Minnesota rebuffs DOJ’s data demands after Pretti shooting : NPR

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon speaks to the media about early voting on September 19, 2024.

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Minnesota officials are rejecting a series of requests from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi as the state continues its standoff with the Trump administration over increased federal immigration enforcement in the North Star State.

In a letter to Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, Bondi wrote: “You and your office must restore the rule of law, support ICE agents, and end the chaos in Minnesota. »

The letter — which NPR did not obtain but which was published by other media outlets — was dated Saturday. It was the same day that Alex Pretti, a nurse and U.S. citizen, was shot and killed by immigration agents – the second fatal shooting by federal agents this month.

Bondi urged Walz to adopt what she called “common sense solutions,” including repealing what the Trump administration calls “sanctuary policies” and cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Minnesota state officials say the Trump administration is making false claims about its cooperation with ICE.

Walz, who has called on the Trump administration to end its operations in Minnesota, rejected the letter during a news conference Sunday.

The letter also calls on the state to “share all Minnesota records” relating to Medicaid and food assistance programs, including SNAP, with the federal government.

The Trump administration has cited allegations of fraud, particularly regarding immigrants of Somali descent, in its immigration crackdown.

Minnesota is one of more than 20 states that have so far refused to comply with a request from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to release personal information about people who applied for or received SNAP benefits in the past six years. The states argued the request was illegal, and a federal judge in California issued a preliminary ruling saying they would likely prevail on the claim.

Minnesota was also one of 22 states that filed a lawsuit to block the Department of Health and Human Services from sharing sensitive Medicaid data with the Department of Homeland Security to help with immigration enforcement efforts. In December, another federal judge in California ruled that limited sharing of data, including addresses and immigration status, could take place.

Bondi makes new request for voter data

Bondi also made a seemingly unrelated request: Minnesota voter data.

This isn’t the first time the Justice Department has requested information about the state’s voters — and it’s a request that isn’t limited to Minnesota.

Rather, it is the latest escalation in the Trump administration’s domestic attempt to consolidate data and exert unprecedented oversight of the nation’s election systems.

The DOJ is currently suing Minnesota and about two dozen other states — all states Trump lost in the 2020 election — to try to force them to share unredacted versions of their voter rolls with the federal government. The DOJ said it needs the data to enforce federal election law.

However, these lawsuits have gone nowhere yet.

A federal judge in California recently dismissed a lawsuit, writing that the request was “unprecedented and unlawful,” and another judge in Oregon indicated he was considering doing the same. A third Georgia judge dismissed the suit in that state on a jurisdictional issue.

Minnesota’s top vote-getter, Democrat Steve Simon, alluded to those results in a statement rejecting Bondi’s request.

“The law does not give the federal government the authority to obtain this private data,” Simon said. “It is deeply disturbing that the United States Attorney General is making this illegal demand part of an apparent ransom intended to fund the peace and security of our state.”

Election law expert Rick Hasen of UCLA Law School echoed these concerns in a forcefully written blog post over the weekend.

“This is outrageous and reprehensible,” Hasen wrote. “This shows that ICE is not in Minneapolis for law enforcement or immigration purposes. They are there to screw up blue states and try to extort them…”

The federal government has not said exactly how it plans to use or securely store the data, but it has become clear that part of its plans include running voter rolls through a revamped Department of Homeland Security system meant to search for noncitizens.

NPR was the first news outlet to report on the details of the system, known as SAVE, but tens of millions of records have now been combed through, and no evidence of the type of widespread voter fraud that Trump has long talked about has come to light.

It is also unclear how accurate the system is. In one county in Texas, a state that voluntarily agreed to run its list through the system, at least 15 of the 84 voters flagged by the system as noncitizens were false positives.

NPR Jude Joffe Block reports contributed.