ICE presence on East Lake Street today

June 3rd, 2025

Dear Community,

Today, there was a large presence of federal law enforcement including ICE at the corner of East Lake St and Bloomington Ave. The Minneapolis Police and Hennepin County Sheriff Office were both present. Community members and new outlets have been circulating many disturbing photos and video clips from the scene, some of which appear to show MPD engaging with federal agents, blocking streets, and doing crowd control to facilitate whatever federal operation was occuring. Residents and community members who were present also reported that tear gas was used by agencies present.

An officer sprays mace at protestors while a legal observer films. Credit: Minnesota Reformer.

This has understandably prompted many residents to reach out with concerns that today’s actions by MPD violated the City’s separation ordinance, which states that “the city does not operate its programs for the purpose of enforcing federal immigration laws.” The Mayor and MPD have released statements affirming that MPD were present and they were not involved in immigration enforcement. Mayor Frey has stated the only role MPD had was “crowd control”. 

Several community members have stated that MPD’s involvement in securing an area made it difficult for residents and legal observers to monitor and document the actions taken by the federal agencies. The Trump administration has been open about its belief that federal agencies are above the law, underscoring the importance of civilians documenting actions they see that are concerning. 

Long prior to today’s disturbing events, residents reached out to my office with concerns about how the Mayor is directing MPD to implement the separation ordinance given the current federal administration’s stated anti-immigrant agenda for law enforcement. In response to resident concerns, I co-authored a legislative directive with Council Member Chavez requesting the Mayor publicly present on how he is implementing the separation ordinance within MPD, including educating officers, safeguards to support compliance, clear consequences as well as definitions for violations, and more. Council approved this legislative directive and MPD is coming to present their response to the legislative directive at the Administration and Enterprise Oversight Committee on June 23rd at 1:30pm. All are welcome to attend in person at the Public Service Center- 250 South 4th St, Room 350. The presentation will also be livestreamed on the City’s YouTube channel. 

The City cannot claim to be a welcoming city with guardrails that prohibit MPD from assisting ICE in immigration operations, while simultaneously taking actions that were witnessed by hundreds of residents that enabled the questionable actions of the Trump administration.  I also want to recognize that today’s events on Lake Street were triggering for many residents who experienced militarized law enforcement in their neighborhoods in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd.  

A local pastor quoted in the Star Tribune coverage of today’s events summarized this dynamic: “the fact that we see Minneapolis police escorting these tanks down the street does not instill a lot of confidence within a community that has been really badly traumatized by the Minneapolis police over the last five years.”

Minneapolis Police on East Lake Street alongside federal agents. Credit: Resident. 

I am dedicated to working with my colleagues and community to use Council’s authority to ensure MPD is not collaborating with the Trump administration to attack our immigrant neighbors.