Abbott Says Minnesota Gov and Mayor
Could Face Arrest for ICE Interference
Capitol Inside
January 27, 2026
Governor Greg Abbott gave President Donald Trump a rave review on Tuesday for the administration's attempt to enforce federal immigration laws in Minnesota where he said that top state and local authorities could be jailed as "accomplices to illegal acts" that interfered with federal immigration enforcement.
Abbott put Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and unnamed law enforcement officials in the same league with the mythical left-wing group Antifa in a Fox Business interview that he used as a rescue ride for Trump and attempt to reclaim control of a narrative that's working against the GOP.
"As (Trump) has gone through the process in Minnesota, he obviously has run into people there who are refusing to follow or enforce the law," Abbott said. "It is astonishing when you have law enforcement officers, when you have the mayor of Minneapolis, when you have the governor of Minnesota, actually agitating people to violate the laws."
Abbott remained in full attack mode during the national television appearance despite a considerably softer approach that Trump employed on Monday when he met with Walz and Frey in a search for some sort of compromise that could save face for both sides. Walz said the president had promised to contemplate the state and local leaders proposals for a middle ground in Minneapolis.
Fox Business host Stuart Varney asked the Texas leader if his remarks had been taken out of context in the media since he said on a Dallas radio show that the Trump administration needed to "recalibrate" the efforts of federal agents in Minnesota in a bid to regain respect for ICE officers and law enforcement in general.
Abbott offered the unsolicited recommendation to the White House in the midst of an uproar that was triggered by the shooting death of intensive care nurse Alex Pretti during a physical alteration with several agents for the U.S. Border Patrol. The Texas governor - when pressed by Varney on what he actually meant with the comment - said that Trump's decision to send border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota was an example of what he was thinking with the recalibrating suggestion.
"It is against the law to interfere with law enforcement officers," Abbott added. "ICE are law enforcement officers. They have a job to do - and that is to arrest and to remove people here illegally. And that ability to remove those people has been thwarted by what I consider to be accomplices to illegal acts that could subject all these people to being arrested themselves."
Abbott blamed outside agitators connected to Antifa for problems that Texas police encountered a demonstrations for civil justice in the wake of Houston native George Floyd's murder by police in Minneapolis in the early stages of the covid pandemic in 2020. But almost all of the people arrested at protests in the major Texas cities were actual evidence.
The Texas governor didn't sound the alarm about Antifa again until 2025 when he activated the National Guard for a No Kings protest at the Texas Capitol amid assertions that it was "Antifa-linked" without providing evidence to support the claim.
more to come ....
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