does not change the fact with regard to public opinion. CNN&#8217;s Harry Enten pointed out that the net approval numbers for ICE have plummeted.
This is why yesterday, the Trump administration attempted to change course by honestly assessing what has been going on, recognizing that people are attempting to obstruct the law, and also attempting to change some of the staffing decisions that they have made
Trump is sending the person who should have been in charge all along, border czar Tom Homan, who, since the beginning of this, has been the &#8220;law and order, let the full investigations take place, we&#8217;re enforcing the law&#8221; guy. 
Tom Homan has always been the adult in the room on this policy. 
The Trump administration is reorienting toward the better parts of the administration in terms of handling this and trying to de-escalate the situation.
Whether that de-escalation is possible is going to be, at least in large part, up to the state of Minnesota and the city of Minneapolis. 
Democrats are clearly sensing blood in the water here. They clearly sense momentum, which is why this entire chaos operation run by the Democrats is a disaster area.
If they can politically win by obstructing federal law, that is a massive problem.
But — it&#8217;s quite possible here that the Democrats win the battle but lose the war, meaning that if they win the battle against ICE, if they get Americans to briefly see ICE as the problem and illegal immigration as a secondary issue, if they get all of that to happen in the short term, that may not be the result they want in the long term.
We saw the same exact thing happen in 2020, when the police were treated like an invading army by the Democrats, and for a moment, the police were wildly unpopular. And then it turned out that crime rates radically skyrocketed, and people got mad and turned on the Democrats for that, which is why the Democrats have been underwater on the immigration issue and also on policing for years on end.
Democrats could win the battle against the Trump administration in Minneapolis for the moment, but ultimately lose the war.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz

Democrats Exploit Minneapolis Chaos, But It Could Ultimately Hurt Them

Democrats

jacob frey

Jimmy Kimmel

Dozens of anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activists stormed the Minnesota state capitol on Tuesday and crowded outside of Governor Tim Walz’s office to chant slogans.
A crowd of protesters has gathered at the capitol every day since ICU nurse and anti-ICE demonstrator Alex Pretti died on Saturday. A Customs and Border Protection agent shot and killed Alex Pretti, who was allegedly interfering with an immigration operation at the time.
On Tuesday, activists gathered outside of Walz’s office in the capitol building and screamed slogans such as “ICE out now” and “Do your job,” according to <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/agitators-swarm-tim-walzs-office-minnesota-capitol-demand-immigration-justice">Fox News</a>.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="LIVE: Anti-immigration enforcement rally in Minnesota" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RnGF0wY_Tqc?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Earlier in the day, Walz met with border czar Tom Homan, who was dispatched to Minnesota in the aftermath of the Pretti shooting and the unrest it sparked, about federal immigration operations. Walz demanded a “swift, significant reduction” of federal forces in Minnesota and “an end to the campaign of retribution” in the state, according to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/live-blog/minneapolis-live-updates-ice-trump-rcna256077/rcrd97863?canonicalCard=true">NBC News</a>.
The governor’s office said that Walz and Homan “agreed on the need for an ongoing dialogue and will continue working toward those goals, which the President also agreed to yesterday.”
The angst seemingly directed at the governor comes a day after Walz <a href="https://x.com/GovTimWalz/status/2015885638269125050">called</a> President Donald Trump and had a “productive” conversation, according to Walz’s office. Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/border-patrol-partially-withdraws-from-minnesota-after-pretti-shooting">said</a> in a post about the call on Truth Social that he and the governor “seemed to be on a similar wavelength” about immigration operations in Minnesota.
“It couldn&#8217;t have been a nicer conversation,” Trump <a href="https://x.com/EricLDaugh/status/2016262674750083453">said</a> of his call with Walz on Tuesday. “In fact, I said to my people, it&#8217;s hard to believe that&#8217;s the same guy I watch on television or I watch in the debate not doing so well – because we had a very reasonable conversation, very good conversation.”
Walz has previously compared ICE agents to Nazi Gestapo. Over the weekend, he <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/tim-walz-compares-immigration-agents-to-nazis-says-minnesota-is-home-to-new-anne-frank-story?author=Tim+Pearce&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=2&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Tim+Walz+Compares+Immigration+Agents+To+Nazis%2C+Says+Minnesota+Is+Home+To+New+%E2%80%98Anne+Frank%E2%80%99+Story">compared</a> the situation of illegal aliens in Minnesota to that of Anne Frank, a Jewish girl who hid from Nazis in an attic for over two years before dying in a concentration camp during the Holocaust.
After the outcry over Pretti’s death, Trump has shuffled around personnel in an apparent attempt to reorient and reprioritize his deportation operation. Homan was dispatched to Minnesota on Sunday and Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino and some Border Patrol agents are expected to leave the state. Bovino will <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/border-patrol-commander-greg-bovino-returning-position-el/story?id=129582658">reportedly</a> lose his role as commander and return to his previous position as chief of the El Centro sector in California.
Trump held a two-hour meeting with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Monday. The next day, he defended Noem and told reporters that she would not lose her job.

