Insisting that he was in Minnesota to calm tensions, Vice President JD Vance on Thursday blamed "far-left people" and state and local law enforcement officials for the chaos that has unfolded during the White House's deportation campaign.
The vice president said, "We're doing everything that we can to lower the temperature," adding that Minnesota leaders should "meet us halfway."
The Justice Department is investigating top Democrats in the state, including Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, over whether they have obstructed or impeded immigration enforcement through their public criticism of the administration. Walz and Frey have described the investigation as an attempt to bully the political opposition.
Federal officers stood in a row behind Vance as he spoke, and there were two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicles emblazoned with the slogan "Defend the Homeland."
His visit follows weeks of aggressive rhetoric from the White House, including President Donald Trump, who has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act — and send in military forces — to crack down on unrest. Asked about that option, Vance said, "Right now, we don't think that we need that."
Trump dispatched thousands of federal agents to Minnesota earlier this month after reports of child care fraud by Somali immigrants. Minneapolis-area officials, including Frey, as well as the police, religious leaders and the business community, have pushed back. And outrage grew after an agent fatally shot Renee Good, a U.S. citizen and mother of three, during a confrontation this month.
Walz said the federal government was to blame for the turmoil.
"Take the show of force off the streets and partner with the state on targeted enforcement of violent offenders instead of random, aggressive confrontation," he wrote on social media.
Frey, speaking from city hall, accused immigration officials of racial profiling, an accusation that Vance had rejected during his visit.
"They are detaining people that have done nothing wrong," Frey said. "They are going after people exclusively based on the fact that they look like they are Somali or Latino, and no reason beyond that."
He said the enforcement measures in the city and an influx of some 3,000 federal officers seemed designed as political retaliation, as opposed to getting criminals off the street.
"This is more about, tragically, terrorizing people than it is about safety, than it is even about immigration," Frey said.
Vance has played a leading role in defending the agent who killed Good, and he previously said her death was "a tragedy of her own making." On Thursday, he repeated claims that Good "rammed" an agent with her car, an account that has been disputed.
Minnesota faith leaders, backed by labor unions and hundreds of Minneapolis-area businesses, are planning a day of protests Friday. Nearly 600 local businesses have announced plans to shut down, while hundreds of "solidarity events" are expected across the country, according to MoveOn spokesperson Britt Jacovich.
Vance defended ICE agents who detained a 5-year-old boy as he was arriving home from preschool.
"When they went to arrest his illegal alien father, the father ran," Vance said. "So the story is that ICE detained a 5-year-old. Well, what are they supposed to do?"
The boy, who was taken by federal agents along with his father to a detention facility in Texas, was the fourth student from his Minneapolis suburb to be detained by immigration officers in recent weeks.
Asked about reporting that federal authorities are asserting sweeping power to forcibly enter people's homes without a judge's warrant, Vance said warrants would still be part of immigration enforcement. But Vance did not specify which kind of warrant he was referring to.
"Nobody is talking about doing immigration enforcement without a warrant," Vance said. "We're never going to enter somebody's house without some kind of warrant, unless of course somebody is firing at an officer and they have to protect themselves."
The Associated Press reported Wednesday that federal immigration officers were asserting sweeping power to forcibly enter houses without a judicial warrant, according to an internal ICE memo, in what is a reversal of long-standing guidance meant to respect constitutional limits on government searches.
Instead, the officers can use administrative warrants. Those are issued by ICE officials, as opposed to warrants signed off on by an independent judge.
During a stop in Toledo, Ohio, on Thursday morning, Vance acknowledged that immigration agents have made mistakes, while declining to be specific.
"Of course there have been mistakes made, because you're always going to have mistakes made in law enforcement," he said when asked about Trump's comments earlier this week that ICE "is going to make mistakes sometimes."
But Vance said the blame didn't lie with the federal government.
"The number one way where we could lower the mistakes that are happening, at least with our immigration enforcement, is to have local jurisdictions that are cooperating with us," he said.
Vance also praised the arrest of protesters who disrupted a church service in Minnesota on Sunday and said he expects more prosecutions to come. The protesters entered the church chanting "ICE out" and "Justice for Renee Good."
"They're scaring little kids who are there to worship God on a Sunday morning," Vance said. He added, "Just as you have the right to protest, they have a right to worship God as they choose. And when you interrupt that, that is a violation of the law."
Vance took the opportunity to criticize hometown Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur while he was in her Toledo-centered district. A crowded slate of Republicans — including former ICE Deputy Director Madison Sheahan — is vying to take on the longest-serving woman in Congress this fall.
Vance's stop in Ohio was focused primarily on bolstering the administration's positive economic message on the heels of Trump's appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and he showed support for Republicans such as gubernatorial contender Vivek Ramaswamy and U.S. Sen. Jon Husted.
Convincing voters that the nation is in rosy financial shape has been a persistent challenge for Trump during the first year of his second term. Polling has shown that the public is unconvinced that the economy is in good condition and majorities disapprove of Trump's handling of foreign policy.
Vance urged voters to be patient with the economy, saying Trump had inherited a bad situation from Democratic President Joe Biden.
"You don't turn the Titanic around overnight," Vance said. "It takes time to fix what is broken."
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