MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED for NPR News. I'm Mary Louise Kelly in Washington.
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
And I'm Juana Summers in Minneapolis, where a memorial has sprung up for Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old protester killed by federal immigration agents on Saturday.
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SUMMERS: Last night, with temperatures around zero, people stood in an oval surrounding it, some offering cups of tea or hand warmers. There were flowers, candles and signs. One reads, you can't break us. Another reads, ICE will melt - spring will come. Pretti's killing and the shooting death of Renee Macklin Good by ICE officers have shocked the city and the country.
The Trump administration has replaced the leadership of its Minneapolis operation with border czar Tom Homan. But criticism of the federal government's immigration enforcement surge, which continue over the objections of state and local authorities, has hardly stopped. For more, we've reached Senator Amy Klobuchar. She's one of two Democrats who represent Minnesota in the U.S. Senate. Welcome back to the program.
AMY KLOBUCHAR: Thank you, Juana. It's wonderful to be on again.
SUMMERS: It's great to talk with you. And there's a lot I want to get to, but I do want to start with this. There was an incident that happened last night in Minneapolis where your colleague, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, was rushed by a man during a town hall event Tuesday night and sprayed with liquid via syringe. She's posted on her social media and said that she's OK. I wonder, what's your reaction to this? And does it raise security concerns for you?
KLOBUCHAR: My first reaction was, is Ilhan OK? And I actually talked to her about an hour after the town hall ended. And she was in good spirits, as good as she can be. And I think one of the things that was kind of extraordinary is she continued on with the town hall. The security was there. They had used wanding to make sure there were no weapons when people had come into the meeting. So under most accounts, for most members, you would think that was good enough. One of the things that happened here, which doesn't always happen, is there was widespread condemnation of this, including from the Republican Party of Minnesota that said these attacks had no place in our politics. And, of course, the Democratic Party.
SUMMERS: Shifting gears a bit. Your state's governor, Tim Walz, and Minneapolis' mayor, Jacob Frey, have each met now with Tom Homan, who President Trump has dispatched to aid ICE operations here in Minnesota. And for his part, Mayor Frey characterized this as a productive conversation. But in a social media post, he did add that his main goal was for the federal government to end the operation here as quickly as possible. Senator, have you been in touch with Tom Homan or the White House recently about the operation here?
KLOBUCHAR: Well, I will be talking with him soon. But I've been mainly focused on working with the White House, really over the last few weeks. I actually last week told them, high-ranking officials there, that someone else would be killed because of this operation. There are 3,000 ICE officers still in our state. And I am glad that the Border Patrol people have been pulled out, or at least a big chunk of them. But there are still ICE officers there. And you just can't have a situation where you have ICE officers that are overwhelming local police. Eleven hundred sworn police officers - Minneapolis, St. Paul, - 3,000 ICE officers. It's even more than the 10 metropolitan police offices combined. That means all these suburbs.
And our police chiefs have been clear statewide, nationally that this isn't making Minnesota or other states safer. It's making them less safe. I believe that they need to get ICE out of Minnesota. The original idea that they were going to assist with fraud investigations? Great. But this has gone way beyond that. That they would be focused on apprehending violent offenders, that's worthy.
SUMMERS: I just - if I can, Senator.
KLOBUCHAR: Go ahead.
SUMMERS: I want to put to you what President Trump said yesterday. He signaled that he wanted to de-escalate the crackdown in your state. But later on, he described people arrested by ICE in Minnesota here as, quote, "hardened, vicious, horrible criminals." What is your response to his rhetoric?
KLOBUCHAR: We know from reporting from The Wall Street Journal that about 4% of people that have been arrested nationally are what they call the worst of the worst. But what we've seen - and I'm sure there are some in Minnesota. I know there are, and that's fine, but that's not what's going on here. In fact, they've been picking up 2-year-olds, sending them to Texas. My office had to work on this case and got a successful result. And then we got this 2-year-old back to her mom.
Hmong elders who are pulled out of their house by mistake in their underwear, 5-year-olds, schoolkids, teachers being chased in parking lots, legal citizens repeatedly. Our office is handling over 400 cases. So that is why right now in Congress, we are focused on getting this agency overhauled. They already have way too much money. They were given $75 billion from the Republican bill. They're bigger than the FBI.
SUMMERS: That's in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
KLOBUCHAR: Yes.
SUMMERS: So I have a question there about this funding issue, though. Given the fact that a huge increase in ICE funding that you mentioned already passed in that bill, what would limiting these appropriations actually effectively do to put pressure on DHS in the near term? I understand that Friday is the deadline to avoid another partial government shutdown.
KLOBUCHAR: I am opposed, as are so many of my Democratic colleagues, to this budget that has been proposed for ICE. There is also a major effort underway to use the power of our votes to overhaul ICE. And I'll just give you some ideas. Stopping the surge, getting ICE out of Minnesota and other places. The training that has been reduced to 47 days, for the 47th president, when it should be months and months of training. Getting rid of these masks, and in fact, requiring mandatory body cameras.
Ending the bounty system, which has resulted in them picking people up, sending them to detention and releasing them because they still get a bounty. Breaking into someone's home without a judicial warrant. Changing the leadership. I mean, that's just a few ideas here, because we all know your eyes don't lie when you see the video of the killing of Alex. You see what actually happened. So I think, having talked to Alex's parents, the rhetoric used by the administration calling him a domestic terrorist, calling him a would-be assassin has been the most hurtful thing to their family.
SUMMERS: I just want to press you again on this issue of funding.
KLOBUCHAR: Sure.
SUMMERS: Are you and your fellow Senate Democrats willing to shut down the government over the issue of funding for the Department of Homeland Security?
KLOBUCHAR: So here's what we want to see happen. There's a number of bills, five bills that have strong bipartisan support for different agencies that can be approved. Separate out Homeland Security, which includes ICE, and then make these necessary forms to ICE. So we are united on that. And I think the better question is, are Republicans willing to come to the table for once to actually talk about the changes that they know in their heart need to be made. If they believe in liberty and the Constitution - if they believe in the First Amendment right to assembly, the Fourth Amendment protection against search and seizure, the Second Amendment right to bear arms, the Fifth Amendment right to due process - then they should be standing with us.
SUMMERS: Senator, have you heard that willingness from your Republican colleagues? Do they seem prepared to come to the table on this issue of reforming ICE, as you say, or to stop funding for ICE?
KLOBUCHAR: They have been talking with us in small groups, one on one. And I think there is some interest. And so they're going to have to understand that Democrats are insisting on this. And that's what's happening right now.
SUMMERS: Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat from Minnesota. Thank you so much.
KLOBUCHAR: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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