STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Tom Homan, the White House border czar, says 700 or so federal agents will be leaving Minnesota.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
It's the beginning of a retreat from a state where federal agents confronted protesters and killed two Americans. Most agents, though, are still there, and Homan says any further drawdown would depend on state and local cooperation. In a few minutes, we'll discuss that with Minnesota's Attorney General Keith Ellison.
INSKEEP: First, NPR's Meg Anderson has the facts. Meg, good morning.
MEG ANDERSON, BYLINE: Good morning.
INSKEEP: How much is really changing?
ANDERSON: Yeah. So the numbers don't point to a big change. It still leaves around 2,300 federal agents here. That's still more than the combined Twin Cities police force. It's more than the number they originally brought in before Renee Macklin Good was killed by an ICE agent. Homan did say he wants to see the presence of ICE officers in the state go back to what it was before the surge began, and he said he wants that partly because ICE has plans for operations in other parts of the country.
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TOM HOMAN: We got agents here from LA, New York and Portland. There's problems there too. So we want to get people back to their home stations and enforce the immigration laws in those areas.
ANDERSON: Homan specifically zeroed in on the cooperation of sheriffs. That makes sense. Sheriffs run county jails, and around the country they've played a key role in holding undocumented immigrants for ICE.
INSKEEP: OK. So he wants more state and local cooperation, but I feel we have to talk about this. Federal authorities have complained that state and local officials do not turn over people with deportation orders who turn up in jails or who are convicted of something and are in prison. State authorities say that's not true. Actually, they do cooperate and the feds pretend they don't. The state's turning over people from prison and from many jails, but there was one big jail that limited its cooperation up to now. What do you hear from them?
ANDERSON: So I spoke with that jail system. I spoke with Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt. That's the county that includes Minneapolis, and she said she has had, quote, "healthy conversations" with Homan. She expects them to continue. And she stressed that, you know, if ICE has a signed judicial warrant for someone in her jail, her officers do already honor those, like you said. But often ICE does not have that, and so Witt is required by law to release those people. Jail is pre-trial detention, right? You can't hold those people indefinitely. She also said her office does not honor administrative detainers. That's when ICE asks a jail to hold someone but doesn't have that warrant signed by a judge. But Sheriff Witt told me she's considering changing that policy.
DAWANNA WITT: If that were to change - and that's a if, right? - you're going to have to show me how it's going to make Hennepin County residents safer, and you're going to have to actually act good on what you say.
ANDERSON: You know, she said these are ongoing negotiations, and no one is going to get everything they want.
INSKEEP: OK. So she says she is open to a change in course. How are other local leaders responding to the new leadership, at least in Minnesota, from immigration authorities?
ANDERSON: Right. So the consensus so far is that this drawdown is progress, but it's not enough. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison called it a step in the right direction but that the surge needs to end. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey also called for it to end, saying it's been catastrophic for residents and businesses. A coalition of Minnesota faith, labor and other community groups dismissed the announcement. In a statement they said there are still thousands of quote, "masked, unaccountable agents terrorizing the community." And, you know, it is very much still an emergency here for many people. People who are not white are carrying their passports around. Immigrants are sheltering in place. Children are not going to school.
INSKEEP: NPR's Meg Anderson in Minneapolis. Thanks for the update. Really appreciate it.
ANDERSON: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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