Vice President JD Vance argued that tensions in Minnesota over immigration enforcement operations could be tamed if local and state officials cooperated more with US authorities, even as he conceded federal officers sometimes make “mistakes.”
Vance visited Minneapolis on Thursday, where he sought to defend the Trump administration's aggressive deportation raids, which have set off street confrontations between demonstrators and immigration agents. Polls show federal tactics have become increasingly unpopular.
“This is the inevitable consequence of a state and local government that has decided that they're not going to cooperate with immigration enforcement at all,” Vance said. “We can do a good job of enforcing our immigration laws without the chaos, but it actually requires the cooperation of state and local officials.”
Vance's visit came less than a month after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old US citizen, an incident that escalated tensions in Minneapolis.
The vice president repeatedly insisted that state and local officials have exacerbated problems by directing authorities not to cooperate with ICE, such as by not handing over recent address histories for people suspected of being in the US illegally.
Minneapolis and St. Paul have challenged the surge of thousands of ICE officials in the region as unconstitutional. Local residents also have also blamed the federal officials and their methods for making them feel less safe and afraid to venture outside. Elected officials have described ICE officials stopping local residents — including at least one police officer — to question them about their immigration status.
“Whenever you have a law enforcement operation, even if 99.99% of the guys do everything perfectly, you're going to have people that make mistakes,” Vance said.
Hours before Vance arrived, the federal government arrested three protesters — including prominent civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong — for their role in disrupting a service at a Minnesota church where a local ICE official serves as a pastor.
Vance said he was seeking to turn down the temperature in Minneapolis, but his visit — and the arrests he defended Thursday — risked intensifying frictions instead.
“If you go and storm a church, if you go and insult a federal law enforcement officer, we are going to try very hard, we're going to use every resource of the federal government to put you in prison,” Vance said.
Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed the arrests on X, asserting the Trump administration doesn't tolerate “attacks” on places of worship. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Thursday blasted the arrests in an X post as “a gross abuse of power.”
Vance said he had not spoken directly with Frey or Minnesota Governor Tim Walz during the trip, though he described ongoing staff-level conversations. “If Governor Walz wants to call me, we'll absolutely continue talking,” Vance said.
The vice president insisted the administration's deportation operations in Democrat-run states and cities are not politically motivated.
“We're not trying to send a political message,” Vance said. “We're trying to enforce the law.”
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