President Trump cryptically warned Minnesota residents on Tuesday that “the day of reckoning & retribution is coming.”
He said state Democrats are using the protest chaos following the fatal shooting of a woman by a federal agent as a distraction from the allegations of massive fraud in the state’s Medicaid program.
In a lengthy Truth Social post, the president hailed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, saying they were removing “thousands of already convicted murderers, drug dealers and addicts, rapists, violent released and escaped prisoners, dangerous people from foreign mental institutions and insane asylums and other deadly criminals” off the streets.
“All the patriots of ICE want to do is remove them from your neighborhood and send them back to the prisons and mental institutions from where they came, most in foreign countries who illegally entered the USA through Sleep Joe Biden’s HORRIBLE open border policy,” Mr. Trump wrote.
“Minnesota Democrats love the unrest that anarchists and professional agitators are causing because it gets the spotlight off the 19 billion dollars stolen by really bad and deranged people. Fear not great people of Minnesota, the day of reckoning & retribution is coming,” he wrote.
As Mr. Trump issued his warning, the Homeland Security Department challenged Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to start cooperating with ICE to turn over illegal immigrants with criminal records from his prisons and jails, saying he’s released hundreds of them back onto the streets over the last year.
SEE ALSO: DOJ announces charges against illegal immigrant shot by Border Patrol in Portland
DHS said nearly 470 were released since Mr. Trump took office. And the department said Minnesota is holding more than 1,360 others right now who are subject to a deportation “detainer” from ICE.
“It is common sense. Criminal illegal aliens should not be released back onto our streets to terrorize more innocent Americans,” said Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary at DHS.
Minnesota has found itself at the center of the nation’s focus in recent weeks. Tensions have escalated following an ICE agent fatally shooting a woman using her car to interfere with immigration enforcement.
The incident that has intensified Democrats’ criticism of Mr. Trump’s aggressive immigration actions, the role of federal law enforcement and use of force.
Defenders of ICE argue that the officer was justified in shooting the woman when she drove her car at him, and they blamed Democrats for inciting the protests and protesters’ dangerous confrontations with federal agents.
Mr. Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey have been vehement in demanding ICE retreat.
SEE ALSO: Minnesota has released more than 400 ‘criminal’ migrants in 1 year: DHS
But Homeland Security officials say they have to send ICE into communities to get people because they can’t count on the state or the city to turn over criminal migrants being released from their custody.
At issue are detainers, which are the requests ICE makes to gain custody.
Sanctuary jurisdictions often refuse to cooperate with those detainer requests.
Before the shooting, Minnesota was embroiled in a massive fraud scandal involving Somali immigrants and the theft of some $9 billion in federal aid for poor children. The allegations resulted in Mr. Walz, a Democrat, quitting his reelection campaign for a third term.
Mr. Walz’s critics said the Medicaid fraud revealed him to be a corrupt politician who overlooked the theft in the name of political correctness. At the same time, the administration has fiercely defended the ICE office involved in the shooting, blaming Democrats for the protests and chaos that occurred before the incident.
Democrats, meanwhile, remain mum on Mr. Walz, who was his party’s vice presidential nominee in 2024.
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