The ongoing fierce resistance to the surge of federal immigration officers in Minnesota is striking real fear in the Trump administration, one adviser to President Donald Trump revealed Sunday, so much so that officials worry that resistance may spread elsewhere across the nation.
Late last year, the Trump administration deployed thousands of federal immigration officers to Minnesota in the wake of the controversial fraud investigation by MAGA influencer Nick Shirley into Somali daycares. The immigration enforcement operations have been met with fierce resistance by locals, however, particularly after the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
That resistance, which also included a statewide general strike, is apparently getting to the Trump administration, which has since announced plans to phase-out immigration enforcement operations in the state.
Speaking with Zeteo in its report Sunday on the condition of anonymity, one Trump adviser told the outlet that resistance to Immigration and Customs Enforcement – along with other federal immigration enforcement agencies – has “only spread” and gotten stronger across the nation.
Other Trump administration officials who also spoke on the condition of anonymity told Zeteo that the growing resistance sparked fears that future immigration enforcement operations in other states could be jeopardized, and thus, facilitated the need to impose a “draw down” of its officers in Minnesota to preserve political capital for future ICE “deployments.”
“In other word, these intra-administration analyses describe Minnesota in strikingly similar ways to how past administrations have interpreted America’s failed wars abroad, including in Vietnam,” reads the Zeteo report. “The enemy isn’t breaking, the invasion and level of manpower is draining resources, and the quagmire is killing political support at home.”