Department of Justice renews push for voter, welfare data amid Minnesota ICE crackdown

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi is pushing Minnesota to share its voter rolls and data on Medicaid and food stamp recipients with the federal government, a move Minnesota’s top elections official criticized as an “apparent ransom” to end the ICE crackdown in the state.

In a letter to Gov. Tim Walz dated Jan. 24, the same day as the second fatal shooting of a Minnesotan by federal agents, Bondi said the state has “refused to enforce the law and the consequences are heartbreaking.”

“Americans are watching politicians ignore federal immigration law, criminals attack federal law enforcement and rioters storm church services,” Bondi wrote. “I write to urge a change.”

For weeks, thousands of federal immigration enforcement agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Border Patrol have been deployed in Minnesota as part of Operation Metro Surge. Months before agents arrived in Minnesota, the Trump Administration had been seeking access to Minnesota’s data on recipients of Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), often known as food stamps, and the state’s voter rolls.

Minnesota officials have filed lawsuits and resisted demands to turn that data over, saying they feared it would be used to target individuals for immigration enforcement. Federal officials have argued that the data are needed to ensure the programs and the state’s elections are free from fraud.

Bondi’s direct appeal to Walz amid the ongoing ICE operations more squarely ties the administration’s demands for data to its efforts to deport people.

Secretary of State Steve Simon called Bondi’s request for access to the voter rolls “an outrageous attempt to coerce Minnesota into giving the federal government private data on millions of U.S. citizens in violation of state and federal law.”

In her letter, Bondi said there are “common sense solutions to these problems” before demanding the data on Minnesotans and a repeal of so-called sanctuary policies.

“You and your office must restore the rule of law, support ICE officers and bring an end to the chaos in Minnesota,” Bondi wrote.

In response to the letter, Walz’s office said in a statement that the Trump administration’s operation in Minnesota is “not common sense, lawful immigration enforcement.”

“That’s not what this occupation is about,” the governor’s office said. “And it’s not what the attorney general’s letter is about.”

Agents have tear gassed and detained protesters and observers. U.S. citizens, including off-duty local police, have reported being racially profiled. Walz has called on the federal government to end Operation Metro Surge.

“They have fatally shot two people and wounded another; detained children as young as 2 years old; racially profiled off-duty officers; broken into the home of an elderly U.S. citizen and dragged him outside in freezing temperatures; and made children afraid to go to school,” Walz said.

At the end of December, a U.S. District Court Judge in Northern California ruled some Medicaid data can be shared with immigration authorities to help find undocumented immigrants. The order says information about people with legal status cannot be shared.

Speaking in Minneapolis on Jan. 22, Vice President JD Vance confirmed the administration wants to use Medicaid and SNAP data to conduct immigration enforcement.

“What we’d like to do is talk to local officials and say, ‘You know what, according to the Medicaid rolls, where was the last address this person was domiciled?’ Or, according to a SNAP application, a food stamps application, maybe that could give us insight into where this person is today,” Vance said.

In September, the Department of Justice sued Simon’s office for refusing to turn them over. That issue remains in litigation.