Anti-ICE protest

Anti-ICE Activists Storm Minnesota Capitol To Protest Outside Walz’s Office

General

U.S.

TOPSHOT-US-IMMIGRATION-ICE-SHOOTING

The Defining Moment Of Trump’s Presidency Has Arrived. The Path Forward Is Obvious.

The Defining Moment Of Trump's Presidency Has Arrived. The Path Forward Is Obvious.

Border Patrol

Matt Walsh

Shooting

All hell has now broken loose in Minneapolis after another shooting on Saturday involving federal officers and a person who allegedly attempted to interfere with them in the pursuit of their legal duty.
That person&#8217;s name was Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old Minneapolis man.
The Left continues to ramp up this chaos. They are doing this on purpose. There is no question that this is a purposeful attempt to undermine federal law enforcement in their pursuit of duty. And if that ends with ugly images on television, then that is exactly what they want.
They are desperate for ugly images on television because they believe the images will undermine the Trump administration&#8217;s immigration program and the Trump administration itself.
Let us be very clear. More people are being deported from red states than from blue states right now. But you&#8217;re not seeing these ugly images happening in red states.
Why?
Because red states are helping to facilitate the deportation of people who should not be here. Red states are helping to ensure that criminal illegal immigrants are not in the system. And when they arrest somebody for a crime and that person is an illegal immigrant, they then tell federal law enforcement, federal authorities, ICE, and Border Patrol, so the person can be deported.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-260126-sub"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-981859 size-full" src="https://drwordpress.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/ben-banner.avif" alt="" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-768x128.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
Blue states, sanctuary cities, and sanctuary states are not doing that. That is what necessitates more boots on the ground from the federal government in these areas. And then local and state politicians have suggested that this amounts to a Gestapo-like occupation.
They&#8217;ve been driving their own supporters out into the streets. Some of those supporters are then obstructing federal law enforcement, committing federal crimes.
When that happens, the likelihood of terrible incidents goes way up. That is the simple logic, and that appears to be something that left-wing politicians want and are desperate for. It appears to be something that they think they can run on if they put ugly images on your television of immigration agents in confrontations with Americans.
And if some of those incidents end with death, then that means they will be able to undermine their political opposition.
That is despicable. It truly is. We should all — Democrats, Republicans, and independents — be in favor of criminal illegal immigrants going home, not being in the United States.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-260126-sub?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
This is not a controversial issue. The necessity for a larger federal presence or harder implementation measures is only being made necessary because there are Democratic politicians and members of the legacy media who have decided to ramp up the rhetoric to facilitate the chaos.
This is indeed planned. That is a reality. So that ends with bad situations.
We&#8217;ve been saying this for months. You have the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, coming out and saying that ICE agents are like the Gestapo or like the KKK. You have Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey saying the same, If you have all Democratic politicians suggesting that protesting ICE agents is not only a decent thing to do, but a positive and good thing to do, and then treating obstruction of federal law enforcement officers as a form of legitimate protest —which is the gray line they always seem to blur — you will end up with more confrontations, more violence, and more possible deaths under disputed circumstances.
There should always be a full investigation, not because I believe the officers are guilty of murder or manslaughter, but because I believe that it will exonerate the officers. And if it doesn’t, you need the full investigation to ensure that there&#8217;s continued trust in law enforcement.
Those investigations should go forward. They should be perfectly objective. They should not be railroading someone, as we have seen in the past with Derek Chauvin and George Floyd. The cases should not be adjudicated in the media.
That&#8217;s why the best response from everyone in the federal government to Walz to Frey should be a full, thorough investigation.
But of course, the biggest issue is why these incidents keep happening in the first place.
It is not just a matter of individual incidents that are randomly cropping up. This is not random. It is happening in a specific city at a specific time, in a specific place for a reason. 
It is being driven deliberately. I can&#8217;t emphasize this enough:  It is being deliberately driven by members of the Democratic higher echelons. It is being specifically driven by the legacy media.
I repeat: You are not seeing this in red areas, and more deportations are being carried out in those areas than in the blue areas. That’s a statistical fact. More deportations are taking place in Texas and Florida than are taking place in Minneapolis. 
But all the tape you&#8217;re seeing is from Minneapolis.
 Why is this not happening again in New Orleans? Why is this not happening in Dallas, Texas? Why isn&#8217;t this happening in red areas?
The answer is obvious. Tim Walz — who&#8217;s been absolutely abhorrent throughout this entire debacle, a terrible governor, a disgrace to the country, a man who was nominated for vice president of the United States by the Democratic Party — declared, “Minnesota has had it. This is sickening. The President must end this operation. Pull the thousands of violent, untrained officers out of Minnesota. Now.”
The basic idea here is that Walz won&#8217;t help by actively facilitating the deportation of criminal illegal immigrants. He’s going to facilitate the obstruction of law enforcement, and then, when things get violent, he’s going to tell federal law enforcement to pull out.
“They think they can provoke us into abandoning our values,”  he wrote on Facebook. “They are wrong. We will keep the peace. We will secure justice for our neighbors. And we will see this occupation end.”
I don&#8217;t think Tim Walz is interested in keeping things peaceful in Minnesota. I see very little evidence that he is. Walz is building an entire permission structure for violence against officers.
Over the weekend, he said, “Quit referring to these people as law enforcement. They are not law enforcement.”
What do you think he is saying to protesters? What do you think he&#8217;s saying when he says they&#8217;re not law enforcement?
He&#8217;s saying if they&#8217;re not, then what are they then? They must be lawbreakers because they&#8217;re wandering around committing crimes against other American citizens.
Thus, he creates a permission structure for all of this.
He compared illegal immigrant children in Minnesota to Anne Frank.
No.
Anne Frank was not attempting to immigrate to the country from which she was deported. Anne Frank was a citizen of the country in which she lived. She was sent to Auschwitz and then transferred to Bergen-Belsen, where she died of typhus. That is not the same thing.
American law enforcement agents, ICE officers, and Border Patrol agents are not Nazis. They are not the Gestapo.
This is a purposefully driven chaos operation pushed by Democrats for political purposes.

