Minneapolis Mayor Frey Calls for Peace After Anti-ICE Rhetoric
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Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called for peace amid escalating protests on Wednesday; There was a sharp change in tone days ago after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) demanded the city “get the hell out.”
Frey attended a late news conference after a Venezuelan illegal immigrant was shot in the leg after allegedly ambushing a federal agent with a shovel.
“I’m calling for peace,” Frey told reporters. “Everyone has a role in ensuring this peace, and we will try to do everything we can to preserve it.”
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Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey speaks to the media at City Hall on January 9. (Aaron Lavinsky/Minnesota Star Tribune via Getty Images)
Frey has repeatedly condemned ICE’s immigration enforcement operations and once again called for ICE to leave Minneapolis.
“There’s a lot we don’t know right now, but what I can tell you for sure is that this is not sustainable,” he said. “This is an impossible situation our city is in right now.”
“We currently have residents asking about a very limited number of police officers should we be fighting ICE agents on the street,” he added. “We can’t be in America right now where we have two government entities that are literally at war with each other.”
He said ICE and U.S. Border Patrol agents were “creating chaos” despite sometimes violent confrontations with protesters, many of whom were upset with the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement campaign.
“I have seen disgusting and intolerable behavior by ICE,” he said.
He called on protesters not to “take the bait” from President Donald Trump.
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Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called for peace amid violent protests against federal authorities. (Getty Images)
“And anyone taking the bait tonight, stop,” he said. “This is not helping at all… You’re not helping the undocumented immigrants in our city. You’re not helping the people who call this place home.”
The mayor’s tone is a far cry from the tirade he launched last week after Renee Good was fatally shot by an ICE agent.
“To ICE, get the hell out of Minneapolis. We don’t want you here,” Frey said at a press conference after the shooting. “The reason you’re in this city is to create some kind of security, and you’re doing the exact opposite.”
On Wednesday, Frey maintained that he did not make violent remarks.
“Show me one place where I encourage anything other than peace. Show me one place where we encourage violence,” Frey added.
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The Department of Homeland Security said a federal agent opened fire on an illegal immigrant who allegedly fled a traffic stop and then beat him with a snow shovel.
President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act if local authorities fail to regain control.
“If Minnesota’s corrupt politicians do not follow the law and stop professional agitators and rioters from attacking ICE Patriots who are just trying to do their job, I will invoke the INVOLVED ACT, as so many presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the disgrace that has occurred in this once great state,” he fumed in a post on Truth Social.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz implored Trump on Thursday to “turn the temperature down.”
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ICE responded with a post on X.
The post includes the statement, “The responsibility is in your hands, Dear Governor.” “Tone down the anti-ICE, hostile rhetoric. Honor our immigration officers. And work with ICE to remove criminal illegal aliens from the streets of MN.”
