Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis knows that what is playing out on the streets of his city will have profound implications for the whole country. Since December, thousands of federal agents have arrived in Minneapolis, as part of an immigration enforcement effort that the Department of Homeland Security has named “Operation Metro Surge.” Since then, Frey has had to shepherd a city rived by protests, infuriated by the killings of two American citizens at the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, and shaken by an aggressive federal action that has left some residents afraid to leave their homes.
I spoke to Frey on Thursday afternoon, not long after Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan — who has been dispatched to Minneapolis to replace and clean up after the operation’s original commander Gregory Bovino — promised to de-escalate the situation there. He said in a news conference that there would be a drawdown of agents, only to have President Trump later deny that there was any plan to pull back.
Protests against ICE have now spread nationwide, and congressional Democrats are pushing for reform of an immigration enforcement agency that they say is out of control. The federal government is promising to crack down on the protesters, and the Justice Department is already investigating both Frey and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota for what it says is a conspiracy to impede federal immigration agents.
While there are many differing opinions on what is happening in Minneapolis, it’s clear that this confrontation between the federal government, a state and its people is at an inflection point. Frey and I talked about how the conflict was playing out on the ground, where it might be headed and the long-term impact on his city and the country.
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I want to start our conversation by asking about a phone call that you had with President Trump earlier this week. I’d love to get your sense of that conversation. Never in a million years did I think that I would be having a phone call with President Trump about this large-scale invasion that we’re experiencing in the city that I love. None of this feels normal. I had a reach-out from the chief of staff, Susie Wiles, saying that the president was looking to talk to me. We had already reached out maybe a couple of weeks prior looking to have some form of audience with the president so that we could explain how damaging Operation Metro Surge has been to Minneapolis. A call was scheduled. It was a relatively collegial conversation. He was flattering at first.
Flattering how? What did he say? He said that I was impressive on the television, in different words I’m sure. I made a clear ask that Operation Metro Surge needed to end, and without getting into too many specifics, I will tell you there was broad recognition that the present status is not OK, that what is happening needs to change. And, of course, there were some changes made in terms of who was leading the operation in Minneapolis, a shift from a combination of Bovino and [Kristi] Noem to Homan. But as far as massive changes in this operation, I’ll believe it when I see it. The troops and the federal agents need to be drawn down entirely. This operation needs to end because it has been devastating to the people that I care about and love in my city.
The president initially said you had a good call and was pretty complimentary in public. But he [later] posted that you were “playing with fire” for not being willing to enforce federal immigration laws, which sounds like a warning. How did you take those words? We were never going to agree, and we have not agreed, to enforce federal immigration law. Why? It’s not our job. I want our police officers doing their own work, not somebody else’s. I want our police officers doing the important work of keeping Minneapolis residents safe, responding to 911 calls, stopping carjackings, preventing murders. The work of a police officer in a major city. You know what I don’t want them doing? I don’t want them spending a single minute hunting down a father that just dropped his kids off at day care who’s about to go work a 12-hour shift, who happens to be from Ecuador.
And, by the way, this is not some wild, out there, radical-leftist principle. This is a concept that even Rudy Giuliani as mayor of New York City adopted because he wants everybody, including people that are undocumented, to feel comfortable calling 911 when something goes down. If you see a crime, call 911. Rudy Giuliani, the radical-leftist Rudy, recognized that when he was mayor.
As you mentioned, after that call, border czar Tom Homan was dispatched to Minneapolis to replace Gregory Bovino, who had been running the operation. Homan gave a press conference where he described interactions with local leaders, including you, as moving in the right direction. The word that has been used is “de-escalation.” I’m unclear what that de-escalation actually looks like because what the federal government has been asking for is that cooperation, and you’re saying it’s not going to come. So what is it going to, practically speaking, look like if, indeed, things are going to de-escalate in your city? Let’s talk about what cooperation could look like. We do cooperate with this federal administration and with previous federal administrations on keeping people safe in our city. So if the goal is to drive down homicides and go after murderers, let’s do it. We have worked with the F.B.I. and the D.E.A. and the A.T.F. and the U.S. attorney’s office and successfully driven down crime, and specifically shootings, to record lows on the north side of Minneapolis. We’re willing to do that work right now. If they want to have strategic and thoughtful work that is targeted at criminals, the answer is yes. But why does this have to be about immigration? Why does it have to be about whether a person has brown-colored skin or not?
