<\/p>\n
Jacob Frey, the embattled mayor of Minneapolis<\/a>, has warned fellow mayors that their city will be next in line to be targeted by federal immigration agents unless they speak out against Donald Trump\u2019s<\/a> aggressive deployments.<\/p>\n Addressing the US conference of mayors in Washington DC, Frey won loud applause as he accused the Trump administration of staging an \u201cinvasion\u201d of his city and pursuing a \u201cmight makes right\u201d philosophy, which he said was championed by Stephen Miller<\/a>, Trump\u2019s most powerful aide.<\/p>\n Speaking five days after last Saturday\u2019s fatal shooting in Minneapolis of a protester, Alex Pretti<\/a>, by two immigration agents, Frey called the the deployment of between 3,000 and 4,000 federal agents into the city \u201can invasion on our democracy, [and] on our republic\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t take this job to get into the business of defending democracy. I did it because being a mayor has always been my dream job.<\/p>\n \u201c[But] we are on the front lines of a very important battle, and it\u2019s important that we aren\u2019t silenced. This is not a time to bend our heads in despair or out of fear that we may be next, because if we do not speak up, if we do not step out, it will be your city that is next.\u201d<\/p>\n Frey has been outspoken for weeks against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] deployment. Shortly after the killing of another local resident, Renee Nicole Good<\/a>, by an agent on 7 January he told the agency<\/a> to \u201cget the fuck out of Minneapolis\u201d.<\/p>\n He said the city had hitherto been safe and and a scene of falling crime figures, but it had become less safe as \u201cchaos reigns supreme\u201d because of the Trump administration\u2019s deployment, tagged \u201cOperation Metro Surge\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is less safe when families do not feel comfortable going to school or buying food at the grocery store because they\u2019re worried that their very family might get ripped apart,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is less safe when we have roving bands of agents marching down the street just looking for somebody who might be concerned. I got to tell you, everybody is concerned when you have that kind of occupation.\u201d<\/p>\n Apart from the deaths of Pretti and Good, the ICE operations have resulted in the detention of several school children, including a five-year-old boy, Liam Ramos, who was sent to a facility in Texas along with his father. There have been several high profile clashes with residents who are US citizens, including one episode when a woman was violently pulled from her car after a verbal altercation, when she told agents she was trying to reach a doctor\u2019s appointment.<\/p>\n Frey accused agents of targeting individuals on the basis that they might be of Somalian, Latino or Asian origin and said the goal was less about immigration than silencing opinions and narratives that differed from the administration\u2019s.<\/p>\n He was applauded when he accused the White House of a following a \u201cmight is right\u201d philosophy, singling out Miller, Trump\u2019s influential deputy chief of staff, who is seen as the aggressive architect of the anti-immigration crusade.<\/p>\n \u201cStephen Miller has pushed for this concept, calling it the iron law of the world that might makes right,\u201d said Frey. \u201cStephen Miller is wrong. Time and again, America has rejected this notion that might makes right.\u201d<\/p>\n In a rallying call directed at fellow mayors, he said: \u201cWe do not back down to bullies. We stand up for democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Minneapolis #mayor #warns #speak #Trump #city #Minneapolis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jacob Frey, the embattled mayo… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17032,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17031"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}