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Minneapolis Mayor Faces Heat Over ICE Remarks
Clear Facts
- Mayor Jacob Frey made explicit comments telling ICE agents to leave Minneapolis after an ICE-involved fatal shooting.
- During a national interview, Frey defended his remarks and criticized ICE practices, citing alleged unconstitutional enforcement targeting Somali and Latino communities.
- Frey maintained his priority is for city police to focus on violent crime, not immigration enforcement, and reaffirmed support for Minneapolis’s sanctuary city stance.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey faced questions on national television over his strong comments aimed at Immigration and Customs Enforcement following a controversial fatal incident.
Frey told ICE to “get the fuck out of Minneapolis” on the day an agent fatally shot Renee Good, who reportedly accelerated her car toward the officer.
When asked by NBC’s Kristen Welker if he was responsible for reducing tensions amid citywide anti-ICE protests, Frey responded,
“Of course, I bear responsibility to bring down the temperature, that’s part of my role as mayor. And, by the way, protests here in Minneapolis are peaceful.”
He added,
“And, you know, to those that are offended, I’m sorry I offended their delicate ears.”
Frey continued,
“I dropped an F-bomb and they killed somebody,”
reiterating his earlier statement.
He argued,
“I think the killing somebody is the inflammatory element here, not the F-bomb, which I’m sure we’ve all heard before.”
Welker pressed about earlier anti-ICE statements. In December 2025, Frey claimed increased ICE presence under the Trump administration made him fear for residents’ safety.
Welker also asked if Frey supports abolishing ICE. He clarified,
“Well, first off, I did not say that ICE enforcement was unconstitutional. What I said is the way that they are doing it is unconstitutional.”
Frey alleged that enforcement actions were based on ethnicity, saying,
“You can’t come into a city and discriminate solely on the basis of, ‘Are you Latino?’ or ‘Are you Somali?’ and then randomly pick people up off the street after that.”
He further claimed,
“We have had pregnant women dragged through the street,”
and said teenage citizens had been wrongly detained.
He stated,
“You can’t just detain somebody because they look like they are Somali or they look like they are Latino. To be very clear for the whole country, that is what is happening right now.”
Welker cited Trump official Tom Homan’s concerns that Minneapolis’s sanctuary city policies are hampering ICE efforts.
Frey replied,
“Look, what our policy says is that I don’t want our police officers spending time working with ICE on immigration enforcement. Because why? That’s not our primary job. You know what I want our police officers doing? I want them stopping murders from happening. I want them preventing carjackings.”
He added,
“You know what I don’t want them doing? I don’t want them spending a single second hunting down a father who just dropped his kids off at day care, is about to go work a 12-hour shift, who happened to be from Ecuador. That guy, he makes Minneapolis a better place, and I am proud to have him in our city. So, I want our officers focusing on safety, not randomly plucking people off the street and hunting them down.”
Frey’s emergence as a distinct figure among Minneapolis’s Somali community was noted after defeating a Somali-American socialist challenger in his 2025 reelection bid.
He received attention after awkwardly eating a Somali dish during a PR event, soon after reports alleged a massive fraud scheme in Minnesota’s Somali community directed funds to the radical group Al-Shabaab.
Back in 2020, Frey was criticized for kneeling at George Floyd’s casket, seen by critics as political posturing.
Stay informed as city leadership and federal enforcement continue to clash over immigration priorities.
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