Well the point that they’re making is that this is about immigration enforcement, which is obviously part of the federal government’s job and always has been. So the question is, what are they asking for and what are you willing to give, and vice versa? As far as de-escalation goes, they are saying that they will draw down the resources and personnel that they have located in our city, which, by the way, is ridiculous and incredibly disproportionate. We’ve got 600 police officers. They have between 3,000 and 4,000 federal agents. They are saying, and I’m hopeful that they are being honest and candid, that those numbers will be significantly drawn down. They are saying that the way that ICE and Border Patrol have been conducting themselves will change dramatically. So not these marauding gangs of guys just walking down the street indiscriminately picking people up, but having more of a targeted operation. This is not about ICE doing regular ICE stuff. What we have seen feels like an invasion.
I’m sure you’ve heard that a judge has said that ICE has violated nearly 100 court orders since its crackdown began in Minneapolis, which makes me wonder if you think you can enforce any agreement with Homan and the federal government? That’s the most dangerous question that anybody can ask because we are in a world of hurt that goes way beyond any individual safety if we are talking about a federal government completely ignoring court orders. This is a foundational principle of our Republic. The battlefield that we fight on as municipalities and cities around the country isn’t one of warfare. It’s one of the law. The battlefield that we are going to win on is the law, and a precondition of that necessary fight is that once the law has been determined and a court order comes down, it’s going to be followed. This is something that I get really intense and really pissed off about. This is not optional. You follow the law. We should have everybody, Democrats and Republicans, losing it. It should be deeply concerning, not from an ideological perspective but from an American one.
What are the options if they don’t do that? The options you don’t even want to think about. I mean, I see where you’re leading me. This is the concern, and I don’t even want to think about what it means if court orders themselves are literally disregarded.
I want to take a step back and talk about how we got to this moment. Since President Trump came back into office, ICE and C.B.P. have arrived in many cities with differing outcomes. What was the moment that you realized that Minneapolis was becoming the face of the fight between the federal government and blue states? It’s a realization that is still occurring today. I came [to D.C.] today, went to the U.S. Conference of Mayors. They all know what’s going on. I talked to a bunch of senators, and they’re very cleareyed about what is taking place in the city that I love. And so, I’d say it’s a gradual realization, but a lot of that realization came just in the last several hours. Not that I didn’t know it, but it hits you in full. The other realization, I guess, came when we started hearing about a massive deployment coming to Minneapolis. At the time, it was to go after our Somali community, which I found then and find now to be completely nuts.
This is off the back of the scandal over fraud at the state level. That’s right. I remember thinking there was this massive disjoint. Go after the fraudsters. There was a substantial amount of fraud that has taken place in Minnesota. To be very clear, it’s real. It happened.
And, in fact, one of your aides was prosecuted for that. It’s very real, and when fraud like that takes place, you investigate, charge, arrest, and the fraudster goes to jail as an individual. You don’t hold an entire community or, good lord, an entire city accountable for the actions of some. There was this broad-scale attack specifically on our Somali community, and I’m speculating that somebody from pretty high up in the Trump administration said, Go to Minneapolis, arrest and deport a bunch of Somalis. And there wasn’t the proper pushback on the directive, only for them to get here and realize they’re American citizens, they’re here legally. They got here on a plane. They got to Minneapolis on Delta.
And so obviously then they diverted and started targeting our Latino community and our Southeast Asian community. Next thing you know, you’ve got thousands of federal agents in Minneapolis, not around safety, not even around immigration, but to create a political narrative. To have this political retribution instituted in a city where you’ve got a local mayor and a governor that do not agree with the president’s agenda.
I want to turn to the people of Minneapolis themselves. We’ve seen a real network of protests spring up. Gov. Tim Walz has called on people to videotape ICE agents. That is, of course, legal, but do you agree that politicians should be encouraging that? Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Our police officers have body cameras. They like using the body cameras because it also protects them. If they do the right thing, they know that they’re going to get supported, and they know it’ll be visible to both their bosses, the chain of command and the broader public. So do I support people actively recording what’s taking place in public? Yeah, I support that, absolutely. I mean, it’s called “in public” for a reason.
Imagine if we didn’t have some of these recordings. Imagine if the shooting that took place recently of Alex Pretti was not recorded for everybody to see. Then we’d be running with these garbage narratives that are created by the federal government that are false, and we’d all be living in a lie.
Those videos have, indeed, been crucial. It’s how many people saw what happened to Renee Good, Alex Pretti. But critics accuse the protesters of impeding ICE operations. And I’m just curious what you think about the tactics that have been employed. Well, there’s a difference between impeding and videotaping.
Haven’t we seen both? Yes, we have. What I am advocating for and what I believe Governor Walz said was, By all means, whip out your cellphone and take a video. The action of having something recorded is not a physical impediment, perhaps a moral one. And I want that moral impediment there.
