By Heather Schlitz and Bo Erickson
MINNEAPOLIS, Jan 22 (Reuters) – Vice President JD Vance will visit Minneapolis on Thursday to show support for U.S. immigration agents, whose aggressive tactics have drawn weeks of outcry since an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot dead Renee Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen and mother of three.
Tensions appeared unlikely to subside after school officials in a nearby suburb said ICE agents had detained a 5-year-old boy. Federal authorities showed little sign of softening their approach, announcing on Thursday the arrest of two people in connection with a protest that disrupted a church service in St. Paul on Sunday.
Minneapolis has remained on edge as heavily armed federal officers roam the streets, rounding up suspects they assert are dangerous criminal immigration violators while sometimes ensnaring law-abiding U.S. citizens. They have been met with throngs of demonstrators conducting their own patrols, blowing warning whistles and chanting at the agents.
4 CHILDREN DETAINED THIS MONTH: SCHOOL
In Columbia Heights, a Minneapolis suburb, school officials said at a press conference that immigration officers had detained at least four children this month, including a 5-year-old boy on Tuesday.
A Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, Tricia McLaughlin, said ICE had not targeted the child but his father, who she said left his son behind when he fled on foot after agents attempted to stop him. An officer remained with the child for his safety while others arrested the man, she added.
Parents targeted by ICE are asked if they want their children to be placed with someone they designate or removed with their parents, she said. She did not address the school district’s allegation that three other children were detained.
Separately, Trump administration officials said on Thursday they had arrested at least two people involved in a demonstration that interrupted a Sunday service in a St. Paul church, where protesters alleged a pastor has been assisting ICE.
FBI Director Kash Patel said one of the organizers was charged with violating a federal law that bars physical obstruction of reproductive health centers and houses of worship.
VANCE’S LEADING ROLE IN DEFENDING ICE
Vance has taken a leading role in defending the Minnesota ICE shooting. Less than 24 hours after Good’s death, Vance made a rare appearance in the White House briefing room, where he defended the officer involved, blamed the woman who was killed, and said the incident should be a political test ahead of the 2026 midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.
Even some Republican supporters have grown wary of President Donald Trump’s approach to immigration enforcement, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll.
But the administration has expressed no intention of backing down after Trump deployed some 3,000 federal law enforcement officers to the Minneapolis area in what DHS described as its largest immigration operation ever. The city is the latest Democratic-leaning jurisdiction that Trump has targeted with a federal show of force.
Trump has said he acted partly in response to fraud allegations against some members of the state’s sizable Somali American community; the president has described Somali immigrants as “garbage” and said they should be thrown out of the country.
While Trump officials say the operations are a necessary response to lax Democratic policies on immigration, local Democratic leaders have accused ICE agents of racial profiling and argued that Trump is intentionally fomenting chaos to justify his aggression.
In a speech in Toledo, Ohio, on Thursday, ahead of flying to Minneapolis, Vance blamed protesters for the unrest.
“If you want to turn down the chaos in Minneapolis, stop fighting immigration enforcement and accept that we have to have a border in this country,” he said. “It’s not that hard.”
Vance is scheduled to host a roundtable event with local leaders and community members in Minneapolis, where he will discuss “restoring law and order in Minnesota” and meet with officers in a show of support, the White House said.
The vice president is also planning to discuss Trump’s vow to cut off federal funding from sanctuary cities that do not cooperate with the administration’s immigration crackdown, starting on February 1.
‘POLITICAL THEATER’
Richard Carlbom, chair of Minnesota’s Democratic Party, said he hopes Vance will promote calm but fears political agitation.
“I think he is simply coming here for political theater. This entire situation we’re being faced with is a retribution campaign by him and the president of the United States against Minnesotans,” Carlbom told Reuters.
Trump faulted Minnesota’s leaders during his speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, saying, “We actually are helping Minnesota so much, but they don’t appreciate it.”
Patty O’Keefe, a 36-year-old Minnesotan and non-profit worker who was pepper-sprayed and detained by federal agents in January after documenting ICE movements in the city, did not welcome Vance’s visit.
“He’s calling for law and order when it’s his federal agents who are creating chaos and escalating violence,” O’Keefe said. “His divisive rhetoric is not welcome here.”
The president and the White House have tied the ICE operation to allegations of welfare fraud in the state. Since 2022, at least 56 people have pleaded guilty, according to the Justice Department.
“Minnesota reminds us that the West cannot mass import foreign cultures,” Trump said in Davos.
(Reporting by Heather Schlitz in Minneapolis and Bo Erickson in Washington; Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu, Gram Slattery and Andrew Goudsward; Writing by Daniel Trotta and Joseph Ax; editing by Scott Malone, Deepa Babington, Rod Nickel)
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