US president issues latest threat to midwestern state, where protests have continued after ICE agent killed woman.
United States President Donald Trump has said that a “day of reckoning and retribution” is coming to Minnesota, as outrage and protests have continued days after an immigration agent fatally shot a woman in the state’s largest city, Minneapolis.
Trump did not provide further details on the statement, which came at the end of a lengthy screed on the president’s Truth Social account on Tuesday.
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The apparent threat represented the latest pledge to come down hard on the midwestern state in the wake of the killing of Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent last week.
The administration on Monday promised to send hundreds more ICE agents to Minneapolis, where federal officer ranks already dwarf local law enforcement, in what city and state leaders have called a dangerous escalation.
“All the patriots of ICE want to do is remove them from your neighborhood and send them back to the prisons and mental institutions from where they came, most in foreign Countries who illegally entered the USA though Sleepy Joe Biden’s HORRIBLE Open Border’s Policy,” Trump said, referring to his predecessor, US President Joe Biden.
“FEAR NOT, GREAT PEOPLE OF MINNESOTA, THE DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING!” he said.
The phrase was quickly quoted by the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees domestic US immigration enforcement, in a post on X.
Later on Tuesday, a federal judge was set to hear arguments in a lawsuit filed by Minnesota’s Attorney General and the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, alleging that the surge of immigration agents violates residents’ freedom of speech while trampling on the state’s constitutionally protected authorities.
“People are being racially profiled, harassed, terrorised, and assaulted,” the state’s attorney general said in a statement upon filing the lawsuit.
“Schools have gone into lockdown. Businesses have been forced to close. Minnesota police are spending countless hours dealing with the chaos ICE is causing.”
“This federal invasion of the Twin Cities has to stop, so today I am suing DHS to bring it to an end,” it said.
Ongoing outrage
Daily protests have continued across the state since Good’s killing during an enforcement operation in Minneapolis.
Within moments of the shooting, the Trump administration labelled Good a “domestic terrorist”, while claiming the officer was acting in self-defence after the 37-year-old “weaponised her vehicle”.
Widely circulated video evidence quickly cast doubt on their claims, with many observers saying recordings appeared to show Good attempting to flee the scene in her Honda Pilot SUV when the agent opened fire. Questions have also been raised over the conduct of the agents involved, including a series of actions that appeared to escalate the situation.
Last week, local officials decried the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) unorthodox move to block an independent state investigatory body from taking part in a probe of Good’s killing. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said the move – coupled with the Trump administration’s comments – raises questions over the integrity of any conclusions reached.
On Tuesday, the UN Human Rights Council also called for a “prompt, independent and transparent” investigation into the incident.
Prior to Good’s killing, the Trump administration had surged immigration agents to Minnesota as the president increasingly focused on alleged fraud in the large Somali-American community in the state, at times employing racist rhetoric as he sent 2,000 immigration agents to the area.
On Wednesday, the Trump administration announced it was revoking so-called Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Somalia, a special designation that protects individuals from deportation due to unsafe conditions in their home country.
In a statement on X, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said the move means Somalis who had been on TPS are required to leave the country by March 27.
