(The Center Square) – As tensions continue to rise in Minneapolis and immigration officials ratchet up enforcement, President Donald Trump announced a potential breakthrough in a stalemate between Trump and Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
Trump said Walz reached out to him, requesting the two work together, amid growing protests following the second death of a demonstrator involving federal law enforcement officials in Minneapolis in recent weeks.
Despite the mudslinging between the men, the president described the call as “very good,” adding that the two appear to be on a “similar wavelength.”
Trump, who announced border czar Tom Homan would be sent to Minneapolis Monday, said in a Truth Social post that Homan would be reaching out to Walz in an effort to obtain “criminals that they have in their possession.”
“The Governor, very respectfully, understood that, and I will be speaking to him in the near future. He was happy that Tom Homan was going to Minnesota,” the president posted.
During a press briefing at the White House, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt expanded on the Trump administration’s demands for Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.
Leavitt said the White House is demanding that the Democratic leaders “turn over all criminal illegal aliens currently incarcerated in their prisons and jails,” in addition to “any illegal aliens with active warrants or known criminal history of immediate deportation.”
The second demand is that local and state law enforcement “must agree to turn over all illegal aliens who are arrested by local police.” The third calls on local law enforcement to assist federal authorities in “apprehending and detaining illegal aliens who are wanted for crimes.”
“If Governor Walz and Mayor Frey implement these commonsense cooperative measures that I would add have already been implemented in nearly every single other state across the country, Customs and Border Patrol will not be needed to support ICE on the ground in Minnesota. Ice and local law enforcement can peacefully work together, as they are effectively doing in so many other states and jurisdictions,” Leavitt said during the briefing.
In a social media post, Walz confirmed the conversation, which he characterized as productive; however, he appeared to clap back at the White House’s claims that his state isn’t cooperating with federal immigration authorities in commentary he penned in the Wall Street Journal, claiming his corrections department “honors all immigration detainers.”
