NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Wednesday called for peace amid escalating protests, a sharp shift in tone after he demanded days earlier that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “get the f— out” of the city.
Frey appeared at a late news conference after an illegal immigrant from Venezuela was shot in the leg after he allegedly ambushed a federal agent with a shovel.
“I’m calling for peace,” Frey told reporters. “Everybody has a role in achieving that peace, and we’re going to try and do everything we can to keep it.”
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey speaks to the media at City Hall Jan. 9. (Aaron Lavinsky/The Minnesota Star Tribune via Getty Images)
Frey has repeatedly condemned ICE’s immigration enforcement operations and again called for ICE to leave Minneapolis.
“There’s still a lot that we don’t know at this time, but what I can tell you for certain is that this is not sustainable,” he said. “This is an impossible situation that our city is presently being put in.
“We’re in a position right now where we have residents that are asking the very limited number of police officers that we have to fight ICE agents on the street,” he added. “We cannot be at a place right now in America where we have two governmental entities that are literally fighting one another.”
He said ICE and U.S. Border Patrol agents were “creating chaos” despite many being confronted, sometimes violently, by protesters upset at the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement campaign.
“I’ve seen conduct by ICE that is disgusting and intolerable,” he said.
He urged protesters not to “take the bait” from President Donald Trump.
JD VANCE, ICE FLIP SCRIPT ON SANCTUARY CITY LEADERS AS ‘CHAOS’ ERUPTS ACROSS MN: ‘THIS IS DANGEROUS’
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called for peace amid violent protests directed toward federal authorities. (Getty Images)
“And for anyone that is taking the bait tonight, stop,” he said. “That is not helpful. … You are not helping the undocumented immigrants in our city. You are not helping the people that call this place home.”
The mayor’s tone was a stark difference from the tirade he unleashed last week following the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an ICE agent.
“To ICE, get the f— out of Minneapolis. We do not want you here,” Frey said during a press conference after the shooting. “Your stated reason for being in this city is to create some kind of safety, and you are doing exactly the opposite.”
On Wednesday, Frey maintained that he has not engaged in violent rhetoric.
“Show a single place where I have encouraged anything other than peace. Show me a single place where we have encouraged violence,” Frey added.
The Department of Homeland Security said a federal agent opened fire on an illegal immigrant who allegedly fled a traffic stop and then beat the agent with a snow shovel.
On Thursday, Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act if local authorities failed to restore control.
“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of ICE, who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State,” he raged in a Truth Social post.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Thursday pleaded with Trump to “turn the temperature down.”
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
ICE responded with a post on X.
“The buck stops with you, Governor,” the post states. “Tone down the hostile, inflammatory anti-ICE rhetoric. Honor our immigration detainers. And work with ICE to remove criminal illegal aliens from MN streets.”
