Minnesota AG talks about Trump’s threat to deploy troops to quell protests : NPR

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is with us now. He’s a Democrat. He is suing the Department of Homeland Security over ICE tactics in the state. Here he is Friday at a House Immigration Subcommittee field hearing in Saint Paul.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

KEITH ELLISON: We don’t need the feds to help us maintain order. We need them to stop doing certain things. This is what is necessary in this situation, and this is what we demand in our pursuit.

MARTIN: Hello. Thank you for joining us.

ELLISON: Hello, Michael. Thank you for inviting me.

MARTIN: So I’ll come back to the trial in a minute. But first, I wanted to ask you about the administration’s threat to send active duty troops to Minnesota. And then, over the weekend, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz ordered the Minnesota National Guard to prepare to deploy to assist local police and emergency management agencies. Is there a possibility that Minnesota Guard personnel could be confronted by federal troops?

ELLISON: Well, we certainly hope not. I mean, the hope is that the National Guard will help the local police because the presence of over 3,000 ICE agents has put a strain on the local police. But this is all driven by the president’s illegal and unconstitutional escalation. We don’t need more people from Alaska or anywhere else. We need them to leave. We need to return to normal levels of federal presence in our state, not this occupation that continues for primarily partisan reasons.

MARTIN: So tell us about the lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security. What is the complaint? What are the specific allegations in the lawsuit?

ELLISON: So we allege and we will prove on January 23rd that he violated the Constitution, the 10th Amendment, which is the amendment to the Constitution that requires the federal government to respect the states. And then the First Amendment because this is all driven by partisan politics. And then the Administrative Procedure Act, because it’s arbitrary, capricious and, you know, has no rational relationship to anything. No fraud, no public safety, nothing. And in fact, it hurts both.

MARTIN: So you’re hoping that the judges will order, what, the removal of these ICE agents or all of them, or some of them?

ELLISON: Yes, but we also put guardrails on their behavior. Like, you know, masking, unconstitutional stops, stopping people without any reason to suspect that they might be in the category that they’re legally allowed to search for. Arresting people for reasons that essentially amount to racial profiling.

MARTIN: A court has already intervened. On Friday, a federal judge…

ELLISON: Yes.

MARTIN: …Ordered ICE agents participating in what’s called Operation Metro Surge not to retaliate against peaceful protesters.

ELLISON: That’s true.

MARTIN: But as we’ve seen, the administration defines, you know, provocation very broadly. So the question is how can this ordinance be enforced?

ELLISON: I will tell you that when it comes to certain international issues, like what happened with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, it’s clear that the administration has openly defied the courts. But for the locals, I sued Trump over 50 times. And when the court rules in our favor, by and large the court orders are followed. We are therefore convinced that they will be followed.

MARTIN: Now let’s move on to the investigations or lack thereof. The FBI initially barred Minnesota from investigating the shooting death of Renee Macklin Good, a U.S. citizen. Now the Justice Department’s second-in-command says there is no investigation into the ICE agent who shot him.

ELLISON: That’s true.

MARTIN: Are you considering trying to access the documents they collected? Do you have any recourse here?

ELLISON: Yes. We have the absolute right to investigate this matter. And if we have the right to investigate, then at some point they will have to make the car, the gun, the shell casings and other things available to the state.

MARTIN: And…

ELLISON: Otherwise, it’s a cover-up, isn’t it?

MARTIN: Well…

ELLISON: Otherwise, they’re just covering up a crime.

MARTIN: Well, again, my question is, who enforces this? If an investigative agency is investigating individuals and the party they work for refuses to make them available, what is your recourse?

ELLISON: Well, the courts are available to order that, you know, the federal government must either investigate the matter itself or turn it over to people who will do that. This is my position.

MARTIN: That’s Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. Like we said, he’s a Democrat. Thank you so much for joining us this Martin Luther King Day.

ELLISON: Thanks for inviting me. Happy Martin Luther King Day.

Copyright © 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit the terms of use and permissions pages on our website at www.npr.org for more information.

The accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. The text of the transcript may be edited to correct errors or match updates to the audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio recording.