JD Vance on Thursday urged protesters to take their grievances to the ballot box rather than confront federal agents in the streets, dismissing protesters in Minneapolis who have physically blocked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) vehicles and thrown objects at agents as engaging in “cowardly bullshit”.
During an appearance at a factory in Toledo, Ohio, on Thursday morning, the US vice-president said he planned to travel to Minneapolis later in the day to meet with ICE personnel and local officials, promising a simple message about reducing tensions in the city.
“If you want to turn down the chaos in Minneapolis, stop fighting immigration enforcement – we have to have a border in this country. It’s not that hard,” Vance said, putting the blame on local resistance to federal immigration operations as the source of conflict rather than the aggressive tactics deployed by agents.
Vance drew comparisons between Minneapolis and other Democratic-led cities where local authorities have chosen to work alongside federal immigration enforcement. He pointed to Memphis and Austin as examples of blue cities without the unrest currently gripping Minneapolis, arguing the difference stems from cooperation between local police and ICE.
“When you look at Memphis, Tennessee, or Austin, Texas, or any other community virtually across the United States of America, and you don’t see the same level of chaos in Minneapolis, the natural conclusion is that it’s not what ICE is doing in Minneapolis, it’s what Minneapolis authorities are doing to prevent ICE from doing their jobs,” he said.
Vance added that in recent months ICE had arrested multiple people in Minneapolis with convictions for sexual offenses, but that the lack of local cooperation has forced agents to conduct dangerous street-level operations rather than coordinated arrests.
He also accused Minneapolis’s mayor, Jacob Frey, of instructing local police not to assist federal agents, forcing ICE officers to work without the protection typically provided during enforcement operations in other cities.
“They throw the sex offender in the back of a car, deport that person, throw them in jail, whatever, and then they go home safely with their families. That’s not what’s happening,” Vance said
