Immigration enforcement operations following a series of executive orders by President Donald Trump across the country are drawing concerns about overall community safety from Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara.
O'Hara tells WCCO Radio's Chad Hartman many immigrants in Minneapolis fear schools and even hospitals will be raided as part of ongoing deportation efforts by President Donald Trump's administration. That's a situation that has played out in other cities across the country including over the weekend in Chicago.
"We just don't need that, to create a system, to create a situation if you will, where those people are going to so easily be victimized, even more than they already are," O'Hara explains.
He also says he's aware of at least one Minneapolis resident who's been picked up by immigration authorities within the last week but there has not been the widespread "roundups" seen in other areas. KSTP-TV is reporting ICE arrested a man in St. Paul on Thursday.
Minneapolis certainly has its own issues with crime, and with so many claims of immigration furthering those issues, O'Hara says what they find, at least in Minneapolis, is the opposite.
"We are fighting very real problems that our residents experience around crime and violence," O'Hara explains. "And by and large, if anything, folks who are immigrants here are targeted to be victims of crime. That's what we see."
O'Hara also says they're starting to see situations where immigrants are afraid to call law enforcement to report crimes because they're scared of being deported.
Immigration Latest
Top Trump administration officials, including “border czar” Tom Homan and the acting deputy attorney general, visited Chicago on Sunday to witness the start of ramped-up immigration enforcement in the nation’s third-largest city as federal agencies touted arrests around the country.
Few details of the operation were immediately made public, including the number of arrests. But the sheer number of federal agencies involved showed President Donald Trump’s willingness to use federal law enforcement beyond the Department of Homeland Security to carry out his long-promised mass deportations.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it made 956 arrests nationwide on Sunday and 286 on Saturday. While some of the operations may not have been unusual, ICE averaged 311 daily arrests in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.
Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove said he observed immigration agents from the DHS along with agents from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He didn’t offer details on the operation, which came days after DHS expanded immigration authority to agencies in the Department of Justice, including the DEA and ATF.
“We will support everyone at the federal, state, and local levels who joins this critical mission to take back our communities,” Bove said in a statement. “We will use all available tools to address obstruction and other unlawful impediments to our efforts to protect the homeland. Most importantly, we will not rest until the work is done.”
“Dr. Phil” McGraw, a daytime television psychologist, interviewed Homan and livestreamed the Chicago operation on his multiplatform TV network MERIT TV, and several other reporters were also invited to Sunday’s operation. The Associated Press plans to observe operations this week.
The DEA’s Chicago office posted pictures on X showing Bove and Homan with agents from ATF and Customs and Border Protection.
Since Trump took office, similar immigration enforcement operations have been publicized around the country, which U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says are ongoing. Social media posts from other DEA and Homeland Security offices noted additional weekend operations in at least Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Nebraska and Texas.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.