When federal immigration enforcement finally wrapped up its operation in Minnesota this week, you might have expected humility from state and city leaders who spent months resisting it. You might have expected a sober acknowledgment that things went sideways. You might have expected, at minimum, a recognition that cooperation could have spared everyone a lot of pain.
Instead, Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey chose entitlement.
They demanded reimbursement from the federal government.
Let that sink in.
After obstructing federal law enforcement, after refusing basic cooperation, after fueling tension with reckless rhetoric, and after helping turn a law enforcement effort into a prolonged public spectacle, they now want taxpayers to foot the bill.
The audacity is breathtaking.
What makes this demand laughable isn’t just the hypocrisy. It’s the complete lack of self-awareness. These leaders behaved as if they had no role in what unfolded, as if chaos simply descended from the sky, as if their own sanctuary policies and political posturing didn’t directly contribute to the mess.
But they did.
From the beginning, Minnesota’s leadership chose resistance over responsibility. They treated ICE agents not as fellow law enforcement officers doing their jobs, but as political enemies. They restricted information sharing. They discouraged coordination. They made it harder to detain and process individuals efficiently. They publicly signaled hostility instead of partnership.
And then, when enforcement became complicated, drawn out, and volatile, they acted surprised.
They shouldn’t have been.
When government entities refuse to work together, when they prioritize ideology over safety, when they politicize law enforcement, the result is confusion, tension, and instability. That instability doesn’t stay contained inside government offices. It spills into neighborhoods. It spills into protests. It spills into confrontations. It spills into tragedy.
And yes, tragedy followed.
Violence erupted. Lives were lost. Communities were traumatized. Businesses suffered. Law-abiding residents lived with fear and disruption for months. None of that was inevitable. Much of it was preventable.
Had state and city leaders instructed their local agencies to work in coordination with ICE from the beginning, this operation would likely have been resolved in days. Not weeks. Not months. Days.
Joint planning. Shared intelligence. Coordinated custody. Clear communication. Unified command.
That is how professional law enforcement works when adults are in charge.
Instead, Minnesota’s leaders chose defiance. They treated federal authority as optional. They treated enforcement as a political stunt. They treated cooperation as betrayal. And in doing so, they guaranteed escalation.
This is the dirty secret no one on the Left wants to admit: resistance makes enforcement more dangerous. When you obstruct lawful operations, you don’t stop them. You complicate them. You prolong them. You radicalize the atmosphere around them.
That atmosphere is what breeds chaos.
Then, once the dust settles, these same leaders rush to microphones and ask Washington to pay the bill.
It’s a scam.
They want the federal government to absorb the consequences of their own decisions. They want American taxpayers to subsidize their political theater. They want a bailout for failure.
And they want it without apology.
Let’s be clear: the federal government has both the authority and the obligation to enforce immigration law. Governors and mayors do not get veto power over federal statutes simply because they dislike them. This is not how constitutional government works.
But cooperation is not surrender. Cooperation is leadership.
Working with federal authorities does not mean abandoning compassion. It means protecting communities while upholding the law. It means making sure enforcement happens in an orderly, professional, and safe manner. It means minimizing disruption instead of maximizing outrage.
Minnesota’s leaders chose the opposite.
They chose optics over outcomes.
They chose headlines over harmony.
They chose virtue signaling over public safety.
Now they want a reimbursement check.
No.
You don’t get to light a fire and then bill the fire department.
You don’t get to obstruct law enforcement and then complain about the cost of enforcement.
You don’t get to inflame tensions and then pretend you were a bystander.
Real leadership would have looked very different.
It would have acknowledged federal authority. It would have established joint task forces. It would have prepared communities. It would have protected officers and civilians alike. It would have insisted on professionalism over politics.
Instead, Minnesota got performative governance.
And Americans got stuck with the consequences.
The saddest part is that this didn’t have to happen. There was nothing inevitable about months of unrest. There was nothing unavoidable about lives being lost. There was nothing necessary about prolonged disruption.
Those outcomes were the result of choices.
Bad choices.
Made by people more interested in pleasing activist bases than protecting their constituents.
Now they want to “stick it” to Washington one more time by demanding reimbursement, hoping to score political points while shifting blame.
That calculus is shameful.
It tells citizens that ideology matters more than safety.
It tells law enforcement that politics will always come first.
It tells taxpayers that they are nothing more than an ATM for failed leadership.
No responsible government should reward that.
If anything, Minnesota’s leaders owe their residents an apology. They owe them honesty. They owe them an explanation for why cooperation was rejected. They owe them accountability.
What they do not deserve is a bailout.
Leadership isn’t about demanding compensation after the damage is done.
It’s about preventing the damage in the first place.
And on that score, Minnesota’s political class failed.
Spectacularly.