President Donald Trump and his top officials have repeatedly complained that Minnesota state and local leaders will not cooperate with his administration’s immigration enforcement.
On Jan. 25, the day after federal immigration agents fatally shot Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Trump called on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and other Democrats “to formally cooperate with the Trump Administration to enforce our Nation’s Laws, rather than resist and stoke the flames of Division, Chaos, and Violence.”
Administration officials say that Minnesota won’t turn over immigrants in detention to federal law enforcement.
Pretti was one of two U.S. citizens killed by immigration officials in Minneapolis in the span of about two weeks. Renee Good was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer on Jan. 7.
White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt said Walz “refuses” to allow law enforcement to cooperate. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said “we’ve never had a cooperative arrangement with law enforcement here.” And U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi told Walz, “The results of your state’s policies and politicians’ anti-law enforcement rhetoric are a national tragedy,” in a Jan. 24 letter describing Minneapolis and neighboring St. Paul as sanctuary cities.
The facts are more complicated than these leaders allege. Although Minneapolis’ has a policy that city officials won’t cooperate with immigration enforcement, that policy does not apply to state prisons. State correctional system officials have repeatedly said they cooperate with ICE and Walz made that point in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed.
“Corrections honors all federal and local detainers by notifying Immigration and Customs Enforcement when a person committed to its custody isn’t a U.S. citizen,” Walz wrote. “There is not a single documented case of the department’s releasing someone from state prison without offering to ensure a smooth transfer of custody.”
After Trump dispatched White House border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota following outcry over Pretti’s killing, Homan acknowledged that the Minnesota Department of Corrections has “been honoring ICE detainers.”
Here, we fact-checked some of the federal officials’ statements.
Trump: Frey’s statement that Minneapolis does not enforce federal immigration law “is a very serious violation of the law.” (Jan. 28 Truth Social post)
Trump’s take conflicts with previous court rulings.
During Trump’s first term, his administration sought to withhold federal funding for sanctuary cities with policies against cooperating with federal immigration enforcement. Courts nationwide blocked Trump.
In 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court refused the Trump administration’s request to review a case challenging a California law that restricts police cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
In December, the city of Minneapolis passed an ordinance that says police will not arrest or detain people to enforce federal immigration laws and that the city will not enforce civil federal immigration laws.
Immigration law professors, citing previous rulings, said that such policies are settled constitutional law.
The ordinance adopted by Minneapolis is typical among similar policies, said University of Minnesota law professor R. Linus Chan.
The Constitution’s 10th Amendment that addresses the balance of power between states and the federal government “means that the federal government cannot coerce states to enforce immigration law which is exclusively a federal government concern,” Chan said.
Syracuse University law professor Jenny Breen said sanctuary city laws, including in Minneapolis, recognize the right of states and cities to refuse to do the work of the federal government.
“States may not refuse to permit the federal government itself from doing that work, but they are not obligated to enforce federal laws themselves,” Breen said in an email to PolitiFact, using italics for emphasis.
Trump has threatened to cut off federal funding to sanctuary cities and states starting Feb. 1.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, right, and Attorney General Keith Ellison discuss the shooting of Alex Pretti during a news conference in Blaine, Minn., Jan. 25, 2026.
Leavitt: “Walz refuses to allow local and state law enforcement to cooperate with ICE in arresting and removing dangerous criminal illegal aliens from Minnesota communities.” (Jan. 25 X post)
That’s inaccurate.
Cities and counties set their own policies on whether to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. And state officials said they cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.
The Minnesota Department of Corrections, which oversees state prisons, launched a website“Combatting DHS Misinformation,” and held a Jan. 22 press conference to explain the state policies.
State Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell said his agency notifies ICE weeks before a person’s prison term ends. ICE has the discretion to place a detainer on the person, and corrections staff coordinate with ICE to facilitate custody transfer when requested.
Fast said his office reviewed the cases of people who Homeland Security publicly named and found many were never in state custody. Others had short stays in county jails or were in custody in other states. Many had been released directly to ICE.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey is seen Jan. 16, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP)
Department of Homeland Security: “DHS has called on Governor Walz and Mayor Frey this week to put the safety of Minnesotans and the American public first and honor the ICE arrest detainers of the more than 1,360 aliens, including violent criminals, in the state’s custody.” (Jan. 15 press release)
DHS’s number contradicts state data on how many noncitizens are held in state custody. It also mischaracterizes the role officials such as Walz and Frey have in setting detention policies.
A state survey found Minnesota prisons hold 207 noncitizens out of 8,000 total prison detainees. There were another 94 noncitizens held in county jails with ICE detainers. That adds up to 301 people — about four and a half times less than DHS claimed.
Schnell, the state prisons commissioner, said Jan. 22 that the state received no answer when it asked federal officials for their data about the 1,360 figure. Although DHS did not provide PolitiFact with evidence for its figure, additional public statements by Homeland Security officials showed that the administration referred to people held in county jails. We found no source for that data.
Hundreds of people in Minnesota’s county jails have been transferred to federal immigration officers, which shows that some counties are cooperative. But The New York Times found those cases represented a lower share than arrests made in 39 other states.
Each sheriff’s office sets its own policy. The sheriff’s website for Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis, said it complies with immigration warrants signed by a judge, but not civil immigration requests from ICE.
According to ICE, seven counties and one city in Minnesota have signed agreements to perform specified immigration duties under ICE’s oversight. None of those are in the Minneapolis area.
County jails may be reluctant to hold immigrants for ICE because of a 2025 state attorney general advisory opinion that Minnesota officials can’t hold someone on an ICE detainer alone if that person would otherwise be released from custody.
Courts have found in recent years that holding immigrants for ICE was unconstitutional.
RELATED: Fact-check: Trump officials’ statements about Alex Pretti’s fatal shooting by Border Patrol agents
