President Donald Trump said he wants Minnesota to hand over their illegal immigrants who have criminal records in order to draw down immigration enforcement operations in the state.
In early December, the Trump administration launched Operation Metro Surge in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. The White House deployed about 3,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol officers to the area to round up illegal immigrants.
Since then, there has been a fierce backlash against the initiative among Minnesota communities — especially after the fatal shootings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti. Protests have been rampant, with observers recording agents as they carry out their efforts to apprehend illegal immigrants.
During an appearance on the Dan Bongino Show, Trump said, “We want one thing in Minnesota. We can get out of there really fast. We want their prisoners. They’ve got jails with murderers, drug lords, rapists, they’ve got jails with the worst people.”
Trump continued along this line, saying “They have gangs that are so bad, they look at you and they knife you up.”
The president railed against sanctuary cities, calling them “a disaster” and referring to his executive order barring federal funding for cities and states that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
“Look, I took over a border where 25 million people came into our country, many of them murderers, 11,888 murderers, drug dealers, drug addicts all over the place,” Trump said. “They always said they're drug addicts, they're people with trouble, alcohol. They took over the mental institutions of their country, and they sent every single person in a mental institution over our border with Texas with their open border policies.”
The president slammed other nations for sending dangerous people to the United States. “So we have millions of people. Most of them are bad, to be honest with you, because they're not going to send their good people,” he said. “...They only send their bad people. The best of their people are people that don't work. Those are the best ones. The people that came in, they don't work, and they don't want them either because they don't want to pay welfare.”
.@POTUS: "We want one thing in Minnesota... we want their prisoners. They've got jails with murderers, drug lords, rapists. They've got jails with the worst, the worst people." pic.twitter.com/X4Cp2H6HId
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 2, 2026
The administration’s immigration enforcement efforts in Minnesota are still moving forward despite the controversy. A federal judge recently ruled that the White House can keep up its large-scale operations in Minnesota.
Another federal judge recently ordered the release of a five-year-old boy and his father who ICE had detained during a raid.
Congress is currently debating new reforms for ICE and Border Patrol after the shootings. Democrats are demanding a slew of reform provisions, including requiring body cameras, barring agents from wearing masks, requiring warrants signed by a judge before entering residences, and several others.
Republican lawmakers pushed back against some of the Democrats’ demands, but seemed open to others, including the body camera requirements.