Immigration law is federal. A state can't write it, and I won't pretend Minnesota can settle the national argument from St. Paul. But a state absolutely decides one thing: what its own police do with their time. And on that, I have a clear, common-sense position that I think most Minnesotans across the political spectrum already hold, even if their politicians won't say it plainly.
Local police work for the community, not the federal government
A Minnesota police officer is paid by Minnesota taxpayers to keep Minnesota communities safe. That's the job. It is not the job of a Minneapolis, Rochester, or Worthington cop to serve as an unpaid federal immigration agent, and the Constitution agrees. In Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997), the Supreme Court held — in an opinion written by Justice Scalia, no less — that the federal government cannot commandeer state and local officers to carry out a federal program. Washington can enforce its own laws with its own agents. It cannot draft ours.
This isn't about ideology. It's about safety and math. Every hour a local officer spends running federal errands is an hour not spent on the burglary, the domestic-violence call, or the fentanyl dealer. And there's a bigger cost: when immigrant communities believe that calling 911 might get a family member deported, they stop calling — crime victims go unreported, witnesses go silent, and the whole community gets less safe, citizens included. A cop who is also an immigration agent is a cop nobody in half the neighborhood will talk to.
The dangerous: if removal is the tool, use it
Here's where I part ways with the reflexive left. If a person is genuinely violent or dangerous — the trafficker, the violent felon, the person who's actually a threat to the people around them — and federal immigration removal is the tool available to get them out of our community, then so be it. I'm a former prosecutor. I have no interest in shielding someone who hurts people, and I don't think a person's immigration status should be a reason to keep a dangerous individual on our streets any more than it should be a reason to go after a harmless one. Public safety comes first, and sometimes removal is public safety.
The contributing: we actively protect them
And here's where I part ways with the reflexive right. The overwhelming majority of the people Washington periodically decides to round up are not dangerous. They are the line cook, the nursing-home aide, the dairy worker, the roofer, the mother who's been here fifteen years, paying taxes into a system she can't draw from, raising kids who are American citizens. Apprehending a productive, contributing member of the community simply because of status doesn't make anyone safer. It tears a hole in a workplace, a school, a church, and a family, and it makes Minnesota a smaller, meaner place. We should actively resist it — through the law, through the courts, and through the plain refusal of our local agencies to do the federal government's roundup for it.
The mechanism: a Minnesota review team decides who's actually dangerous
The two halves above need a hinge, and here it is. When the federal government hands over a list of people it wants apprehended, Minnesota shouldn't rubber-stamp it and shouldn't reflexively refuse it. It should review it. Set up a Minnesota review team — prosecutors, public-safety professionals, and community representatives — whose job is to look at each individual the feds have flagged and answer one question: is this person actually dangerous? Violent record, credible threat, trafficking — yes, cooperate, and quickly. Working, contributing, no threat to anyone — no, and we say why. That's not obstruction. That's the state doing its own job of protecting its own people, with its own judgment, instead of outsourcing that judgment to whoever is running Washington this year.
The honest concession
To the left: some people the feds flag really are dangerous, and a state that refuses to distinguish them from the harmless is choosing ideology over safety. To the right: Minnesota can't nullify federal law, and there are limits to how far local non-cooperation can go — the review team sorts, it doesn't shield lawbreakers from the consequences of genuine crimes. And to everyone: a review team is only as trustworthy as its criteria, which must be public, and its record, which must be audited.
What I'd actually do
Codify that local police don't enforce federal immigration law, consistent with Printz — they keep the community safe, period.
Cooperate on the genuinely dangerous, fast, where removal is the right tool.
Create the Minnesota review team to decide, individual by individual, who on a federal list is actually a threat — with public criteria and an audited record.
Actively resist the roundup of the contributing, in court and in practice.
Remove the dangerous. Protect the contributing. Keep our police working for us. That's not left or right. That's a Minnesota value.
First the facts. Then the fix.
Sources
Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997) (Scalia, J.) — the federal government may not compel state or local officers to administer a federal regulatory program (verified via CourtListener). The community-safety effects of local immigration enforcement (reduced crime reporting and witness cooperation in immigrant communities) are documented in criminology and policing research and in the positions of major police-chief associations. Cross-reference to this series' article on immigrants and the Minnesota economy for labor-force and tax-contribution data. This is a policy position on the use of state and local resources; it does not purport to alter federal immigration law.
The design of the proposed review team (composition, criteria, timelines) is a proposal to be set in legislation. Corrections: campaign@madgettformn.com.