Name: Justice Department investigating Walz, Frey over alleged obstruction
Uploaded: 2026-01-17T01:07:05.247Z
Duration: 2 min 10 s
Description: The Justice Department is investigating Minnesota officials over an alleged conspiracy to impede federal immigration agents, sources told CBS News. Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, both Democrats, are targets of the investigation, along with others. CBS News immigration and politics reporter Camilo Montoya-Galvez reports.

The Justice Department is investigating Minnesota officials over an alleged conspiracy to impede federal immigration agents, sources told CBS News. Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, both Democrats, are targets of the investigation, along with others. CBS News immigration and politics reporter Camilo Montoya-Galvez reports.

Minnesota

The U.S. Justice Department has launched a federal investigation into Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, focusing on whether they conspired to obstruct federal immigration agents. The probe centers on statements made by the officials and local policies that may have hindered the actions of ICE and border patrol agents during a large-scale immigration enforcement operation in the Twin Cities.

This operation, the largest in Department of Homeland Security history, deployed over 3,000 federal agents to Minnesota to arrest individuals suspected of being in the country illegally and to investigate fraud. The investigation follows recent criticism from local lawmakers after a Minnesota resident was killed by an ICE agent, and marks a significant escalation in tensions between the Trump administration and local Democratic officials.

Justice Department investigating Walz, Frey over alleged obstruction

CBS News has learned the Justice Department is investigating Minnesota officials over an alleged conspiracy to impede federal immigration agents. Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frye, both Democrats, are targets of the investigation along with others. Local lawmakers have been critical of the federal immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities recently, especially after Minnesota resident Renee Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent last week. CBS News immigration politics reporter Camilo Montoya Galvez joins me right now. Camilo, what more do we know about this investigation? Good evening, Lindsay. We are told by U.S. officials that indeed there is an ongoing Justice Department federal investigation into the actions of Mayor Frye in Minneapolis and Governor Walz in Minnesota over statements that they have made over the deployment of ICE and border patrol agents in the Twin Cities region. We of course know that the Trump administration has undertaken a massive immigration enforcement operation in that region of the country, sending upwards of 3,000 ICE and border patrol agents to that region to arrest people suspected of being in the country illegally, including some Somali immigrants, and also to investigate allegations of fraud in that region. That is the largest Department of Homeland Security investigation and immigration enforcement operation in the department's history. We are told, importantly, by one of the officials that the federal inquiry by the Justice Department specifically focuses on a provision of U.S. law that makes it a crime for two or more people to conspire, allegedly, to prevent federal officers from carrying out their official duties through force, intimidation, or threats. So this is a major escalation in the Trump administration's clash with local Democratic officials over immigration enforcement. We should point out that Walz and Frye have both said that protesters should remain peaceful, but they have heavily criticized the presence of federal law enforcement in that part of the country. And it is true that there are some local policies in that region that prevent local officials from working with ICE and border patrol. Camilo Torres, thank you.

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