During an interview aired on Wednesday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “Cuomo,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey responded to a question on if he’d help the federal government when they’re looking for violent criminals who are in the country illegally by saying that “I’m not going to agree to anything right now on the spot, simply because there’s not a lot of trust that’s baked in. They’re saying this is about murderers and rapists, and, like, if it were, again, there would be very obvious mechanisms to work together. This is not what it’s about.”
Host Chris Cuomo asked, “[I]f the vice president comes and says, will you guys work with us so that we can identify the violent criminal people who are not supposed to be in the country, will you help us with that, what will you say?”
Frey responded, “Well, working with the federal government to prosecute and arrest violent criminals is nothing new here in Minneapolis. We’ve been doing this for years. Look, I’m going to take about the easiest position I could possibly take, in Minneapolis, we’re anti-murder, we’re anti-rape. And when you murder or rape, we will work with the DEA and the FBI and the ATF and the U.S. Attorney’s office, and we have done that to successfully drive down crime. … But what we’ve seen is what this federal government is doing right now, it’s not about safety, it’s not about reducing crime. If it were, then there are very important mechanisms where we would work together to do that.”
Later, Frey added, “In Minneapolis, we will not cooperate with ICE or any federal agency around immigration enforcement work, we will not. And there’s a good reason, by the way, that we won’t, and it’s not just the moral imperative here, it’s also the fact that I want our police officers focusing on safety. I want our police officers arresting perpetrators of violent crime and preventing carjackings from taking place and doing that basic work of 911 response. You know what I don’t want our police officers doing? Spending a single minute going after some father who just dropped his kids off at daycare, is about to go work a 12-hour shift, who happens to be from Ecuador.”
Cuomo then asked, “You said you were open to working [with] them to bring down crime, but you don’t want to be in the immigration enforcement business. Fair distinction, but if they say, yeah, yeah, yeah, we’ll do the immigration work, just control the perimeter, and, when we are looking for violent criminal undocumented immigrants…will you help us? What about that sweet spot?”
Frey answered, “Look, I’m not going to agree to anything right now on the spot, simply because there’s not a lot of trust that’s baked in. They’re saying this is about murderers and rapists, and, like, if it were, again, there would be very obvious mechanisms to work together. This is not what it’s about. This is about terrorizing people. This is picking Somali and Latino people up off of the street that are American citizens.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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