Vance blames “far-left people” and calls for cooperation
Vice President JD Vance told a crowd in Minneapolis on Thursday that he was in Minnesota to “lower the temperature” amid unrest tied to the White House’s aggressive deportation campaign. Speaking with federal officers standing behind him, Vance blamed “far-left people” and state and local law enforcement officials for the chaos, and urged Minnesota leaders to “meet us halfway.”
Vance said the Justice Department is investigating top Democrats in Minnesota, including Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, over whether they have obstructed or impeded immigration enforcement through their public criticism of the administration. Walz and Frey described the investigation as an attempt to bully the political opposition.
Two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicles at the event bore the slogan “Defend the Homeland,” and federal officers stood in a row behind Vance as he spoke.
Insurrection Act threat ruled out for now
The visit came as the White House and President Donald Trump have used aggressive rhetoric, including the threat to invoke the Insurrection Act and send in military forces to crack down on unrest. When asked about that option, Vance said, “Right now, we don’t think that we need that.”
Vance’s comments built on a broader sequence of confrontations described by opponents of the federal campaign, including the dispatch of thousands of federal agents to Minnesota earlier in the month after reports of child care fraud by Somali immigrants. Minneapolis-area officials, along with police, religious leaders and the business community, pushed back.
Outrage also grew after an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Good, a U.S. citizen and mother of three, during a confrontation this month.
Walz and Frey criticize federal tactics
Walz said the federal government was to blame for the turmoil and urged a different approach to enforcement. In a post on social media, Walz wrote, “Take the show of force off the streets and partner with the state on targeted enforcement of violent offenders instead of random, aggressive confrontation.”
Speaking from city hall, Frey accused immigration officials of racial profiling and said detentions were being carried out against people he said had done nothing wrong. Frey said, “They are detaining people that have done nothing wrong,” and added, “They are going after people exclusively based on the fact that they look like they are Somali or Latino, and no reason beyond that.”
Frey argued that enforcement measures in the city, along with an influx of some 3,000 federal officers, seemed designed as political retaliation rather than an effort to remove criminals from the streets. He said, “This is more about, tragically, terrorizing people than it is about safety, than it is even about immigration.”
During Vance’s visit, the article says Vance rejected Frey’s accusation of racial profiling. The reporting also said Vance has played a leading role in defending the agent who killed Good.
Vance disputes accounts after Good’s death
The article said Vance previously described Good’s death as “a tragedy of her own making,” and on Thursday repeated claims that Good “rammed” an agent with her car. The article says that account has been disputed based on videos of the incident.
Vance also defended ICE agents who detained a 5-year-old boy as he was arriving home from preschool. Vance said, “When they went to arrest his illegal alien father, the father ran,” and he added, “So the story is that ICE detained a 5-year-old. Well, what are they supposed to do?” The article says the boy and his father were taken to a detention facility in Texas, and that he was the fourth student from his Minneapolis suburb to be detained by immigration officers in recent weeks.
Protest plans and calls to shut down businesses
Minnesota faith leaders backed by labor unions and hundreds of Minneapolis-area businesses were planning a day of protests on Friday, the article said. Nearly 600 local businesses announced plans to shut down, and hundreds of “solidarity events” were expected across the country, according to MoveOn spokesperson Britt Jacovich.
Warrant questions and ICE’s reported authority
Asked about reporting that federal authorities are asserting sweeping power to forcibly enter people’s homes without a judge’s warrant, Vance said warrants would still be part of immigration enforcement. He said, “Nobody is talking about doing immigration enforcement without a warrant,” and added, “We’re never going to enter somebody’s house without some kind of warrant, unless of course somebody is firing at an officer and they have to protect themselves.”
The article said the Associated Press reported Wednesday that ICE officers were asserting that they could forcibly enter houses without a judicial warrant, citing an internal ICE memo. The article said that, instead, officers can use administrative warrants issued by ICE officials rather than warrants signed off on by an independent judge, which it described as a reversal of long-standing guidance.
Vance also visited Toledo, Ohio, and addressed “mistakes”
Earlier Thursday, Vance traveled to Toledo, Ohio, where he acknowledged that immigration agents have made mistakes while declining to specify details. “Of course there have been mistakes made, because you’re always going to have mistakes made in law enforcement,” he said when asked about Trump’s comments earlier this week that ICE “is going to make mistakes sometimes.”
Vance said the blame did not lie with the federal government and said “The number one way where we could lower the mistakes that are happening, at least with our immigration enforcement, is to have local jurisdictions that are cooperating with us,” according to the article.
The article also said Vance praised the arrest of protesters who disrupted a church service in Minnesota on Sunday, where demonstrators chanted “ICE out” and “Justice for Renee Good.” Vance said, “They’re scaring little kids who are there to worship God on a Sunday morning,” and argued that interrupting worship violated the law.
Economic messaging during a campaign stop
In Toledo, Vance criticized hometown Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur while discussing a Republican field seeking to challenge her seat in the fall, including former ICE Deputy Director Madison Sheahan. The article said the Toledo stop focused primarily on bolstering the administration’s economic message after Trump’s appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and Vance urged voters to be patient with the economy.
Vance said, “You don’t turn the Titanic around overnight,” adding that it “takes time to fix what is broken.”