Following President Trump’s conciliatory account of his phone call with Tim Walz, some thought the administration might be caving out of a desire to get federal agents out of harm’s way in Minnesota. Apparently not: a few hours ago, Karoline Leavitt laid down the President’s conditions for cooperating with local authorities:
🚨 BREAKING: Karoline Leavitt has outlined President Trump’s DEMANDS for Tim Walz and Mayor Frey in Minnesota pic.twitter.com/mu5WpDWf4M
If Walz DOESN’T acquiesce, ICE operations will CONTINUE AS IS.
1. Walz and Frey must turn over ALL CRIMINAL ILLEGALS currently in their custody,…
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) January 26, 2026
Full text:
🚨 BREAKING: Karoline Leavitt has outlined President Trump’s DEMANDS for Tim Walz and Mayor Frey in Minnesota https://x.com/EricLDaugh/status/2015854392881398238/video/1
If Walz DOESN’T acquiesce, ICE operations will CONTINUE AS IS.
1. Walz and Frey must turn over ALL CRIMINAL ILLEGALS currently in their custody, along with any illegals with active warrants or known criminal histories for immediate deportation
2. State and local police must agree to turn over ALL illegals arrested by police to the federal government
3. Local police MUST assist in apprehending illegals wanted for crimes — especially vioIent ones
These should NOT be controversial demands!
Will Walz and Frey go along, and agree to cooperate with the federal government as is happening in nearly all other states? I don’t think so. Perpetuating illegal immigration is the hill, more than any other, that Democrats are determined to die on. So presumably that means that the “engineered chaos,” to quote JD Vance, that Walz et al. have created in Minneapolis will continue.
One point of clarification: there has been some confusion, deliberate on the part of Tim Walz and others, about the cooperation that ICE is getting from local law enforcement. The confusion arises from the fact that most people don’t know the difference between a prison and a jail. Minnesota’s Department of Corrections–our state prisons–are cooperating with ICE and honoring ICE detainers when they have prisoners about to be released. But that is a very small number. It is the county and city jails, from which a much larger number of prisoners are released, that are not cooperating.
