U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi made a series of demands to Minnesota officials this weekend, including cooperation with federal immigration enforcement and access to welfare and voter data, something state officials called an attempt at coercion.

The Saturday letter to Gov. Tim Walz came the same day as the fatal shooting of a 37-year-old man by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis, escalating the conflict between Minnesota and the federal government.

Bondi asked the state for greater cooperation and said moves, including providing “voter rolls” to the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division were “simple steps” that would “help bring back law and order to Minnesota and improve the lives of Americans.”

“Minnesota can and should be a partner with this administration,” Bondi wrote. “Do not obstruct federal immigration enforcement; do not allow rioters to take over the streets and houses of worship; do not hinder federal officials from investigating financial fraud and violations of election laws.”

In a Sunday statement, Secretary of State Steve Simon, the state’s top election official, said he wouldn’t cooperate with President Donald Trump’s attorney general, calling the letter an “outrageous attempt to coerce Minnesota into giving the federal government private data on millions of U.S. Citizens in violation of state and federal law.”

“It is deeply disturbing that the U.S. Attorney General would make this unlawful request a part of an apparent ransom to pay for our state’s peace and security,” said Simon, a Democrat. “More broadly, the federal government must end the unprecedented and deadly occupation of our state immediately.”

The Trump Administration had already asked Minnesota for access to voter and welfare information last year. Minnesota has resisted the federal push for voter data, and Simon noted that the matter is subject to ongoing litigation.

Bondi also demanded that Maine release its voter data, prompting a similar reaction from that state’s top elections official, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, also a Democrat. The Trump administration sued Arizona and Connecticut for voter data earlier this month.

Bondi also asked Minnesota for all Minnesota records on Medicaid and food stamps, and the repeal of sanctuary polices blocking local officials from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement.

Related Articles

Federal judge orders ICE, DHS not to destroy or alter evidence in Minneapolis shooting

Federal and state officials both claim moral high ground in immigration crackdown after shooting

Man fatally shot by federal officers in Minneapolis identified

Minnesota activist releases video of arrest after manipulated White House version

White House shares altered image showing arrest of civil rights attorney in Minnesota

“The lawlessness in the streets is matched by the unprecedented financial fraud occurring on your watch,” the attorney general wrote. “It is a tragedy that Americans have lost faith in Minnesota’s ability to keep its taxpayers’ funds secure and its citizens safe.”

The arrival of thousands of federal immigration enforcement officers in Minnesota came after widespread government fraud in Minnesota caught the attention of the Republican administration late last year.

The office of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz didn’t say whether it would consider any of Bondi’s demands. In a statement, it said the surge of federal immigration enforcement over the past month had “brought chaos and destruction” to Minnesota and questioned the motivation of requests from President Donald Trump’s attorney general.

“We repeat our request to the administration to engage in a serious conversation about ending this federal occupation,” the governor’s office said in a statement. “This is not common sense, lawful immigration enforcement. That is not what this occupation is about. And it’s not what the attorney general’s letter is about.”

With just two games left ahead of the PWHL break for the Winter Olympics, the Minnesota Frost were looking to get the right energy going to set themselves up for a surge in the second half of the season.

Kelly Pannek said the Frost had been missing their best energy the past two games, where they lost in overtime to New York and Montreal. Fortunately for them, that energetic jolt came early in their 6-2 victory over the Sirens on Sunday afternoon at Grand Casino Arena.

The scoring party started for the Frost when both they and the Sirens had a player in the penalty box, making it a four-on-four match-up. Taylor Heise scored on an open shot to make it 1-0.

Then 12 seconds later, Kendall Coyne Schofield lined the puck up just right on the Sirens’ goal to score her league-leading 10th goal.

That set the tone for the rest of the game. After allowing one to slide past the goal post with 1:32 left in the first period, Frost goalie Maddie Rooney put on a show in the second period, keeping every Siren shot from getting past her, while Grace Zumwinkle and Katy Knoll added goals of their own to extend the Frost’s lead to 4-1.

Zumwinkle’s goal was a pretty straightforward shot, but Knoll’s came with a bit of flair as she slid into the net right after her shot, giving Frost fans something to both cheer and laugh at.

The Sirens got their second goal from forward Anna Bergman with six minutes left in the third period to make it 4-2. Then then sent goalie Kayle Osborne to the bench for a sixth attacker.

However, the Frost were able to take advantage of this opportunity as Knoll took the puck from the neutral zone and scored her second goal of the game to make it 5-2.

Pannek added a final goal with one minute and 19 seconds left to make it 6-2.

The Frost will play Vancouver on Wednesday for their final game before the Winter Olympics, with puck drop scheduled for 8 p.m. CST.

Minnesota’s Natalie Buchbinder (22) looks to pass up ice during Sunday’s PWHL game at Grand Casino Arena. (Photo courtesy of PWHL)

The play-by-play voice of the Minnesota Vikings didn’t answer requests for comment, or post on his x.com account Sunday, a day after comments from a Friday morning radio show incited online ire from people around the Twin Cities, including fans of the team.

During his Friday morning show on KFXN-FM 100.3, Paul Allen suggested that protesters who, at the time, were preparing to march against the aggressive presence of federal Immigration and Customs agents in Minnesota were paid to be there.

Before tens of thousands marched in downtown Minneapolis in frigid temperatures, Allen — speaking with former Vikings linebacker Chad Greenway and radio producer Eric Nordquist — said, “In conditions like this, do paid protesters get hazard pay? Those are the things that I’ve been thinking about this morning.”

The remark refers to a baseless conspiracy claiming that protesters are paid by left-wing groups.

“Probably not gonna touch that one,” Greenway said.

