As elected officials in Minnesota have desperately sought to persuade the Trump administration to end an immigration crackdown, Dawanna Witt, the sheriff of Hennepin County, finds herself in a pivotal spot.
The jail she runs in Minneapolis is the largest in the state and the only one that refuses, as a matter of policy, to assist in any way with federal immigration enforcement.
The approach is broadly supported by her constituents, Sheriff Witt said in an interview. But the sheriff said she had been agonizing over whether allowing some measure of cooperation with the federal authorities in their push for deportations might serve a broader good.
“I don’t think that Donald Trump or Tom Homan are going to leave without feeling like they have some sort of win,” Sheriff Witt said, referring to the White House border czar, who has been newly assigned to oversee the crackdown in Minnesota. “I don’t ever want to be put in a position that I had the power to make them leave and another one of our citizens gets killed.”
Speaking in her office in downtown Minneapolis this week, Sheriff Witt looked weary.
The showdown over immigration enforcement between the Trump administration and elected Democrats in Minnesota has left Sheriff Witt under tremendous pressure from all sides.
Sheriff Witt is a defendant in a lawsuit the Department of Justice filed in September, which argues that policies that restrict sharing of information with immigration officials amount to unlawful obstruction of federal law enforcement functions. The Justice Department argued that her jail’s policy “unlawfully discriminates against the federal government” and violates the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.
At the same time, Hennepin County residents have flooded the sheriff’s email inbox and her cellphone with a torrent of angry messages expressing outrage over the role her deputies have played in protecting a federal building at the center of the immigration operation. Some of the messages have been threatening.
The tumult has prevented Sheriff Witt, who is running for re-election this fall, from starting a proper campaign. She has spent much of the past week consulting with experts and confidants about the trade-offs if she were to shift policies and begin to notify U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials about the imminent releases of inmates who are subject to deportation.
“I am well aware that if I make the decision to notify, it could hurt my chances of being re-elected,” Sheriff Witt said, speaking publicly for the first time about the political dilemma she is experiencing. “But at least I could look at myself and say that I did what I thought was right to keep people safe.”
The Trump administration announced earlier this week that it would start withdrawing 700 federal agents from Minnesota, leaving behind about 2,000. In an interview with NBC News, President Trump said immigration enforcement in the state would continue to be “tough” until local officials provided broader access to immigrants in custody. “We are waiting for them to release prisoners,” the president said.
After starting an immigration crackdown called Operation Metro Surge in early December, the Department of Homeland Security has portrayed elected officials in Minnesota as enablers of violent immigrants, though state officials say the characterization is wildly misleading.
The Minnesota Department of Corrections routinely transfers inmates who are subject to deportation to ICE custody upon completion of their sentences. The range of cooperation with federal immigration officials from the state’s 87 county sheriffs, who run local jails, varies widely. At least seven of them have formal agreements with ICE, including some who provide bed space in their jails for people in deportation proceedings. Many share information with ICE agents about the custody status of people who are subject to deportation.
The main outlier is Hennepin County. For years, the Hennepin County jail allowed ICE to keep an office in the facility, which assisted with the transfer of people who were subject to deportation orders. Sheriff Witt’s predecessor, Dave Hutchinson, removed ICE from the jail and ended the practice of sharing information with the agency after he took office in 2019.
Sheriff Witt, who at the time ran the jail, oversaw the implementation of the shift. It was adopted for good reasons, she said. The perception that local law enforcement agencies might aid the federal authorities on immigration matters makes some residents reluctant to report crimes, she said.
Her deputies have a punishing workload, including tracking down thousands of fugitives with outstanding arrest warrants. And in the past, courts have sometimes fined counties after finding that local sheriffs detained people longer than was deemed appropriate while waiting for ICE to pick them up.
“No sheriff should be putting themselves on the line to get sued, because it’s our county taxpayers that are paying for each and every one of those lawsuits,” Sheriff Witt said.
Sheriff Witt said she had met with Mr. Homan last week. She said that she had been exploring a range of approaches that might satisfy the White House. If ICE feels strongly about keeping people who are facing serious charges in custody pending trial, she said, federal officials should charge them in federal court. Generally, ICE sends jails administrative requests to hold detainees briefly until they can be transferred to its custody.
The sheriff said she was open to the possibility of transferring immigrants who were facing trial for serious crimes such as murder or rape to jails in the state that hold contracts with ICE. She said she was also considering providing ICE with information about inmates who had been charged with violent crimes, which she said might be “palatable for our community.”
But Sheriff Witt said she worried about enabling the deportation of people who had minor run-ins with the law. She said she was also concerned about the possibility that ICE could deport people before they stood trial on serious matters, depriving victims of their day in court.
Even if she makes a politically risky concession to the White House, Sheriff Witt said, there is no guarantee that it would end the crackdown in the Twin Cities. Sheriff Witt, who prides herself on being accessible to constituents, said residents’ anger over the immigration operation had consumed her days.
People have been leaving furious voice mail messages accusing her deputies of abetting federal agents. A leaflet posted in the building where she lives called her a traitor, she said. Not long ago, someone stuffed a garbage can under her cruiser.
Sheriff Witt said she owed it to her constituents to make a decision in the days ahead. Her goal, she said, is settling on an approach that is most likely to keep Minnesotans safe.
“I am not going to make a hasty decision,” she said. “This is important and affects so many people’s lives.”
Ernesto Londoño is a Times reporter based in Minnesota, covering news in the Midwest and drug use and counternarcotics policy. He welcomes tips and can be reached at elondono.81 on Signal.
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