Two off-duty St. Paul police officers have been pulled over by federal agents during an immigration crackdown in Minnesota, the police chief said Tuesday.
The same happened to an off-duty Brooklyn Park police officer who was stopped at gunpoint.
“This isn’t just important because it happened to off-duty police officers, but … our officers know what the Constitution is,” said Brooklyn Park Police Chief Mark Bruley. “They know what right and wrong is, and they know when people are being targeted. … If it is happening to our officers, it pains me to think how many of our community members are falling victim to this every day.”
Bruley, St. Paul Police Chief Axel Henry and Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt, speaking in the Minnesota Capitol rotunda Tuesday with law enforcement leaders at their side, emphasized there is a need for immigration enforcement.
“We have to find common ground here,” Henry said. “… If American citizens are being grabbed or stopped or seized, this can’t happen. We have to make sure that everyone’s civil rights are intact. I truly want to believe that there isn’t anybody on either side of the political aisle that thinks that people’s civil rights aren’t important.”
Elected officials have been meeting with local law enforcement from around the state on the subject.
Law enforcement is not “suggesting that there isn’t a legitimate, lawful authority to operate here as federal agents,” Henry said. “But we are trying to come together to say, ‘Can we please find a pathway forward? Can we find a way to make sure that we can do these things without scaring the hell out of our community members?’”
Police chiefs are hearing from people who are “afraid to go outside,” Henry said, and it’s not because they’re in the U.S. illegally, but because they “know people that are getting stopped by the way that they looked, and they don’t want to take that risk.”
Bruley said he’s talked to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security Investigations agents about what’s happening.
“This is not widespread,” he said. “This is a small group of agents within the surge in the metro area that are performing or acting this way. … I’ve received phone calls from ICE agents and HSI agents indicating this is not how they act, this is not what they do.”
Bruley called for more supervision over the surge in immigration enforcement.
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The court is hearing arguments Wednesday over Trump’s effort to oust Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook based on allegations she committed mortgage fraud, which she denies.
No president has fired a sitting Fed governor in the agency’s 112-year history.
The true motivation, Trump’s critics say, is the Republican president’s desire to wrest control of U.S. interest rate policy. Trump wants interest rates to fall sharply so the government can borrow more cheaply and Americans can pay lower borrowing costs for new homes, cars or other large purchases, as worries about high costs have soured some voters on his economic management.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell and the board cut a key interest rate three times in a row in the last four months of 2025, but that’s more slowly than Trump wants. The Fed also suggested it may leave rates unchanged in coming months, concerned about triggering higher inflation.
Powell is expected to be in attendance when the justices take up an emergency plea from the Trump administration to be allowed to remove Cook from her job while her challenge to the firing plays out in court. Judges on lower courts have allowed her to remain in her post as one of seven central bank governors.
If Trump could name someone to take Cook’s place, he would have four of his appointees on the seven-member board. Cook, the first Black woman to serve on the Fed’s governing board, was appointed in 2022 by President Joe Biden, a Democrat.
The justices are being asked to effectively bless Trump’s effort to undermine the Fed’s independence, said Columbia University law professor Lev Menand, who has joined a brief in support of Cook.
“This case is about much more than Cook,” Menand said. “It’s about whether President Trump will be able to take over the Federal Reserve board in the coming months.”
The threat to the Fed’s independence spurred Powell’s three living predecessors, Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen, to weigh in on Cook’s behalf. They were joined by five former Treasury secretaries appointed by presidents of both political parties and other former high-ranking economic officials.
In their filing, lawyers for the former officials wrote that immediately ousting Cook “would expose the Federal Reserve to political influences, thereby eroding public confidence in the Fed’s independence and jeopardizing the credibility and efficacy of U.S. monetary policy.”
The U.S. Supreme Court is seen, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
FILE – Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve Board of Governors member, speaks during an event at the Brookings Institution, Nov. 3, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
FILE – Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve Board of Governors member, reacts during an event at the Brookings Institution, Monday, Nov. 3, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, file)
President Donald Trump speaks with reporters after arriving at Palm Beach International Airport, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
U.S. Supreme Court is seen, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
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The U.S. Supreme Court is seen, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
Economists warn that a politicized Fed that caves in to the president’s demands will damage its credibility as an inflation fighter and likely lead investors to demand higher rates before investing in U.S. treasuries.
With Cook’s case under review at the high court, Trump dramatically escalated his confrontation with the Fed. The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation of Powell and has served the central bank with subpoenas.
