Takeaways from CNN’s Minnesota town hall
(CNN) — Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, in a CNN town hall Wednesday night, stood by the city’s sanctuary policies and repeated his demand that federal immigration agents leave the city.
Frey’s comments come as state, local and federal officials look for ways to tamp down tensions in the wake of the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two US citizens who lived in Minneapolis.
Frey spoke on Monday with President Donald Trump, who then appeared to soften his comments on the mayor and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. But Trump’s tone changed Wednesday, when he said the mayor is “playing with fire” by insisting local police won’t play a role in enforcing federal immigration laws.
During the town hall, three Republican state lawmakers also said blame for the chaos in Minneapolis is shared between the Trump administration and Democratic state and local leaders.
And Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said state officials still do not know the names of the federal agents involved in Pretti’s killing.
Three faith leaders said they were grappling with leading a city where grieving residents feel a sense of rage. Father Jim Cassidy of the St. Joan of Arc Catholic Community Church said that “the challenge is that we clergy can also get very riled up.”
“One of the things that I ask people to remember is their own power,” said Rev. Elizabeth Macaulay, the lead pastor at Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church. “I may not have the energy today, but someone else beside me will, and together we can get through this. I believe it strongly. And it’s awful, and it hurts.”
Here are six takeaways from CNN’s town hall:
‘The present status needs to change’
Frey said he had a “productive” and “collegial” conversation with Trump on Monday. But didn’t back down at all Wednesday night from his demand that federal immigration agents leave Minneapolis.
“I’m saying the same things now that I said then,” he said.
Frey had two specific demands. First, he said, state officials should lead the investigations into the killings of Good and Pretti. He said he doesn’t trust a federal government that “came to a conclusion from the very beginning” that the those killings were acts of self-defense and that Good and Pretti were domestic terrorists.
He also said he wanted the federal operation that has seen thousands of immigration agents swarm the Twin Cities in recent weeks come to a rapid conclusion. Frey told the audience he said as much in a meeting with Trump border czar Tom Homan, who the president sent to Minnesota this week to oversee the administration’s efforts there in an attempt to ease tensions in the wake of Pretti’s killing.
Frey said a meeting between Homan and state and local officials didn’t end with a commitment to ending the federal effort “on any given timeline.”
“But,” he said, “there was a general consensus that the present status needs to change.”
He said he hopes that the number of agents in Minnesota will be drawn down, and the violent clashes between federal agents and local observers will end.
“But again, I’ll believe it when I see it,” Frey said.
Local role apprehending undocumented immigrants?
Trump on Wednesday attacked Frey on social media, saying the third-term Democratic mayor was “playing with fire” after Frey said Tuesday that Minneapolis would not change its sanctuary policies and would not help enforce federal immigration laws.
But Frey insisted Wednesday night that the city and its police “are going to do our jobs, not the federal government’s jobs.”
“I want our police spending time protecting the residents of our city — stopping homicides and carjackings; making sure violent offenders are investigated and held accountable,” he said.
That isn’t to say Minneapolis law enforcement wouldn’t cooperate with federal agents to apprehend any criminals, Frey said.
“Importantly when you’re trying to catch a murderer or a rapist, the first question that you ask is not, ‘Where are you from?’” he said.
“The question that’s important is, ‘Did they rape somebody? Did they murder somebody?’ And if they did, we investigate and we partner to do so,” he said.
“I don’t want them spending a single second hunting down a father who just dropped his kids off at daycare, is about to go work a 12-hour shift, and happens to be from Ecuador,” Frey said. “That guy? He makes our city a better place. We’re proud to have him in Minneapolis.”
He explained the city’s sanctuary policies, saying Minneapolis officials want undocumented immigrants to feel like they can call 911 when necessary without fearing deportation. He called those policies “a safety strategy.” And he said he didn’t want police spending their time investigating those who haven’t committed crimes.
Police chief says immigration agents using ‘questionable’ tactics
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara was sharply critical of federal immigration agents’ tactics in the city, saying that viral social media videos of encounters between those agents and local observers “show a lot of methods that are questionable and tactics that just do not appear safe — for agents or community.”
He said Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents’ approach “looks like policing 20 or 30 years ago,” and said those agents often did not appear to be working “in a coordinated way.”
O’Hara also sought to contrast federal immigration agents’ approach with Minneapolis police. He said in the city, local law enforcement has been “placing a very strong emphasis on trying to deescalate situations whenever possible.”
“That means we try to slow things down. We try to calm the situation, and not unnecessarily escalate things,” he said.
Frey says video of separate Pretti clash doesn’t justify killing
Frey watched a video of a prior altercation between Pretti and federal immigration agents for the first time during Wednesday night’s town hall.
The newly surfaced video showed Pretti kicking the taillight of a law enforcement vehicle before being tackled to the ground. Frey said regardless of that video’s contents, it did not justify Pretti’s killing more than a week later.
“Are we actually making the argument that Alex Pretti should be killed for something that happened, like 11 days prior to the shooting itself?” he said. “I think we should be talking about the circumstances that actually led to the killing and what took place and those circumstances.”
‘It’s literally all the people involved’
Three Republican Minnesota state lawmakers who participated in CNN’s town hall didn’t absolve the Trump administration for its role in the chaos that has played out in the streets of Minneapolis, but they said state and local Democratic officials bear a share of the blame.
“It’s literally all the people involved,” said state Rep. Nolan West. “That’s what we’re seeing, is that there is not a desire to lower the temperature. It’s immediately tit-for-tat, we’re not going to work together.”
State Rep. Elliott Engen also faulted “our supposed leaders” for the “absolute unrest” in Minneapolis. He said Walz, the Democratic governor, should have cooperated with federal immigration officials to help identify targets for deportation.
Engen and the other Republicans did break with Trump and federal officials on several key points.
Engen acknowledged the role federal immigration agents have played in some clashes. “There’s been a lot of negative rhetoric that’s been spewed both ways, I will not deny that,” Engen said.
West emphasized that he didn’t favor deporting all undocumented migrants, calling it “fundamentally impossible” and “economic suicide.”
State Sen. Michael Holmstrom broke with Trump over the president’s assertion that Pretti should not have been carrying a gun. “I certainly disagree with the president on that,” he said, emphasizing his support for the Second Amendment.
However, Holmstrom said he trusts the federal government to handle the investigation into Pretti’s killing. “I believe that they can conduct a proper investigation,” Holmstrom said.
Ellison says state officials don’t know names of agents who shot Pretti
Ellison said the federal government’s refusal to release the names of the immigration agents who shot Pretti “feels like a cover-up.”
An exasperated Ellison insisted that Minnesota officials are moving to investigate Pretti’s killing, and he said the state moved to secure a court order to protect evidence. But he also acknowledged that Minnesota officials do not know the names of the agents involved in the altercation in which Pretti was killed.
“We have heard some reports that the names might be — exist, in a report form,” he said. “I haven’t heard them yet. And I am confident that we will get those names. But the fact that I don’t know them yet is an absurdity, and an example of how little cooperation that we’re getting.”
Ellison also said Vice President JD Vance’s claim — which came in the wake of Good’s killing — that federal immigration agents are “protected by absolute immunity” is wrong, and said he would like to debate the vice president on that point.
“Anybody who commits a crime in this state can be charged and held accountable for that crime,” Ellison said.
This story has been updated with additional details.
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