Federal agents carry away Aliya Rahman, days after an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Nicole Good, on Jan. 13 in Minneapolis.
Tim Evans, Reuters
Federal help for local crime-fighting ‘not there anymore’
Federal authorities handle only a fraction of U.S. criminal cases but play an outsized role in public safety because they have the time and resources to pursue difficult investigations of the most dangerous criminals. Federal authorities have capabilities to monitor and track suspected criminals that are not always available at the state level, for instance, and can more easily pursue plots across state borders.
State and local authorities rely on the unique resources and reach of their federal partners, said John Marti, a former federal prosecutor who once served as acting U.S. Attorney in Minnesota.
“That’s not there anymore,” he said, because so many attorneys have left and the government has focused so heavily on immigration. The result, he said, will be more violent criminals “who are not apprehended and stopped.”
A man is detained after ICE agents and other law enforcement officers conducted an immigration raid at his home Jan. 18 in St. Paul, Minn.
Leah Millis, Reuters
The change in Minnesota since the immigration crackdown has been so abrupt that it could have a lasting impact on traditional crime fighting, law enforcement officials there said.
One official who participated in the immigration enforcement surge said federal authorities’ ability to pursue violent felons could be hampered for years by the “ripple effects” of the administration’s overwhelming immigration focus.
To examine the impact of Trump’s immigration crackdown on federal law enforcement in Minnesota, Reuters used court dockets from Westlaw, a legal research service. Westlaw and Reuters are both divisions of Thomson Reuters.
The news organization counted cases on the federal district court’s criminal docket, where the most serious matters are filed. It did not count cases brought before federal magistrates, who typically handle lower-level offenses. In some cases, Reuters used artificial intelligence to help categorize the charges people faced. A review of a random set of records showed its assessments to be 98% accurate.