After pledging to deescalate tensions in Minnesota, President Donald Trump kicked off Wednesday by taking aim at the mayor of Minneapolis, asserting — incorrectly — that declining to enforce federal immigration laws is unlawful.
Legal analysts and administration critics have warned that the moves the president made this week in the wake of the second deadly shooting of a U.S. citizen by federal agents were simply a change in tone — not in strategy or tactics, and not an actual pivot. Trump has recalled Greg Bovino, the head of Operation Metro Surge, from Minneapolis, and sent in border czar Tom Homan.
“Surprisingly,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, “Mayor Jacob Frey just stated that, ‘Minneapolis does not, and will not, enforce Federal Immigration Laws.’ This is after having had a very good conversation with him.”
“Could somebody in his inner sanctum please explain that this statement is a very serious violation of the Law, and that he is PLAYING WITH FIRE!” the president declared.
The president declared Frey’s stance is unlawful but legal experts note that cities and states generally cannot be forced to carry out federal immigration enforcement.
Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance noted that “the feds can’t ‘commandeer’ state law enforcement resources to execute their policies.”
She also called the president’s statement, “More evidence Trump isn’t changing course on mass deportations.”
Politico senior legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney offered some additional insight.
“Trump could not have designed a better statement to convince Judge Menendez that Operation Metro Surge is meant to coerce policy changes,” Cheney wrote.
He noted that courts have “ruled repeatedly” that the federal government “cannot coerce states to enforce federal law.”
“Nor is it illegal for states to decline to do so,” Cheney added.
“And the menacing ‘playing with fire’ is exactly the kind of statement (‘retribution is coming’) that worked against the administration in court earlier this week,” he added.
Indeed, ABC News interviewed the president on Tuesday and reported that Trump was suggesting federal agents would take a “more relaxed” approach in Minnesota after the two deadly shootings.
Trump said, “we can start doing maybe a little bit more relaxed,” and, “we’d like to finish the job and finish it well, and I think we can do it in a de-escalated form.”
ABC called it “a shift in tone.”
The New Republic’s Greg Sargent wrote on Wednesday, “The media narrative that Trump is ‘pivoting’ and ‘deescalating’ on his ICE raids … is wildly overstated. As long as the military occupations and the treatment of US cities as enemy territory continue, there’s no pivot. It’s that simple.”
“Trump wants to appear eager to minimize clashes between his govt militias and protesters. But he doesn’t want them to stop doing the things that are causing the clashes in the first place,” he continued. “There’s no Trump ‘pivot’ until we see real investigations into the government’s killings and real accountability for them.”