One of the things that also struck me about the protest movement is how it’s really shown the limits of what politicians can do, especially at a local level. Earlier this week, Anderson Cooper from CNN interviewed Stella Carlson, a woman who captured video of Alex Pretti being shot and killed, and she said, “I think people are feeling like there’s nobody here to help us, there’s nobody who can step in to protect us.” What would you say to that? First, let me applaud the tens of thousands of people in Minneapolis and in Minnesota that have been standing up for their neighbors. Perhaps that’s a phrase that gets overly used, “standing up for your neighbors,” but they are doing it in such beautiful form, whether that’s encouraging constitutional conduct through videotaping and transparency or taking your neighbor that is terrified to go outside to the grocery store or collecting food and giving it to them or standing watch outside of a day care. I mean, we have seen so many people stand up for their neighbors, and I’ve never been prouder to be part of Minneapolis.
Of course there are limitations on what we’re able to do at any level of government. And there are also those limitations that are not just baked in under the law, but also baked in on the practical reality of where we find ourselves right now.
Explain. We’re not going to outgun the federal government. Not to mention that would be wildly dangerous for the very communities that we want to protect. Nobody wants that. Now, fortunately, we don’t need to fight in a physical format. We can fight in a legal one. We can have the law be the court and the battlefield. And we believe that we’re on the right side of it, and we believe it’s a battle that we are going to win.
A lot of the focus has been on what’s happening to American citizens in Minneapolis. But, of course, the government says that this is about immigration and rounding up those who are here illegally. Do you know how many people have been arrested and how many have been actually identified? What do you know about who’s been rounded up? Not enough, is the answer. Look, we get regular reports, oftentimes multiple times per day, where we get readouts of those that have been reported through 911. We get readouts of interactions that we’ve seen or heard about on the street. But do I know the precise number of people that have been impacted? No, it’s way too many.
Staying with the protesters, though: Homan, at his press conference, promised that “justice is coming.” I’ve heard those on the right describe the protesters as a mob. We’ve seen the words “domestic terrorist” used. We know the federal government has been gathering information on the protesters. What do you think happens with all that information? What happens next? I don’t know that I can predict entirely what happens next. We are big proponents of First Amendment speech in Minneapolis. People live by it. They are First Amendment enthusiasts. Protests are a fairly normal thing. Your First Amendment rights stop at the next person’s nose, and we’ve made that very clear. And where people have crossed the line — and it has happened, including last night — they’re arrested.
But we are seeing the Department of Justice weaponized against people that have done nothing wrong. We are seeing conclusions drawn from interactions that took place that were entirely peaceful. Alex Pretti was filming with his camera. He was trying to help a woman that was in need. At no point was he threatening federal agents during that interaction. And, nonetheless, they try to concoct a narrative that just is false.
I just want to note that there’s been new videos circulating that show Alex Pretti spitting at and kicking an ICE vehicle 11 days before he was killed. Do you think that changes anything about his case? Not the killing. I mean, are we saying that something that happened 11 days prior justified a fatal shooting 11 days later? That doesn’t make a lot of sense.
You know, you have had a pretty difficult run as mayor. This is your third term. Since you became mayor in 2018, you’ve had to deal with a global pandemic. Then in the midst of that, George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis. At that time, you got a lot of criticism from the more progressive left for refusing to abolish the Police Department, which became a real rallying cry. Your position has aged pretty well politically because the Democratic Party writ large has moved away from that position. I’m wondering if that’s on your mind at this moment, as there are calls to abolish ICE. Yeah, at least from my political past, I have a history of being right a little bit too early. Over time, the position that I had, which was deep reform and change to a Police Department that needed it, is now the position that virtually everybody holds. By the way, they have reformed, and they have changed, and they’re getting credit from some of that Police Department’s biggest critics traditionally, especially when you look at the juxtaposition between the way they act and the community relations that they’ve built and the way that ICE is conducting themselves. Now, of course, there’s this call to abolish ICE.
And how do you feel about that call? I think we’re talking by each other in a massive way. I have heard righteous calls for a top-to-bottom shift in how ICE is operating, and they are right. I have heard that some of the awful conduct and personnel that has permeated this ICE department needs to get uprooted and kicked out, and they’re right. I’ve heard calls that they need to shift ICE from the Department of Homeland Security over to the Department of Justice, and I think there’s a lot of merit to that, as well. But unless the argument is that we should get rid of immigration law entirely, which I do not agree with, then you do need some mechanism to enforce. You obviously need to change the personnel and the conduct, which has been egregious. But outside of that, do I favor just getting rid of all immigration and customs enforcement? No, I don’t.
