Minnesota lawyers argue Trump’s ICE invasion is ‘extorting’ state for voter rolls demands 

Minnesota state attorneys alleged in a court hearing Monday that President Donald Trump and the Department of Justice are attempting to force the state to surrender its sovereignty — in particular, its control over elections — through the massive federal immigration operation in the Twin Cities region.

In the hearing, the state attorneys presented the letter Attorney General Pam Bondi sent to Gov. Tim Walz (D) over the weekend as evidence of the Trump administration’s extortion campaign against Minnesota.

In that letter, Bondi demanded that the state make multiple concessions, including forfeiting its voter registration records, to the federal government in order to “restore the rule of law.” Bondi sent the letter on the same day that federal Border Patrol agents shot and killed a man in Minneapolis while he was acting as a legal observer of immigration operations. 

While the attorney general didn’t explicitly claim that the Trump administration would end its aggressive immigration raids if the state complied with her demands, Minnesota officials have interpreted the letter as Bondi leveraging the chaos unleashed by federal agents to extract concessions from the state.

“It’s a shakedown letter,” Brian Scott Carter of the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office argued in court Monday in a hearing over the state’s lawsuit to end the Trump administration’s ongoing aggressive immigration raids there. “That’s what you expect from someone who is extorting you.”

Among her demands, Bondi ordered the state to give the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division access to Minnesota’s unredacted voter rolls, part of the department’s broader campaign to access American voters’ confidential personal data under the false pretext of rooting out widespread election fraud. For weeks, the department has sought Minnesota’s voter data — and data from several other states — but has largely done so through legal threats. 

Bondi’s letter marked the first time that the Trump administration implicitly tied its immigration enforcement actions to its quest for voters’ data.

The attorney general also demanded that the state give the Trump administration’s data on its  Medicaid and supplementary food assistance programs, end “sanctuary policies” and actively devote its own law enforcement resources to supporting the immigration raids.

In its totality, the letter amounted to an assault on Minnesota’s sovereignty, demanding that it forfeit its ability to make and enforce its own laws and maintain its voter rolls without oversight from the executive branch, which does not have authority over elections.

Lindsey Middlecamp, another attorney arguing on behalf of the state Monday, described Bondi’s note as “a ransom note.”

“Their message is clear,” Middlecamp said. “Minnesota can change its laws and policies or suffer invasion of mass armed forces.”

The state has asked a federal judge to temporarily pause the immigration enforcement operation, arguing that it violates its Tenth Amendment rights by serving as the Trump administration’s primary tool to coerce the state politically. 

Over the past month and a half, the Trump administration has sent over 3,000 federal agents to the state. 

Alongside Bondi’s letter, Minnesota attorneys highlighted other statements and actions that they believe signal an ongoing extortion campaign against the state, including a recent social media post from Trump promising “a day of retribution” for Minnesota. 

U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez, who is presiding over the state’s lawsuit, largely agreed with the state attorneys that recent actions by the Trump administration, including the weekend’s fatal shooting, were deeply alarming. However, the judge also repeatedly warned that she was very limited in how she could grant the state immediate relief. 

In its defense of the surge, the DOJ claimed that the operation wasn’t meant to force Minnesota to change its policies but to “make up for harms caused” by its policies. The department also said the state had no right to challenge the enforcement of federal immigration law. 

Menendez appeared skeptical of the department’s defense, saying that Bondi’s letter suggested a “quid pro quo.” She also noted that the state was challenging a single law enforcement operation and not the enforcement of immigration law in general.

The judge said a ruling on the state’s request “might take time” before adjourning Monday’s hearing.

Menendez is also overseeing a class-action lawsuit by Minneapolis residents challenging the aggressive tactics federal immigration agents have used against protesters, legal observers and members of the media. 

Earlier this month, she ruled that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol could not detain or use tear gas against people who are engaging in peaceful and unobstructive protest. However, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals stayed Menendez’s order in that lawsuit last week.

The killing of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by Border Patrol over the weekend unleashed another wave of unrest across the state. Pretti’s death came just over two weeks after ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed 37-year-old mother-of-three Renee Good.

Both Pretti and Good were U.S. citizens who were observing the actions of federal agents before their deaths.

Hours after Pretti’s death, Bondi promoted her letter to Walz on Fox News Sunday. She said she sent the letter Sunday in order to demand that the governor “better support President Trump.”

“He better support the men and women in law enforcement because if he doesn’t, we are, and that’s what we’re doing right now,” Bondi claimed.