Powell himself took the rare step of responding to Trump, calling the threat of criminal charges “pretexts” that mask the real reason, Trump’s frustration over interest rates. The Justice Department has said the dispute is ostensibly about Powell’s testimony to Congress in June over the cost of a massive renovation of Fed buildings.
In Trump’s first year in office, the justices generally, but not always, went along with Trump’s pleas for emergency action to counteract lower-court rulings against him, including allowing the firings of the heads of other governmental agencies at the president’s discretion, with no claim that they did anything wrong.
But the court has sent signals that it is approaching the independence of the nation’s central bank more cautiously, calling the Fed “a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity.”
In Cook’s case, Trump is not asserting that he can fire Fed governors at will.
Cook is one of several people, along with Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James and Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California, who have been accused of mortgage fraud by federal housing official Bill Pulte. They have denied the allegations against them.
The case against Cook stems from allegations she claimed two properties, in Michigan and Georgia, as “primary residences” in June and July 2021, before she joined the Fed board. Such claims can lead to a lower mortgage rate and smaller down payment than if one of them was declared as a rental property or second home.
Cook has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged with a crime. “There is no fraud, no intent to deceive, nothing whatsoever criminal or remotely a basis to allege mortgage fraud,” a Cook lawyer, Abbe Lowell, wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi in November.
Cook specified that her Atlanta condo would be a “vacation home,” according to a loan estimate she obtained in May 2021. In a form seeking a security clearance, she described it as a “2nd home.” Lowell wrote that the case against her largely rests on “one stray reference” in a 2021 mortgage document that was “plainly innocuous in light of the several other truthful and more specific disclosures” about the homes she has purchased.
U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb ruled that the Trump administration had not satisfied a legal requirement that Fed governors can only be fired “for cause,” which she said was limited to misconduct while in office.
Cobb also held that Trump’s firing would have deprived Cook of her due process, or legal right, to contest the firing.
By a 2-1 vote, a panel of the federal appeals court in Washington rejected the Trump administration’s request to let Cook’s firing proceed.
At the Supreme Court, the administration argues Cook has no right to a hearing and courts have no role to play in reviewing Trump’s actions.
Trump lawfully fired Cook, Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote, “after concluding that the American people should not have their interest rates determined by someone who made misrepresentations material to her mortgage rates that appear to have been grossly negligent at best and fraudulent at worst.”
Sauer will face off against Paul Clement, a conservative lawyer who served in Sauer’s role under President George W. Bush and has argued for expanding gun rights, against same-sex marriage and for striking down the Affordable Care Act. Both men once worked as law clerks for Justice Antonin Scalia.
Cook’s fate should not be determined by “untested allegations” or “before any facts are found,” her lawyers told the court. She should be able to remain in her job at least while her case proceeds, they wrote.
AP Economics Writer Christopher Rugaber contributed to this report.
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s security minister said Tuesday that it had sent another 37 members of Mexican drug cartels to the United States, as the Trump administration ratchets up pressure on governments to crack down on criminal networks it says are smuggling drugs across the border.
Mexican Security Minister Omar García Harfuch wrote in a social media post on X that the people transferred were “high impact criminals” that “represented a real threat to the country’s security.”
It is the third time in the past year that Mexico has sent detained cartel members to the U.S.
Harfuch said that the government has sent 92 people in total.
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After being arrested last week at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tampa, Vikings receiver Jordan Addison’s trespassing charge has been dismissed and the prosecution has been terminated.
This new development stemmed from state attorney Susan S. Lopez filing a document in Hillsborough County on Tuesday afternoon that essentially cleared Addison’s name in the court of law.
“As Mr. Addison’s agent has advised, from the very outset of this incident and arrest, Mr. Addison committed no legal wrong doing,” Addison’s attorney Brian Pakett said in a statement via NFL Network. “We are thrilled that the truth was finally revealed and this poor man’s name was not besmirched any longer.”
According to records from the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, Addison was arrested last week by Seminole Indian Police, booked into into a local jail, and eventually released on $500 cash bond.
“On Jordan’s behalf, his legal team has already initiated the investigation, identified witnesses, and we are reviewing the viability of a claim for false arrest,” Addison’s agent Tim Younger posted on social media in the immediate aftermath. “He looks forward to the legal process and upon full investigation, we are confident Mr. Addison will be exonerated.”
Asked last week about the situation surrounding Addison, Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell emphasized that he wanted to let the legal process play out before commenting on it any further.
“I just learned about that very, very recently,” O’Connell said on Jan. 13. “I don’t want to speculate on that in any way, shape, or form. I do think we’ve got to get as many facts and find out exactly what happened. To speculate at this point would be incredibly premature for me.”
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