Opinion | No one in Minnesota asked for this

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The failure of Operation Metro Surge to meet the exacting standards of professional law enforcement is evident on our television and computer screens on a daily basis. Constitutional and effective public safety bears no relation to what we are witnessing today, with now two local citizens shot and killed and others torn from their homes and cars needlessly. As a longtime law enforcement leader, I have been plagued by the question of how Minnesota got to this point. As a former U.S. Attorney, I bring my own perspective.

U.S. Attorneys are appointed by the president to work collaboratively with local, state and federal law enforcement to address the primary public safety challenges facing their community, and then to implement strategies to address those challenges. Across Republican and Democratic administrations, this mandate was driven by local priorities, local challenges and local needs. Until now.

When I returned to office in 2022, law enforcement and I concluded that Minnesota faced three overarching challenges: unprecedented levels of violent crime, rampant fentanyl trafficking and a massive scheme to defraud state government programs. We addressed each of these challenges collaboratively, with effective and professional strategies, prosecuting 100 gang members, 70 Feeding Our Future defendants and hundreds of dangerous drug dealers and career offenders. We marshaled our resources and served the best interests of our state, with homegrown solutions executed aggressively, fairly and within the bounds of the law.

In each instance, we started with lists of potential defendants we believed were responsible for the violence, drug dealing and fraud plaguing Minnesota, and built cases against them. Once we had cases ready to prosecute, we obtained warrants from federal judges, and the FBI, ATF and DEA brought in expert high-risk arrest teams to make seamless and safe arrests. Violent offenders, almost all of whom were citizens, were arrested in large numbers without anyone getting hurt and without violating anyone’s rights. Until recently, this orderly and professional approach was the norm for federal law enforcement in Minnesota.

When I left government in January 2025, the new administration continued to make progress on these Minnesota priorities and challenges, charging more defendants in the massive fraud scheme, more violent criminals and more large-scale drug dealers. In the summer of 2025, long after I had left, the U.S. Attorney’s office worked closely with local, state and federal law enforcement to bring charges in the assassination of the former Minnesota House speaker and her husband, and stood shoulder to shoulder with investigators after the shooting at Annunciation Church. In the face of tragedy, we were proud of our prosecutors and investigators and their ability to work together.

As I have watched the consequences of this D.C.-imposed surge, I have had one recurring thought:

No one in Minnesota asked for this.

As the lead Minnesota federal law enforcement official over seven years, I never heard law enforcement argue to make illegal immigration our top priority. Not once did anyone suggest to me that illegal immigrants were the “worst of the worst” violent offenders in Minnesota. Because it simply is not true. The worst violent offenders are the locally grown gang members, carjackers and repeat violent offenders, not illegal immigrants. Local police officers, sheriff’s deputies and federal agents know who is threatening public safety. I relied on them to build the lists and assist us in building airtight federal criminal cases. This is what makes us safer. Because, together, as Minnesotans, we know what needs to be done here.

While we do not face a crisis of violent crime from illegal immigrants, we are in a crisis, one created by the very surge that was supposed to make us safe.

The results are palpable. The crown jewel of our legal system, the U.S. Attorney’s office, is in meltdown. The leaders who executed on the strategies that made us safe have resigned, walking away from coveted positions rather than succumb to orders from D.C. that violated their integrity — including all of the prosecutors on the Feeding Our Future cases. Two citizens have been killed in streets consumed with fear while our nonpartisan local law enforcement leaders recoil at the tactics of the surging ICE and Border Patrol agents. Our Minnesota state-federal collaboration is in tatters, and prosecutors are ordered to pursue frivolous political investigations and criminal charges against protesters, instead of cases against local violent criminals, gang members and the perpetrators of a billion-dollar fraud.

Our local, state and Minnesota-based federal law enforcement officials should be empowered once again to keep us safe. Working with our now depleted U.S. Attorney’s office, they should return to their professional work fighting real violent crime, drug trafficking and government fraud. Prosecutors from Minnesota should make decisions based on their experience, judgment and ethics, not orders from Washington.

We deserve no less.