And, by the way, I’m not in charge of these decisions, either. I fill potholes! I’m the mayor. And I try to operate in reality because, as mayors, we make decisions that have an impact. You can’t just sign on to catchphrases and have that be an effective way of governance.
Earlier this week, Attorney General Pam Bondi told Governor Walz that he could help bring the situation to an end by turning over voter registration records. What do you make of that? Why are those two things connected? That is wildly unconstitutional. We should all be standing up and saying that’s not OK. Literally, listen to what they’re saying. Active threats like, Turn over the voter rolls or else, or we will continue to do what we’re doing. That’s something you can do in America now.
You’ve heard Stephen Miller talk about how essentially might is right. “Might is right” is apparently a phrase that he believes in on the international level as it applies to Greenland, Venezuela. But is this also being carried out in cities around the country, where the federal government can use its awesome and incredible military power and strength to roll over a city and make local politicians obey on locally enacted policies? Is this the kind of thing where they can carry out a national plan by coercing localities to do exactly what they want? That’s the kind of bullying and intimidation that is deeply concerning.
The undercurrent is that the Trump administration has opened a criminal investigation into you and Governor Walz, alleging that you conspired to impede federal agents. As far as you know, where does it stand? I don’t know. There has been a subpoena that was sent to the Office of the Mayor. That we would have a federal investigation targeting me and Governor Walz and others for doing something that is, by the way, a core responsibility of mine? It’s written into our city charter that I have an obligation to speak on behalf of my constituents. If that’s the charge then, hey, yeah, I do speak on behalf of my constituents.
Have you gotten a lawyer yet? Yes.
Are you afraid that this could end up with you in prison? I’ve got faith in the institutions that we have in America. At the same time, look, I’d be lying if I told you that it wasn’t disconcerting. Of course it’s disconcerting when you’ve got the Department of Justice going after you. It’s garbage. It’s complete B.S. I am confident, and at the same time, I have concerns. I’m a dad. I’ve got a 6-month-old. I’ve got a 5-year-old. She largely doesn’t know what’s going on right now, but someday we’ll tell her, and when we do, I want to be able to tell her that our great city and I, as mayor, weren’t intimidated by this.
I can hear how much you care about your city. And this federal operation has clearly terrified many of your constituents, regardless of their immigration status. Some have not left their homes in weeks. Children are staying home from school. People are too afraid to go to the doctor. Even if there’s a drawdown of federal agents and it goes back to the way it was before, rebuilding trust is clearly going to be a huge task. How do you plan to do that? We’ve been building trust in this city, both since 2020 and even before. We’ve been building trust with our Police Department, building trust with government. We’ve tried to do the necessary reparation to make sure that the precision of our solutions matches the precision of the harm that was initially inflicted. Obviously, there’s a hell of a lot of repair that needs to be done with the trust that has been damaged by this federal government.
At the same time, I’ve heard a lot of renewed confidence in our Police Department. This is a department that, needless to say, has not always been an emblem of community trust. There are so many elected officials locally and in our state that have stood up in ways that are inspiring. The biggest inspiration obviously comes from the people. I get teary every time I talk about this, but it’s really amazing. The way the people have stood up for each other.
In my lifetime, I have not seen such an explicit fight between federal and state authorities. People see this and it makes them worry about the state of the country. Governor Walz gave an interview this week to The Atlantic where he compared what is happening to your city to that first battle of the Civil War at Fort Sumter. I’m wondering what you make of that comparison. I don’t think he’s saying that the Civil War is going to happen. I think what he’s saying is that a significant and terrifying line is being crossed. And I would agree with that. We can’t go down that route. We need to unify as a country, and I think that’s exactly what so many people are calling on us to do right now.
A lot of it is also recognizing the history from which we’ve come and not to turn our back on it. It’s one of the oldest clichés in the book to say we’re a country of immigrants. And you come to this country with a recognition that there is that kind of freedom and stability, where you don’t have a fear of a war being fought based on different ideological perspectives. So I think it’s on all of us to stand up right now to do right. It’s on us as Democratic mayors to show that Democratically run cities can work. It’s on us to take care of the basics and do them very well. And it’s on the whole country again to love this nation more than you love your respective ideology.
This interview has been edited and condensed. Listen to and follow “The Interview” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, iHeartRadio, or Amazon Music
Lulu Garcia-Navarro is a writer and co-host of The Interview, a series focused on interviewing the world’s most fascinating people.
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