Residents in his city are asking local police to fight federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents “on the street,” but he simply doesn’t have enough police officers to do so, Democrat Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said Wednesday night.
Mayor Frey was speaking at an impromptu press conference following an incident earlier in the evening in which an ICE agent shot one of the three people who were pummeling him, one with a shovel. The altercation took place after an illegal alien fleeing arrest crashed his vehicle and was then joined by two others who helped attack the officer, who shot one of the three in the leg in self-defense.
“We are in a position right now where we have residents that are asking the very limited number of police officers that we have to fight ICE agents on the street. To stand by their neighbors,” Mayor Frey said, referring to an ongoing Department of Homeland Security (DHS) operation rounding up illegal aliens in his city and state.
At this time (“right now”), Minneapolis isn’t in a position to be “literally fighting” federal agents, Frey explained:
“We cannot be at a place right now in America where we have two governmental entities that are literally fighting one another.”
Minneapolis can’t afford to be put in the position of fighting the federal agents enforcing the nation’s immigration laws because the city’s police are greatly outnumbered by federal ICE agents, Mayor Frey explained:
“We are put in this position because we have approximately 600 police officers in Minneapolis, far fewer that are able to work at any given time.
“There are approximately 3,000 I.C.E. agents in the area – 3,000.”
In addition to being outnumbered five-to-one, Minneapolis police officers are unable to fight federal law enforcement on the street because they have to fight crime in the city, Frey said:
“The 600 police officers that we have are charged on any given day with investigating crime, stopping homicides from taking place, preventing carjackings – that is the work of a police officer in the city.”
“Meanwhile, we have ICE agents throughout our city and throughout our state who, along with Border Control, are creating chaos,” Mayor Frey said, vilifying federal agents enforcing federal immigration law.
According to the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, federal law trump’s state and local laws, such as those designed to protect aliens who are illegally present in the U.S.
