Melvin Carter, the Mayor of St. Paul, reacting Wednesday to a new Trump Administration order directing federal prosecutors to investigate state and city officials if they refuse to enforce President Trump’s immigration policies.
Carter told WCCO's Adam and Jordana the city has no role in enforcing those policies and will continue to protect and help its residents as it has always done.
"For the president to threaten our safe spaces, is not just a threat, and this is part of the thing we all have to understand," Carter explained. "It's not just a threat against immigrants in our community. It's a threat against every single member of our community because that makes the fabric of our community less safe."
Carter says the city has no role in enforcing any federal immigration policies.
"We have limited capacity to tell federal agencies you can't do this or you can't do that," Carter says. "You know, that's a challenge for us. But I'll tell you, if they're looking for the City of St. Paul to be deputized in some massive immigration raid, anything like that, they're going to be waiting a long time."
A Justice Department memo written by Emil Bove, the acting deputy attorney general, is directing its federal prosecutors to investigate any state or local officials who stand in the way of beefed-up enforcement of immigration laws under the Trump administration. It also says the department will return to the principle of charging defendants with the most serious crime it can prove, a staple position of Republican-led departments meant to remove a prosecutor’s discretion to charge a lower-level offense.
The memo also suggests state and local officials who stand in the way of federal immigration enforcement could themselves come under scrutiny. It directs prosecutors to investigate any episodes in which state and local officials obstruct or impede federal functions.
Mayor Carter also told WCCO's Adam and Jordana he looks forward to working with the administration on city infrastructure improvements and criminal justice reform. He also announced he will run for a third term this fall.