Allen continued. “Everyone’s catching strays this week,” he said, citing NFL quarterback social media criticism of Tampa Bay quarterback Baker Mayfield and former NFL QB Charlie Batch. “They’re just all over. Protesters caught one this morning.”

The comments appear to have been edited out of KFAN’s replay of the show, but web site awfulannouncing.com posted audio of the exchange on their site on Saturday.

Messages requesting comment from Allen, Nordquist and KFAN program director Chad Abbott were unanswered Sunday. They also could not be reached on Saturday.

Allen is scheduled to appear on his regular show Monday morning, starting at 9 a.m.

The Vikings declined to comment Sunday, but the team, which is based in Eagan and plays in downtown Minneapolis, joined more than 60 CEOs from prominent Minnesota businesses in signing an open letter “calling for an immediate de-escalation of tensions and for state, local and federal officials to work together to find real solutions.”

Since “Operation Metro Surge” began in Minneapolis in mid-December, federal agents have arrested and detained 3,000 Minnesota residents, including U.S. citizens, and shot three. Two were killed, U.S. citizens Renee Macklin Good, 37, on Jan. 7 and Alex Pretti, 37, on Saturday.

Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have defended each fatal shooting as justified acts of self-defense.

Allen’s comments were made the day before Pretti’s death, and on Saturday afternoon he tried to walk back his comments in a post from his x.com account, although he did not address his remarks about protestors.

“I have to stop watching all this for a little bit. I’m so sad this terror is happening all around us here in MN,” he wrote. “I just prayed to God’s will for it to somehow stop and now and (sic) started crying.

“I truly am sorry for all hurting like me through this, and I just want us to be a Love Covenant again. Truly. Let’s all pray this stops somehow because it’s awful. And no more cheap one-liners from me.”

Related Articles

Charley Walters: J.J. McCarthy will have to beat out a veteran to be the Vikings’ QB in 2026

Steelers and Mike McCarthy reach verbal agreement, likely securing Flores’ return to Vikings

How the Vikings are connected to every quarterback left in the NFL playoffs

The Loop NFL Picks: Conference championships

What to know about Brian Flores and his contract extension with the Vikings

Border Patrol agents were seeking a man with a criminal record when an agent fatally shot Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, the Border Patrol commander said Sunday. But the Minnesota Department of Corrections says state court records show only misdemeanor-level traffic offenses from more than a decade ago.

Commander Greg Bovino said Sunday that Jose Huerta-Chuma has a record of domestic assault, intentional infliction of bodily harm and disorderly conduct. He had not been apprehended as of early Sunday afternoon.

Huerta-Chuma has never been in prison in Minnesota, according to a Saturday night statement from the Corrections Department.

“DOC records further indicate that an individual by this name was previously held in federal immigration custody in a local Minnesota jail in 2018, during President Trump’s first administration,” the statement said. “Any decisions regarding release from federal custody at that time would have been made by federal authorities. DOC has no information explaining why this individual was released.”

Bovino said he didn’t know of the 2018 case, but said Huerta-Chuman is in the U.S. illegally.

“We can go back and look and blame,” Bovino said. “… Right now, my mission is to take this individual off the street.”

Border Patrol: Pretti was ‘interfering’

Bovino, who has recently been holding daily press conferences, started Sunday’s by talking about “choices.”

“When politicians, community leaders and some journalists engage in that heated rhetoric we keep talking about, when they make the choice to vilify law enforcement, calling law enforcement names like ‘Gestapo’ or using the term ‘kidnapping’,” Bovino said. “… When you choose to listen to that, that is a choice, and there are consequences and actions there also.”

“I think we saw that yesterday, and those actions and choices can obviously have tragic consequences, bad outcomes,” he continued. “Outcomes that law enforcement never wants to see. Law enforcement never wants to see a bad consequence due to a poor choice.”

Bovino said Sunday that he hasn’t reached a conclusion about what happened, but added: “What I do know is this individual was on that scene several minutes before that shooting, interfering with a lawful, legal, ethical law enforcement operation to arrest Jose Huerta-Chuma. And again, it’s back to choices. … When someone makes the choice to come into an active law enforcement scene, interfere, obstruct, delay or assault” law enforcement “and they bring a weapon to do that, that is a choice that that individual made.”

Pretti, 37, was an intensive care nurse at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Minneapolis. Family members said he cared deeply about people, was upset by President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in his city, and participated in protests following the Jan. 7 killing of Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.

“The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting,” his family said in a statement. They added that videos showed Pretti was not holding a gun when he was tackled by federal agents, but holding his phone with one hand and using the other to shield a woman who was being pepper-sprayed.

ICE says violence against officers includes finger partially bit off

Pretti had a permit to carry a gun, the Minneapolis police chief said Saturday.

Related Articles

Federal judge orders ICE, DHS not to destroy or alter evidence in Minneapolis shooting

Republican calls are growing for a deeper investigation into the fatal Minneapolis shooting

Protests inside churches are unusual despite long history of civil disobedience in the US

How is Operation Metro Surge impacting pets? Here’s what rescues tell us

For some refugees, immigration actions in Twin Cities are familiar

The Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus said in a Saturday statement: “Every peaceable Minnesotan has the right to keep and bear arms — including while attending protests, acting as observers, or exercising their First Amendment rights. These rights do not disappear when someone is lawfully armed, and they must be respected and protected at all times.”

Meanwhile, ICE says there has been a “continued uptick in violence” against federal officers in Minnesota and across the U.S.

In Minneapolis on Saturday, “a crowd of violent agitators tackled an ICE special agent,” said Marcos Charles, ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations executive associate director.

“When one of our special response teams went to assist, a protester literally bit off part of that agent’s finger,” he said, adding that an arrest was made. The agent received medical attention at the scene and was treated at a hospital.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.