In a move clearly meant to send a message to Minneapolis that the Trump administration is not backing down, War Secretary Pete Hegseth has greenlit the use of a military base near the Minneapolis airport as a housing, vehicle storage, and staging hub for ICE and Border Patrol operations. This isn’t symbolic — it’s operational.
And the message couldn’t be clearer: we are not going away. An email, supposedly from Customs and Border Protection, acquired by the San Francisco Chronicle, has more:
In what could be a sign of President Donald Trump’s Minnesota immigration siege digging in, Hegseth approved a request Monday by the Department of Homeland Security to further support its efforts in the Twin Cities.
In an email obtained by the Chronicle, U.S. Customs and Border Protection asked for space at Fort Snelling, a historic decommissioned military base in an unincorporated area next to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, to house federal immigration agents, weapons, vehicles and aircraft.
Fort Snelling is already the site of a U.S. Immigrations and Custom Enforcement field office and a DHS immigration enforcement and detention processing center. CBP will use land on a U.S. Army Reserve base there.
As far as I can tell, Fort Snelling isn’t a locked-down, gate-guarded post — it’s largely a historical federal installation with some Army Reserve units and existing DHS offices on site. That actually makes it a perfectly sensible choice as a staging area for ICE and Border Patrol: it’s federal property right next to the airport, it already has infrastructure in place, and using it would finally end the ridiculous dependence on hotel rooms to house agents and equipment.
Yes, it’s not secured like a traditional base right now, but it doesn’t take long to put some temporary fencing and checkpoints in place when the mission demands it:
“The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) requests support from the Department of War (DoW) to provide existing infrastructure to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), a component of DHS, specifically an area for parking approximately 300-500 vehicles and 10 storage trailers, a ready room space for approximal 500-800 CBP personnel, a space to house, maintain and operate five CBP Air Assets, access to a magazine to store munitions, and other necessary facilities to support operations in the Minneapolis, Minnesota metropolitan area,” the email said.
On Monday morning, Hegseth approved the request, according to correspondence obtained by the Chronicle.
So what’s been taking place in Minneapolis isn’t over – yet. That said, Trump and Democratic officials in the state appear to have made some sort of deal that would result in a major deescalation:
Governor Tim Walz called me with the request to work together with respect to Minnesota. It was a very good call, and we, actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength. I told Governor Walz that I would have Tom Homan call him, and that what we are looking for are any and all Criminals that they have in their possession. The Governor, very respectfully, understood that, and I will be speaking to him in the near future. He was happy that Tom Homan was going to Minnesota, and so am I! We have had such tremendous SUCCESS in Washington, D.C., Memphis, Tennessee, and New Orleans, Louisiana, and virtually every other place that we have “touched” and, even in Minnesota, Crime is way down, but both Governor Walz and I want to make it better! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP
But that said, don’t expect the angry [organized] mobs in the streets to appreciate any of that logic. But the fact that something isn’t easy — or popular with agitators — doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done. Establishing a more secure base close to the operational area, with proper space for personnel and equipment, is simply smart logistics.
