Vice President JD Vance visits Minnesota amid Trump immigration crackdown

Vice President J.D. Vance stopped in Minnesota on Thursday, ground zero in the heated battle over President Donald Trump’s aggressive crackdown on illegal immigration.

A White House official told Fox News that Vance would use his trip to “highlight the administration’s commitment to restoring law and order in Minneapolis.”

Vance will meet with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during the stop “to reinforce the White House’s steadfast support for federal immigration officials,” the official said. Vance also plans to hold a roundtable discussion with community leaders and hold a press conference.

Clearly not on Vance’s itinerary: any olive branches to top Democratic officials and protesters who are staunchly opposed to aggressive efforts by the massive deployment of masked ICE agents in Minnesota, who have raided homes while searching people for proof of citizenship.

FBI Director Patel warns elected officials that ‘no one’ is exempt from federal scrutiny amid Minnesota investigation

“I’m heading from here to Minneapolis, where we’re going to be talking with some of our ICE agents, talking with local officials about how we can stop the chaos,” Vance said two hours before arriving in Minnesota. “My simple advice to them would be, look, if you want to reduce the chaos in Minneapolis, stop fighting immigration enforcement and accept that we have to have borders in this country. It’s not that hard.”

But he added: “Certainly one of my goals is to calm tensions, talk to people, and try to understand what we can do better.”

The vice president’s trip to Minneapolis comes two weeks after Renee Judd, a Minnesota woman and mother of three, was fatally shot by an ICE agent, sparking protests and a national debate over the agency’s efforts to carry out Trump’s campaign to mass deport millions of illegal immigrants.

Minnesota Democrats criticize Department of Justice subpoenas, demand that the justice system be used as a weapon

The White House says Vance “will point out how Minneapolis’ sanctuary city policies have degraded public safety and endangered ICE officers. He will also celebrate the essential work done by ICE agents to remove dangerous illegal aliens and criminals from America’s streets.”

Judd’s killing and ongoing ICE raids have fueled demonstrations, with protesters confronting federal immigration officers.

Hours before Vance’s arrival, Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino said at a news conference in Minneapolis that “our agents are being violently attacked by agitators and anarchists.”

Federal agents fire pepper balls at protesters outside an ICE facility during a demonstration against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minneapolis, Minnesota, January 11, 2026. (Mustafa Basem/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Hundreds of militarized police forces are on standby for deployment in Minneapolis after Trump warned last week that if Minnesota political leaders don’t stop what he described as “professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking patriots at ICE, who are just trying to do their job, I will invoke the Insurrection Act.”

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz Other prominent Democrats, including state Attorney General Keith Ellison and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, on Tuesday received subpoenas from the Justice Department over an alleged conspiracy to obstruct or obstruct federal law enforcement during ongoing ICE operations.

DHS says agents rammed into vehicles amid increased law enforcement in Minneapolis: ‘Severely assaulted’

“Minnesota will not be bullied into silence, and neither will I,” Walz responded in a statement.

“Families are afraid. Children are afraid to go to school. Small businesses are hurting. A mother is dead, and the people responsible have yet to be held accountable. This is where the federal government’s energy should be directed: toward restoring trust, accountability, and real law and order, not political retaliation,” he said.

People walk during a protest after the killing of Renee Nicole Judd on January 8, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Getty Images)

Earlier Thursday, before arriving in Minnesota, Vance asked: “What’s wrong with the Minneapolis authorities? They hate the idea of ​​enforcing immigration laws so much that they’re asking their own people not to remove sex offenders from their community. It’s crazy. That’s why we see so much chaos in Minneapolis, but nowhere else.”

Vance has been one of the most vocal members of the Trump administration in defending ICE and targeting the backlash over the federal crackdown, and his trip to Minnesota is another sign that the White House is not backing down from the mass deportation campaign.

After Judd’s death, Vance accused Democrats of “mobilizing a mob against legitimate law enforcement operations.”

Voters sharply divided over Minnesota on-ice shooting: Poll

At a White House press conference earlier this month, the vice president claimed Judd had been “brainwashed” and said the Minneapolis mother of three had ties to a “broader left-wing network.”

Law enforcement members work the scene after Renee Good was shot by an ICE agent, during federal operations on January 7, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Stephen Maturin/Getty Images)

Vance’s trip comes amid weak support for ICE in a slew of recent national polls.

The most recent poll, a New York Times/Siena poll conducted Jan. 12-17 and released Thursday, showed a slight majority approval of the work Trump is doing on the southern border with Mexico and his administration’s deportation efforts.

But the president’s overall approval on the immigration issue was underwater in the poll, with nearly two-thirds disapproving of how ICE handles its job, and 61% saying ICE’s tactics have gone too far.

Federal law enforcement agents detain a protester during a raid in south Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Tuesday, January 13, 2026. (Photo: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Vance’s visit to Minnesota also comes amid a sprawling federal fraud investigation that has led to charges against dozens of people from the state’s large Somali-American community. The fraud scandal put the state’s Democratic leaders on the defensive and convinced Walz to end his bid this year for re-election to a third term as governor.

The Trump administration is eager to highlight the scandal, and during this stop Vance is expected to highlight the recent creation of a new assistant attorney general position at the Department of Justice “to root out widespread fraud and abuse of taxpayer-funded programs as we have seen in Minnesota and many other states.”

Click here to download the FOX NEWS app

The vice president had previously visited Minnesota in September, following a mass shooting at a Catholic church in the Minneapolis area.

Earlier Thursday, Vance traveled to his home state of Ohio, stopping at an industrial shipping facility in Toledo to deliver remarks about the administration’s efforts to lower prices.