Experts say the divide between Minnesota and federal authorities is
unprecedented
[January 27, 2026]
By CLAUDIA LAUER
A new Minnesota website lays out evidence to counter what officials have
called federal misinformation after immigration agents fatally shot two
residents during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown,
deepening an unprecedented divide, experts said Monday.
Minnesota also went to court to preserve evidence from the Saturday
shooting of Alex Pretti after its own investigators were blocked from
the scene by federal authorities.
Experts say the line being drawn between Minnesota and the U.S.
government goes against years of cooperation between local and federal
agencies on law enforcement missions.
But they also said the state’s hand has been forced by an administration
that has acted against decades of practice — from declining to allow
state officials access to evidence gathered by federal authorities to
barring its own Civil Rights division from probing the shootings of
Pretti and Renee Good, who was shot to death by an Immigration and
Customs Enforcement officer on Jan. 7.
Former federal prosecutors under Republican and Democratic presidential
administrations said the divide was deeply troubling, though a call
Monday between Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and President Donald Trump may
signal a way forward after both expressed that progress was made.
An unusual website launch
The Minnesota Department of Corrections launched a website its leaders
said was dedicated to combatting Department of Homeland Security
misinformation after Pretti was killed. The site includes examples where
Minnesota officials honored federal requests to hold people under
deportation orders to refute the Trump administration claim that those
people are routinely allowed to go free.
Department officials also published videos showing peaceful transfers of
custody from prison to federal authorities of several individuals the
Trump administration had claimed were arrested by immigration agents as
part of the ongoing immigration enforcement action.
The department also issued a news release trying to dispel federal
claims about the criminal records of people sought by federal agents,
including the person at the center of an operation Saturday near where
Pretti was shot. The release said the department never had custody of
the man and could only find decade-old misdemeanor traffic-related
violations. U.S. Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino had said at a news
conference Saturday that the man had a significant criminal history.
Jimmy Gurulé, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, said he
saw turf battles and other disagreements when he was a federal
prosecutor working with local authorities on task forces in Los Angeles,
and again when he was an undersecretary at the U.S. Treasury Department
overseeing law enforcement operations under George W. Bush. But, he
said, the situation in Minnesota is “unprecedented” in his experience.
“The disagreements were always handled behind the scenes. There were
never any public statements criticizing other agencies,” Gurulé said.
“It's not even a question of collaboration at this point. It's such a
broken relationship," he said. "How did it get to this point, where
state and local law enforcement have such little trust in the federal
agencies they feel they need to go to court?"
Seeking relief in court
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the Hennepin County
Attorney's Office filed a lawsuit in federal court after the shooting
Saturday seeking to preserve evidence collected by federal officials
from the Pretti shooting. A federal judge granted a motion blocking the
Trump administration from “destroying or altering evidence.”
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Federal immigration officers walk away after knocking on a door
Monday, Jan. 26, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
Federal officials called the lawsuit and claims the federal
government would destroy evidence “ridiculous.”
But state officials are not alone in having concern over a departure
from decades of standard practice, which has been the Department of
Justice and its Civil Rights Division investigating the
constitutionality of an officer's use of force, especially when
fatal. DHS officials have instead said their own department would
investigate the two Minneapolis shootings.
“What you would expect in normal times is the Justice Department
would open an investigation into the circumstances of the shooting,”
said Chris Mattei, a former federal prosecutor in Connecticut under
both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. “They have been the
independent body that would investigate it. But it would seem that
this Justice Department and this Civil Rights division have zero
interest in enforcing constitutional rights for citizens in the
immigration context.”
Mattei, now a partner at the Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder law firm that
represents several former FBI employees in lawsuits over their
terminations, said under Trump it appears the justice department
doesn't want to change the wide latitude agents have been given to
conduct immigration enforcement.
“These are career investigators,” he said. “They may have different
opinions on how to pursue an investigation or how certain evidence
should be handled. But usually in my experience they have the same
objective to conduct a credible investigation."
Gurulé called the state lawsuit, specifically the motion over
preserving evidence, “shocking.”
“The implication was they are not just keeping evidence from them
but possibly destroying it,” he said. “Clearly the state attorney
general and the Minneapolis police have grave distrust with ICE and
DHS. Clearly there are strong disagreements with the tactics that
ICE has used.”
Signs reconciliation might be possible
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt Monday moved to
distance President Trump from statements made by deputy White House
chief of staff Stephen Miller characterizing Pretti as an assassin,
saying the situation had moved quickly since Saturday and noting
Trump had never used those words.
Gurulé said statements like that erode the public's confidence that
investigations are impartial.
“You don’t express your conclusion before an investigation and make
it public. That is unheard of and upside down,” he said.
In his call with Trump, Walz's office said the governor made the
case for an impartial investigation of the shootings and that Trump
had agreed to talk to DHS about ensuring state investigators would
be able to conduct an independent investigation.
Trump and Walz also discussed working in a more coordinated fashion
on immigration enforcement. The governor's office reiterated the
state would continue honoring requests to hold incarcerated
individuals who are not U.S. citizens until federal authorities can
take them into custody.
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