Prof. Richard Painter Quoted in MinnPost About Minneapolis Separation Ordinance Limiting Coordination Between Police and ICE

Professor Richard Painter, S. Walter Richey Professor of Corporate Law, was quoted in MinnPost about Minneapolis City Council members’ efforts to strengthen the city’s 22-year-old separation ordinance that limits coordination between the city’s police department and federal immigration authorities. They are hoping to set a national standard for pushback against what they say is illegal overreach by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies. Prof. Painter shares Minneapolis officials’ and activists’ concerns about federal overreach. He said, “I strongly oppose [ICE agents] wearing masks,” he said, adding that doing so could run afoul of 19th-century laws targeting the Ku Klux Klan’s reign of terror in the post-Civil War South. He argued that the last thing an understaffed Minneapolis Police Department needs right now is to be yoked into supporting a powerful federal agency that has seen its budget increase threefold this year. “Minneapolis can say they’re a sanctuary city, but if there’s a legal basis for someone to be detained, there’s nothing they can do about it,” Painter said.