Ellison: Washington needs to 'mend fences with everyone in Minnesota' over ICE surge
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Two key court hearings are happening in Minnesota on Monday. In one of them, a federal judge will hear arguments over whether to temporarily pause the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota.
The second centers on the investigation into the death of Minneapolis man shot by federal agents over the weekend.
Ahead of the first hearing, Attorney General Keith Ellison talked to Cathy Wurzer on Morning Edition.
The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity. Listen to the conversation by clicking the player button above.
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You said what we're seeing here with the federal surge is a novel abuse of the Constitution. What do you mean by that, and how is that playing into your arguments in court Monday?
What I mean is that never in the history of the United States — never in the history of immigration policy in the United States — have this many immigration agents been deployed in one place at one time.
Normally, there is a spread out of federal ICE agents throughout the country, generally at the borders, not where we are. But this is unique and different, and they're all assembled here, concentrating only on us, so that's different, that's novel and it calls for an explanation.
How is that an abuse of the Constitution?
Because what is happening is that they're commandeering our state prerogatives and authorities. They've overburdened our police departments because we have to respond to tons of 911 calls.
They have a massive, just incalculable number of people who have been stopped and demanded papers, which is not actually legal. If you don't have a judicial warrant and don't know who you're looking for, you can't just randomly stop people and say, prove to me you're a citizen. That's not the way it works.
Also, there have been a number of deaths, excessive force — three shootings in two weeks. So, the overwhelming amount of pressure that has been put on the state has resulted in the commandeering of our prerogative as a state, and under the 10th Amendment of the Constitution, we are coequal sovereigns.
The federal government cannot coerce and cannot commandeer state resources. So that's it in a nutshell.
Do you anticipate any manslaughter or murder charges to be brought by the state and or Hennepin County against the federal agents in the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti?
The state does have the right to charge. But I wouldn't announce a charging decision this way and this time, and there's still more investigation that needs to be done.
I'm sure everybody wants to get to conclusions, but it's better to do this thing in a fair, unbiased, neutral way than to come out with charges as quickly as possible. If the federal government is not observing due process, the state of Minnesota is.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, shortly after Alex Pretti was killed, sent Gov. Walz a letter with three requests she says could end the ICE crackdown: state data on Medicaid and voter registration rolls among them. And the answer is no, correct?
The answer is no, but let me just say that we're open to any reasonable dialogue. But the federal government cannot obtain documents that they're not legally entitled to by simply swamping us with this escalation and ICE agents.
So, the dynamic here is, we're going to swamp you with all these ICE agents. We're going to create havoc in your state, drive up expenses, shoot people. Oh, and if you want us to leave, give us stuff that we're not legally entitled to — that's coercion. That's extortion. And that's '“no”.
But I want to be clear to the people of Minnesota, any reasonable conversation about how they leave, or at least return to normal levels, I'm open to it. But I'm not going to say, “Yeah, we'll give you stuff that the law does not allow you to have so you'll stop doing what is already, I believe, illegal.”
Over the weekend, a number of CEOs of major state corporations sent a public letter saying something's got to be done about this. The Minnesota Chiefs of Police want a meeting with the White House. Do you see any movement occurring out there that could end this?
Well, it should be ended, right? And I think it's commendable for our law enforcement chiefs and people in the business world to try to find a way forward.
But what I would simply say is: if the White House says “we'll leave if you give us things that we don't have a legal right to,” then I ask them to say no to that, because that's extortion. But any reasonable request, we're here to listen to.
And I want to thank those leaders for doing whatever they can to try to end this, what I believe to be an unconstitutional surge, but be careful, because the White House is well known to say we're going to do something illegal to you, and you're going to come asking us for relief, and then we'll give it to you if you give us what we want.
That's how the whole tariff thing has been working. That's how a lot of things have been working. And I just think that is no way to run a democratic society, and we should say no to it.
Under normal circumstances, you work hand-in-hand and in partnership with state, local, federal and tribal governments and law enforcement. How long do you think it might take to repair some of these relationships going forward?
I don't think there's any damage to relationships between local federal officials and local state officials. I remain respectful and grateful to all the members of the FBI, the ATF, HUD officials — we don't have any problems locally. This is all coming from Washington.
And here's a question: when is the federal government going to repair its relationships with the federal government? Because we've seen nearly 10 people quit from the Department of Justice because they've been told, “No, you're not going to investigate the death of the of Renee Good. You're going to investigate Renee Good and her wife.” And you have people say, “Well, I didn't sign up for that.” And they're leaving.
So it's really not the state of Minnesota and its federal colleagues who have to mend fences. As far as I know, we're fine. But it's the federal government in Washington that needs to mend fences with everyone in Minnesota, state and federal.