The Democratic Chaos Operation

Ben Shapiro

Opinion

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum fired off a response on Monday, rebuking Governor Tim Walz (D-MN) after he compared United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to Nazis and claimed the next &#8220;Anne Frank&#8221; would be a little girl in Minnesota fearing deportation.
The statement was posted by the museum&#8217;s official X account — and while it acknowledged the difficult situation that has been unfolding in Minnesota, it also said that the clearly political motivation behind Walz&#8217;s comparison that suggested American federal agents were no different from the Nazis was a bridge too far.
&#8220;Anne Frank was targeted and murdered solely because she was Jewish. Leaders making false equivalencies to her experience for political purposes is never acceptable. Despite tensions in Minneapolis, exploiting the Holocaust is deeply offensive, especially as antisemitism surges,&#8221; the <a href="https://x.com/HolocaustMuseum/status/2015830385331216482">post read</a>.
Walz sparked <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/tim-walz-compares-immigration-agents-to-nazis-says-minnesota-is-home-to-new-anne-frank-story">the backlash</a> during a recent press conference — following a fatal shooting involving Border Patrol agents — where he said, &#8220;We have got children in Minnesota hiding in their houses, afraid to go outside. Many of us grew up reading that story of Anne Frank. Somebody is going to write that children’s story about Minnesota.&#8221;
Walz, who has previously referred to federal immigration officials as “Trump’s modern-day Gestapo,&#8221; is not the only Democrat making such comparisons. During a Sunday appearance on CNN&#8217;s &#8220;State of the Union,&#8221; newly-elected Governor Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) said ICE agents were like the communist Stasi — the East German secret police.
Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA), widely considered to be a leading contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, trashed federal law enforcement while in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum. Newsom took aim at Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino in particular, saying, &#8220;Greg Bovino is dressed up as if he literally went on eBay and purchased SS garb. Secret police … Private army … Masked men.&#8221;
Law enforcement officials and leaders within the Trump administration have pushed back, arguing that such rhetoric has been a driving force behind the exponential increase in assaults and death threats against federal law enforcement officers and their families.

JD Vance And Tim Walz Face Off In Vice Presidential Debate In New York

Holocaust Museum Blasts Tim Walz For Comparing ICE To Nazis

Holocaust

Protests

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 <a href="https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/2015856478154850595">blamed</a> 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 <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/wave-car-attacks-ice-agents-follows-incendiary-rhetoric-from-target-city-leaders">accused</a> 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,” <a href="https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/2015857172874236233">said</a> Leavitt.
“This rhetoric against ICE, comparing them to Nazi Gestapo, Donald Trump&#8217;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.

Karoline Leavitt

Leavitt Rips Democrats For Inciting ‘Left-Wing Agitators And Crazy People’ Against Feds

Leavitt Rips Democrats For Siccing ‘Left-Wing Agitators And Crazy People’ Against Feds

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