Grijalva: I Worry About Confrontation with Feds Because Local Law Enforcement ‘Trying to Protect the People’

On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Source,” Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) said that she worries about a confrontation between local police and federal agents “because our local law enforcement is there to protect the people of their communities.” And “I can very easily see a situation where law enforcement is trying to protect the people in their communities.”

Host Jim Sciutto asked, “[Y]ou already have ICE and CBP agents there, who are doing, not just immigration enforcement, right? But they’re also doing crowd control. You now have the Governor of Minnesota saying that he has mobilized the state National Guard. And now you have this unit from Alaska, regular soldiers, regular troops that may be deployed there. You can picture quite a volatile mix of law enforcement. And, of course, there’s also the Minnesota P.D. that has been less visibly present here. Are you worried about that leading to, potentially, some sort of confrontation between federal and state troops or local law enforcement and federal agents?”

Grijalva answered, “Absolutely, because our local law enforcement is there to protect the people of their communities. That’s what I heard very clearly when I went to Minneapolis. And if you add up the number of law enforcement that serve the Twin Cities, both St. Paul and Minneapolis, the number of ICE agents on the ground outnumber the total number of the law enforcement there. So, when you add in 1,500 soldiers, I can very easily see a situation where law enforcement is trying to protect the people in their communities.”

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