January 24, 2026
A strong assertion from Jacob Frey pleads with Trump to tug ICE forces out of Minneapolis earlier than extra individuals are killed.
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Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey calls for an finish to ICE’s siege.
(Stephen Maturen / Getty)
One day after tens of 1000’s of Minnesotans marched in sub-zero climate to name for an finish to the violent presence of federal forces on the streets of Minneapolis, a Border Patrol agent shot and killed one other Minnesotan Saturday morning on the streets of the town the place, on January 7, an ICE agent gunned down 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good.
President Trump, White House deputy chief of employees Stephen Miller, and federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers shortly issued unsubstantiated claims that the Minnesotan who died Saturday—a man recognized as Alex Pretti, an intensive care unit nurse who labored with the Veterans Administration and was an lively member of American Federation of Government Employees Local 3669—was an armed “domestic terrorist” who “tried to assassinate federal law enforcement,” and that the federal agent fired in self-defense.
But the quick responses from the administration, with their propagandistic and contradictory language (together with an unwarranted DHS declare that Pretti, who was reportedly a 37-year-old licensed gun proprietor with no identified felony historical past past visitors citations, meant to “massacre law enforcement”), mirrored discredited and extensively condemned statements made by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and different officers following the Good taking pictures. Expressing deep skepticism about statements from DHS and ICE as a rush to judgment, and urging calm, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz promised a thorough investigation, whereas Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey issued a sober but impassioned name to President Trump to finish ICE’s mass surge into the town.
Back on January 7, Mayor Frey made worldwide headlines when he challenged the validity by Noem and her aides and associates, which contradicted the proof from movies recorded as Good was killed. “Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everybody directly: that is bullshit,” stated Frey, who declared, “To ICE, get the fuck out of Minneapolis.”
Frey’s assertion following Saturday’s taking pictures employed totally different language. Yet, it was no much less highly effective, and no much less compelling. And it’s value contemplating in its entirety.
Here is what the mayor stated:
I simply noticed a video of greater than six masked brokers pummeling one in all our constituents and taking pictures him to dying. How many extra residents, what number of extra Americans have to die or get badly damage for this operation to finish? How many extra lives must be misplaced earlier than this administration realizes that a political and partisan narrative isn’t as necessary as American values? How many instances should native and nationwide leaders plead with you, Donald Trump, to finish this operation and acknowledge that this isn’t creating security in our metropolis?
As you’ll hear from (Minneapolis Emergency Management Department Rachel) Sayre in simply a second, we’ve seen these sorts of operations in different places, in different nations, however not right here in America—not in a approach the place a nice American metropolis is being invaded by its personal federal authorities.
I’m performed being advised that our group members are chargeable for the vitriol in our streets. I’m performed being advised that our native elected officers are solely chargeable for turning down the temperature. Just yesterday, we noticed 15,000 individuals peacefully protesting within the streets, talking out, standing up for his or her neighbors. Not a single damaged window, not a single harm. Those peaceable protests embody the very rules that each Minneapolis and America was based upon.
Conversely, the mass militarized pressure and unidentified brokers who’re occupying our streets, that’s what weakens our nation. That is what erodes belief in each regulation enforcement and in democracy itself. So, to everybody listening, stand with Minneapolis. Stand up for America. Recognize that your youngsters will ask you: What facet you have been on? Your grandchildren will ask you what you probably did to behave to forestall this from occurring once more, to guarantee that the foundational parts of our democracy have been rock stable. What did you do to guard your metropolis? What did you do to guard your nation?
This isn’t what America is about. This isn’t a partisan situation. This is an American situation. This administration, and everybody concerned on this operation must be reflecting. They must be reflecting proper now, and asking themselves, what precisely are you undertaking? If the purpose was to realize peace and security, that is doing precisely the other. If the purpose was to realize calm and prosperity, that is doing precisely the other. Are you standing up for American households proper now or are we tearing them aside?
The invasion of those closely armed masked brokers roaming round on our streets of Minneapolis, emboldened with a sense of impunity, it has to finish. This isn’t the way it must be.
So, to President Trump, that is a second to behave like a chief. Put Minneapolis, put America first on this second. Let’s obtain peace. Let’s finish this operation; and I’m telling you, our metropolis will come again, security can be restored. We’re asking so that you can take motion now to take away these federal brokers.
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With that, the mayor known as on Sayre, the director of the Emergency Management Department for the City of Minneapolis, to deal with the chaos that unfolded because the starting of the Trump administration’s huge Operation Metro Surge, which is concentrating on the town’s immigrant communities.
Describing “the terror and the feeling of helplessness” of the individuals of Minneapolis, Sayre added, “My background is in international humanitarian response in conflict zones. In Yemen, Haiti, Syria, Iraq, and Ukraine. What I’ve seen here is what I’ve seen there. A powerful entity violently and intentionally terrorizing people, making them afraid to go outside so they can’t earn a living, so that kids are forced out of school. This has a lasting generational impact. People can’t plan a single day of their lives because they don’t know who is around the corner and if their family member or a neighbor is about to be taken away.”
John Nichols
John Nichols is the chief editor of The Nation. He beforehand served because the journal’s nationwide affairs correspondent and Washington correspondent. Nichols has written, cowritten, or edited over a dozen books on subjects starting from histories of American socialism and the Democratic Party to analyses of US and world media techniques. His newest, cowritten with Senator Bernie Sanders, is the New York Times bestseller It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism.
