The Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Corrections is reflecting on the stated mission of Operation Metro surge, the federal government's immigration crackdown in Minnesota. And what is now looking like a significant lack of action by the federal government.
Commissioner Paul Schell expressed his frustration with this immigration crackdown from the very start, telling WCCO's Susie Jones their claims about not getting local cooperation are not true, at least at the state level.
"You know, they said early it was because of the noncompliance with detainers, and that simply wasn't true," says Schnell.
And even more startling, Schnell says they have worked with immigration enforcement officials to get them a list of undocumented inmates, totally around 380.
"Roughly 110 of these 'worst of the worst' are in Department of Corrections custody," Schnell says. "And we've notified ICE about those people being in our custody, and yet there is not a detainer lodged against them."
Schnell says despite those 100 or so inmates being in prison, inmates who have committed and been convicted of significant crimes, no federal official has come to get them, or even inquired about them.
The commissioner also says he has asked for a list from ICE of who they are looking for - without any luck.
"If we're focused on making sure that we are addressing non-citizens who are engaged in serious criminal offending, which was grounded on a false premise of noncompliance, and yet the most basic of things like lodging detainers on people in Minnesota prisons who are non-citizens should be the most basic of expectations of the federal government," Schnell adds.
The Trump administration is reducing the number of immigration enforcement officers in Minnesota after state and local officials agreed to cooperate by turning over arrested immigrants, border czar Tom Homan said last week.
Homan said during his press conference that federal officials could reduce the number of federal agents in Minnesota even further, but only if state and local officials cooperate.
But information coming from Minnesota's Department of Corrections seems to contradict Homan's claims there hasn't been cooperation. It also shines a light on what opponents of the immigration enforcement have said has been an issue since the start, a chaotic operation that is not actually targeting the "worst of the worst," as President Donald Trump and his administration have characterized it.