Vice President JD Vance will deliver remarks and visit with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Minneapolis on Thursday, as President Donald Trump continues his immigration crackdown in the state.
The vice president has been a critical messenger for the administration, combating public opposition to ICE’s actions in Minnesota. Vance joined reporters for a briefing earlier this month at the White House, where he said federal law enforcement officers are shielded by “absolute immunity” while pursuing illegal immigrants.
A senior White House official told the Washington Examiner that Vance’s speech will “point out how Minneapolis’s sanctuary city policies have degraded public safety and endangered ICE officers” and “celebrate the essential work ICE agents have done to take dangerous, criminal illegal aliens off of America’s streets.”
People familiar with the trip added that Vance will additionally meet with ICE officers in private and reiterate the administration’s priority of deporting illegal immigrants living in the sanctuary city.
“Democrat officials in Minnesota have willfully neglected large-scale fraud and undermined federal immigration authorities in their investigations of criminal wrongdoing,” a White House official told the Washington Examiner, adding that Minneapolis “has become ground zero” for the anti-ICE resistance movement.
Vance, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, and other senior administration officials have repeatedly denied that ICE officers have engaged in any wrongdoing, despite dozens of documented incidents of misuse of force and improper arrests. However, Trump himself seemed to concede that ICE officers are making some mistakes during a marathon press briefing at the White House on Tuesday.
The president noted that ICE has arrested “tens of thousands of illegal alien gang members, drug dealers, murderers, drug runners, human traffickers, fraudsters, and savage criminals.”
“They’re going to make mistakes,” he said. “Sometimes, ICE is going to be too rough for somebody. They’re going to make a mistake. Sometimes it can happen.”
Opposition to ICE operations in Minneapolis has only increased following the killing of Renee Good by an ICE officer earlier this year. The administration originally surged federal resources to the state after investigations into a billion-dollar fraud scheme carried out by members of Minnesota’s Somali community stole national headlines late last year.
During Vance’s January appearance in the press briefing room, he announced that the president was making room for a new assistant attorney general for fraud position to continue the Minnesota investigation and oversee new fraud investigations across the country.
Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), who dropped his reelection bid earlier this year over the fraud scandal, has repeatedly, unsuccessfully petitioned the administration to scale back its ICE operations in the state.
“Mr. President, Minnesota invites you to see our values in action,” he wrote in a statement posted to social media earlier this week. “Come see how communities from all walks of life are working together, and how the spirit of this state refuses to be defined by division or fear. I invite you to join me, and others in our community, to help restore calm and order and reaffirm that true public safety comes from shared purpose, trust, and respect.”
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