Readers Write: ICE bodycams, trust in government, immigration rules, the Whipple Building

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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The federal funding package passed by the House last month ahead of the deadline for a federal government shutdown gave Immigration and Customs Enforcement an additional $20 million to equip its agents with body cameras. Does ICE really need more money? After all, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, with $75 billion in supplemental funding for ICE over four years, already tripled the agency’s budget, now bigger than the annual budget of all other federal law enforcement agencies combined.

Regardless of where the money comes from, it will be wasted without comprehensive body-camera rules. ICE agents must be required to actually wear them and to turn them on when dealing with the public. As we witness in Minnesota every day, ICE agents freely disregard the law. So body-camera rules must be compulsory and enforced with penalties for noncompliance. Moreover, ICE must be required to save and retain the tapes for 90 days, and Congress and the public must have access to them.

These requirements must also be enforced. Otherwise, we just have to trust Kristi Noem. Based on her performance as the secretary of Homeland Security, does that seem like a good idea?

David Aquilina, Richfield

Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s thoughts on restoring trust in government provides food for thought (“The crisis will subside in Minnesota, but trust will need to be rebuilt,” Strib Voices, Feb. 4). One abstraction for pondering is his definition of “trust.” When Pawlenty says, “We should all be anti-lousy-results,” he’s absolutely correct. But do “lousy results” cause us to lose trust in government? Depends.

So, thank you, Pawlenty, for your thought-provoking piece. I, for one, do not need to restore my basic trust in government. Right now, all that’s needed is a new federal government I can trust.

Richard Masur, Minneapolis

Two “big cigars” — Pawlenty and former Medtronic CEO Bill George — burned up a lot of column with big nothingburgers in the Strib’s Feb. 4 opinion section (“The crisis will subside in Minnesota, but trust will need to be rebuilt” and “Here’s what we all — including Washington — can learn from the ICE crisis,” Strib Voices). Pawlenty wrote about the need for trust in government without admitting the obvious — that the current crisis in trust is the result of the ongoing outrages committed by President Donald Trump and the Republicans who maintain their cowardly silence rather than speak up for the Constitution and common decency. George says that Trump de-escalated the Immigration and Customs Enforcement invasion as soon as Minnesota business executives sent their letter — yet Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty pointed out that “nothing has changed” in the way ICE agents go about their thuggish business.

If the Strib wants “leaders” writing on its opinion pages, it should pick people who’ll say something of substance.

Steve Schild, Falcon Heights

This gnomic claptrap only reminds Minnesotans of why they got sick of the guy in the first place. Go back to retirement, please. At least former Gov. Jesse Ventura has a bit of personality.

Dan Norman, Minneapolis

I hear supporters of the immigration crackdown saying that if immigrants would just “follow the rules,” they would have no problem. But since the Trump administration came into power last year, those rules have been rapidly and cynically rewritten.

For example, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) allows people from designated countries where they are in danger of political retaliation to remain in the United States. Last November the Department of Homeland Security indicated it would terminate TPS designation for Myanmar despite the fact that the country continues to be ruled by a military regime. Although now a judge has intervened, the situation here remains dire.

Another example involves legal immigrants with refugee status. In early January the DHS started the Post-Admission Refugee Reverification and Integrity Strengthening operation. Instead of contacting people for follow-up interviews, as one would expect, this policy of “rescreening” is why we have seen so many people with refugee status detained in Minnesota or even moved out of state. (This reminds me of that common nightmare where you discover that you never earned your diploma!)

Elizabeth Coville, St. Paul

For more than 20 years, I worked in the Whipple Federal Building for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. My colleagues and I were passionate about our work and took great pride in what we did there as public servants. We shared the building with multiple other federal agencies, where we had a credit union, cafeteria and even a day care so our children could ride to and from work with us, and where we could visit them at break time. The workers there decorated for holidays and participated in charity drives and, on designated “take your son/daughter to work” days, our kids would come to the office and participate in programs explaining the important work their parents did for our government.

Then DHS arrived and told us they were taking over the building, and we all had to move. Now the Whipple Federal Building is a veritable fortress and prison, surrounded by fencing and concrete barriers, access controlled by a gatehouse with armed guards, where masked agents emerge daily to create fear and chaos in the community. A black site people are disappeared into.

I’m greatly saddened that this building, ironically named after a Minnesota pioneer and Episcopal bishop who famously advocated for oppressed Native Americans, has become a symbol for people across the country and beyond of government cruelty and oppression.