MN officials testify on immigration surge before U.S. Senate panel

Trump administration border czar Tom Homan said Minnesota had been left “safer” following a six-week surge of federal immigration enforcement in the state. But as he announced an end to the crackdown on Thursday, state officials testified to a U.S. Senate committee on the toll of federal actions.

At an oversight hearing of the Senate Homeland Security oversight committee, Minnesota Department of Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell, an appointee of DFL Gov. Tim Walz, questioned whether the thousands of reported arrests made during “Operation Metro Surge” had delivered any substantial public safety benefits.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has maintained that its operation has focused on removing the “worst of the worst” from the streets. Schnell disputed that characterization, noting that many of the close to 500 detainees listed on the ICE website did not have charges listed for violent offenses or felonies.

“I simply can’t imagine how many dollars have been spent in Operation Metro Surge. It is staggering. The cost of human life, as well as the actual financial resources, is hard to even imagine,” Schnell said. “This certainly has not been ultimately beneficial for the safety of our state.”

MN corrections official: State prisons do handover those in U.S. illegally

Two activists — Renee Good and Alex Pretti — were shot dead by immigration agents in January while clashing with federal authorities during immigration enforcement actions in Minneapolis. Schnell said, in his testimony, that only when a lack of coordination between the state and federal government grew into a crisis did the Trump administration become more open to collaboration and discussion with Minnesota.

“Unchecked enforcement can lead to tragedy and a profound loss of trust,” Schnell said. “Constitutional rights are not partisan issues. Governments must be checked and balanced and law enforcement must operate within the law.”

The state corrections leader was among four Minnesota officials to testify in Washington on Thursday. DFL Attorney General Keith Ellison, Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer, and House Republican Floor Leader Harry Niska, a representative from Ramsey, also testified.

Schnell reiterated to senators what he had been saying for weeks in response to claims by federal authorities that Minnesota had not been cooperating with immigration enforcement: Minnesota prisons do, in fact, hand over people in the U.S. illegally at the end of their sentences.

U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer: ‘Chaos in Minneapolis was entirely preventable’

Emmer and Niska told members that clashes between protesters and federal agents and general unrest in recent weeks could have been avoided if state authorities had cooperated with federal immigration officials. Local governments in the Twin Cities do not cooperate with ICE, as the state does.

“The chaos in Minneapolis was entirely preventable had local law enforcement been allowed to work with federal law enforcement from the beginning,” Emmer told the committee. “By preventing local law enforcement from working together with federal law enforcement, they have turned Minnesota into a safe haven for criminal illegal aliens.”

Niska noted that Hennepin only honored 8% of federal immigration detainer requests over the last two years, based on data from the Deportation Project Database, a research initiative by the University of California, Los Angeles, and UC Berkley. Ramsey County honored 6%.

Niska said he appreciated “recalibration of federal enforcement” under Homan, which he described as creating a more “focused and disciplined effort on the ground.”

Keith Ellison asks for more information on detainees

Ellison told the committee that the immigration surge, which brought more than 3,000 agents to Minnesota, had “caused real harm to our state.”

He called on senators to use their oversight powers to obtain more information on the number of individuals ICE had detained and deported during the operation, push for a federal-state joint investigation of the Good and Pretti shootings — which so far federal officials have declined — and to stop agents from covering their faces during operations and engaging in racial profiling.

Walz on Thursday told reporters that it was possible that the state and officials in the administration of President Donald Trump could still cooperate on investigations, but that leaked information on talks last week made federal officials hesitate.