MINNEAPOLIS — Vice President JD Vance on Thursday blamed the "far left" for turmoil surrounding the White House's deportation campaign before arriving for a high-profile appearance in Minnesota, which has emerged as a national focal point in the clash over the Trump administration's immigration crackdown.
“If you want to turn down the chaos in Minneapolis, stop fighting immigration enforcement and accept that we have to have a border in this country,” Vance said in Toledo, Ohio, en route to Minnesota. “It’s not that hard.”
Vance plans to meet with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis, which has been roiled by protests since an agent fatally shot Renee Good, a mother of three, during a confrontation this month. The Republican vice president has played a leading role in defending that agent and said Good's death was "a tragedy of her own making."
He also praised the arrest of protesters who disrupted a church service in Minnesota on Sunday and said he expects more prosecutions to come. The protesters entered the church chanting "ICE out" and "Justice for Renee Good."
“They’re scaring little kids who are there to worship God on a Sunday morning,” Vance said. “Those people are going to be sent to prison so long as we have the power to do so."
He added: “Just as you have the right to protest, they have a right to worship God as they choose. And when you interrupt that, that is a violation of the law.”
Some Minnesota faith leaders, backed by labor unions and hundreds of Minneapolis-area businesses, are planning a day of protests on Friday to push back against the administration's crackdown. Nearly 600 local business have announced plans to shut down, while hundreds of “solidarity events” are expected across the country, according to MoveOn spokesperson Britt Jacovich.
“Masked federal agents are teargassing babies and pastors, seizing our neighbors and shipping them off to foreign torture prisons, and killing innocent people,” protest organizers wrote.
Gregory Bovino, the official who leads the White House’s border patrol operations, said federal agents had the authority to enter private homes in Minnesota without a judicial warrant as part of their crackdown.
“We don’t break in anybody’s homes. We make entry in either a hot pursuit with a criminal arrest warrant or an administrative arrest warrant,” Bovino said at a news conference.
The Associated Press reported on Wednesday that federal immigration officers were asserting sweeping power to forcibly enter houses without a warrant, according to an internal ICE memo, in what is a reversal of long-standing guidance meant to respect constitutional limits on government searches.
Bovino condemned Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Gov. Tim Walz — both Democrats — and other officials for using “violent rhetoric,” while describing city police as “missing in action” and protesters as “anarchists.”
Vance's stop in Toledo was focused primarily on bolstering the Republican administration's positive economic message on the heels of Trump's appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The vice president also took the opportunity to boost some of Republicans' important statewide candidates in this fall's midterm elections, including gubernatorial contender Vivek Ramaswamy and U.S. Sen. Jon Husted.
Convincing voters that the nation is in rosy financial shape has been a persistent challenge for Trump during the first year of his second term. Polling has shown that the public is unconvinced that the economy is in good condition and majorities disapprove of how Trump's handling of foreign policy.
Vance urged voters to be patient on the economy, saying Trump had inherited a bad situation from Democratic President Joe Biden.
“You don’t turn the Titanic around overnight,” Vance said. “It takes time to fix what is broken.”
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Carr Smyth reported from Columbus, Ohio, and Peoples from New York.