Under ICE contracts, Minnesota entities have leased gun ranges, sold ammo and provided myriad goods and services

WASHINGTON Ruth Jones was incensed when she learned Cottage Grove had leased its city-owned shooting range to Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICE Jones and about a dozen other members of an immigrant advocacy group at All Saints Lutheran Church demanded unsuccessfully that their southeast Twin Cities suburb end its relationship with the federal agency We all backing law enforcement but we don t see ICE as law enforcement Jones explained Those guys wear masks don t identify themselves and just grab people The contract Cottage Grove signed with ICE for the rental of the HERO Training Center jointly owned and operated with the neighboring city of Woodbury is among dozens of Minnesota entities that have in the past few days entered into contracts with ICE or Customs and Edge Protection CBP Related ICE eyes shuttered Appleton prison as it plans massive expansion of immigrant detention centers Minnesota isn t anywhere near the top of the list of states when it comes to ICE and CBP contracts although those agencies purchase a variety of goods and services in the state that range from ammunition sales to translation services According to USASpending gov Minnesota has million worth of contracts in force since the beginning of the year while Texas has more than million Arizona has more than million and California has about million As the Trump administration and its allies in Congress seek budget cuts for greater part federal agencies ICE and CBP are notable exceptions In fact the One Big Beautiful Bill Act President Donald Trump s major legislative win to date has provided billion for immigration and limit enforcement nearly six times the latest annual budget of CBP and ICE combined Trump has boosted those budgets to meet his deportation goals Mobile Pathways a nonprofit based in Berkeley California that provides legal aid to immigrants determined there were deportations in Minnesota in and just in the first six months of this year That indicates the removals are increasing in the state ICE and CBP spending will now increase exponentially mainly on new recruits for the agency and new detention centers but also for goods and services as these immigration enforcement agencies grow Not the Minnesota way An analysis of federal contracts shows that in Minnesota ICE and CBP have spent the greater part money on the purchase of ammunition mainly from Anoka-based Vista Outdoor Sales That company signed about million in contracts with those agencies in the past decade But there are other notable contracts The Personnel Decisions Research Institute in Minneapolis signed one valued at more than million with CBP to implement license exams Prisma International has a three-year contract worth to provide translation services to ICE And ICE purchased of breaching tools from J N Tactical in South Haven last year Like Cottage Grove the University of Minnesota also signed an agreement with ICE to use a firing range that s on school-owned property But that one-year agreement ended in May of last year and was a tiny part of the nearly million in contracts with other federal agencies the university entered into last year The University of Minnesota Police Department manages an outdoor training range located on university property in Rosemount which has been in operation for more than years noted university spokesperson Andria Waclawski She also stated the facility was made available for rent to other local and federal law enforcement agencies and that the school is no longer accepting reservations for the shooting range from outside groups function use strict window addEventListener message function a if void a details datawrapper-height var e document querySelectorAll iframe for var t in a details datawrapper-height for var r i r e i i if r contentWindow a source var d a statistics datawrapper-height t px r style height d The HERO center has been leased to various law enforcement organizations besides ICE including neighboring police and fire departments the FBI and the U S Treasury Department Even the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has used the facility noted Cottage Grove Mayor Myron Bailey Cottage Grove has entered into worth of contracts with ICE since the HERO Center was inaugurated in Bailey commented there was no blowback about the arrangement until a limited months ago when members of the All Saints Lutheran Church demanded an end to the relationship He also mentioned he s unaware of how ICE uses the facility I don t exactly know what they are doing Bailey declared Still the HERO center has become a lightning rod for Jones and other members of her church who show up at immigration hearings to advocacy foreigners and make backpacks so when they get deported they have chosen stuff Jones a retired th-grader instructor announced her society did not know of ICE s yearslong use of the HERO center until she attended a pro-immigration rally at the Minnesota Capitol in May An advocate with a group from another town urged her Do you know ICE is training people there Jones mentioned Related Minnesota sheriff s departments seek to cooperate with ICE We just don t want ICE in our city she disclosed We thought that if we talked to city executives before they renewed the contract they d understand But the contract was renewed for another year with a renewal date of Aug and a value of Member of the Taskforce in Encouragement of Immigrant Families at All Saints Lutheran Church in Cottage Grove The group objects to the city s leasing of a gun range for use by ICE agents Credit Courtesy of Ruth Jones Peggy Nelson another member of the church s immigrant advocacy group revealed she was also unaware of ICE s use of the center until very in recent days I just didn t know we were training ICE agents in our own backyard she announced Meanwhile the Rev Jules Erickson pastor of All Saints Lutheran Church revealed there is a protocol to try to protect immigrants if ICE enters the church This has created a calm place for them he mentioned Members of his congregation in Cottage Grove and specific who live in Woodbury are determined to continue their protests saying their cities should be welcoming places for immigrants It s not the Minnesota way Jones announced of her city s accommodation to ICE The post Under ICE contracts Minnesota entities have leased gun ranges sold ammo and provided myriad goods and services appeared first on MinnPost