Watch: ICE Chief Rips Minneapolis Sanctuary, Defiance Fuels Agent Flood

On Sunday, the Director of Immigration & Customs Enforcement, Todd Lyons, appeared on Fox News to discuss ongoing events in Minnesota and other "sanctuary" jurisdictions, and he had some sharp words for the elected officials in those cities. And, he spoke on a theme that is apparently the hot topic of the day.

First, on the matter of turning over illegal aliens already in custody:

LYONS: "These sanctuary jurisdictions — you would not see this many ICE agents and special agents on the street... if they would just turn people over to us... Why not work with federal partners, turn them over to us, and let us get them out of their communities?" pic.twitter.com/B5xa1tiKDf
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) January 18, 2026

Mr. Lyons: You go ahead, and you look at what we have done since January 20th. You know, 70 percent of all illegal aliens that ICE has arrested late last year, and going into this calendar year, have criminal convictions, or pending criminal charges, or warrants, or criminal histories back in their home countries. And, you know, we've been focused on those that have been lawfully ordered deported by an immigration judge, who failed to leave. So there's about 1.5 billion (likely he meant million) individuals in the country that have been legally and lawfully ordered deported, or removed from this country by a federal judge. Unfortunately, as much press as we do, as many releases as we put out, it just, no one will pick up the fact that we are actually out there focused on our law enforcement mission. And the one thing we say all the time is, you know, these sanctuary jurisdictions, you would not see this many ICE agents and special agents on the street focused on the criminal illegal alien mission. If they would just turn people over to us, that's the key. These local law enforcement agencies have already deemed these individuals to be a public safety threat and arrested them. Why not work with federal partners, turn them over to us, and let us get them out of our community.

That's the question indeed. There are federal laws involved, which state and local governments are either ignoring or openly defying. The logical process would be for local law enforcement, once an arrestee is identified as being in the country illegally, to notify ICE and turn him or her over to the federal authorities for deportation. But instead, too many of these goblins are simply turned back out into the community.

This isn't a matter of justice, no matter how the Democrat jurisdictions try to claim it is. It's about the woke horse squeeze that "no person is illegal," not even murderers and sex offenders, leavened with a big does of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

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The discussion continued:

ICE Director Todd Lyons explains how Minnesota leaders are responsible for the ICE surge, by refusing to cooperate:

"In my 30 years of law enforcement, I never thought we would have to send law enforcement to protect law enforcement." pic.twitter.com/cdBFOtw26N
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) January 18, 2026

Again, Mr. Lyons spoke:

You know, you hear about the 3,000 federal law enforcement officers and special agents that are deployed to Minneapolis. Majority of those, if not most, are to protect the men and women that are out there trying to make those arrests, and that has definitely changed our tactics. Where we would go and have five to six officers on an arrest team, now you have to go with 10 to 15, just to protect those individuals that are trying to arrest the bad guy. In my 30 years of law enforcement I never thought we would have to send law enforcement to protect law enforcement. But I don't think you'd see as many issues, if political leaders would allow their local and state law enforcement to work with us. It's never a public safety issue to pit law enforcement against each other.

We may well be in a doom spiral in this affair. Local vs. federal, rule of law vs. an attempted mob veto. And it's likely to get worse before it gets better.

Editor’s Note: The Democrat Party has never been less popular as voters reject its globalist agenda.

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