Trump threatens to halt funding for states over sanctuary cities as clashes intensify in Minneapolis

WASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump said on Jan 14 he would cut off federal funding in February for any state that includes sanctuary cities, expanding his attacks on mostly Democratic-run cities following days of chaotic clashes on the streets of Minneapolis.

Mr Trump’s vow, which he made on social media, repeated comments he first made during a speech in Detroit on Jan 13, when he said he would halt payments starting on Feb 1 to any state that had sanctuary cities, which limit the local authorities’ cooperation with federal immigration officers.

Any such effort would undoubtedly be challenged in court. A federal judge last August blocked a previous attempt to freeze funding for more than 30 sanctuary jurisdictions unless they cooperated with his immigration crackdown.

Mr Trump’s declaration came amid escalating tensions in Minneapolis, a week after a US

immigration officer fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Good

, a US citizen, in her car.

The Trump administration has dispatched more than 2,000 federal officers to the city despite fierce objections from Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat. Agents appear to be conducting roving sweeps and arresting people without warrants, based on resident accounts and videos.

Reuters journalists have documented scores of armed agents carrying weapons through the icy streets of residential neighbourhoods, wearing military-style camouflage gear and masks that cover their faces and often met by residents blowing whistles and shouting at the officers.

On occasion, the agents have smashed car windows and pulled people from their vehicles, videos show. Some have confronted non-white US citizens, demanding to see their identification before walking away, drawing angry jeers and accusations of racism from bystanders.

The agents have used chemical irritants on protesters, sometimes firing orange pepper spray into faces at close range or igniting flash-bang grenades near groups in the street.

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has defended against allegations of misconduct by agents, saying they have increasingly been subject to assaults while trying to find and detain immigration violators.

It also has rejected allegations of racial profiling, saying arrests are based on reasonable suspicion that individuals lack legal immigration status. In 2025, DHS won a Supreme Court ruling allowing a person’s ethnicity to be a “relevant factor” alongside others in deciding if agents have sufficient cause to stop and question someone.

Immigration officers have also arrested US citizens for allegedly disrupting enforcement. Groups of agents have chased protesters, including at least one dressed in a giraffe costume, before wrestling them to the ground to detain them.

Two US citizen friends, Mr Brandon Siguenza and Ms Patty O’Keefe, told local NBC affiliate KARE that they were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents after following federal officers in Ms O’Keefe’s car on Jan 11.

In an incident last week, two US citizens were arrested at a Target store in the suburb of Richfield, including a 17-year-old employee, according to news reports.

A DHS spokesperson said the employee had assaulted an officer. But a video of the encounter showed the employee insulting officers with an expletive and then running away as he was chased and tackled inside the store vestibule.

Legal refugees swept up

Federal immigration officers also have arrested refugees in Minnesota with active legal status, according to resettlement groups.

The non-profit World Relief said dozens of legal refugees in the state, including children, had been arrested over the weekend and detained as part of a Trump effort to re-vet refugees who entered under Mr Trump’s Democratic predecessor, Mr Joe Biden.

“These are innocent children and families who fled the worst wars and persecution imaginable,” World Relief president Myal Greene said.

Ms Beth Oppenheim, CEO of HIAS, another resettlement group, said the refugees taken into custody had not yet obtained permanent residence, and many were taken to detention centres in Texas, far from their homes.

“These people are here on legal status, having been fully vetted extensively by our government,” she said.

When asked about the arrests of legal refugees, DHS referred to allegations of fraud against members of the Somali community in Minnesota.

“The Trump administration will not stand idly by as the US immigration system is weaponised by those seeking to defraud the American people,” a DHS spokesperson said.

Mr Trump has zeroed in on the fraud allegations in recent months,

calling Somali immigrants in Minnesota “garbage”

and saying he wants them out of the country. Administration officials have sought to tie the crackdown in Minneapolis to the scandal.

The President did not specify which states would face funding cuts under his threatened action, but the US Justice Department published a list of “sanctuary jurisdictions” in August that are located in 19 states and the District of Columbia. Nearly 160 million people live in those states, just under half of the US population.

Mr Trump, a Republican, has argued that large-scale surges in Democratic-led cities are necessary because the cities do not sufficiently cooperate with immigration enforcement.

Federal investigation into shooting under scrutiny

Mr Trump and other administration officials have defended the Good shooting as self-defence and said she was trying to run the officer over with her car, despite video showing she was turning her wheels away from him as she drove forward. Mayor Frey and other Minnesota Democrats have rejected the government’s account as false.

The Minnesota authorities have opened a criminal investigation into whether the agent who killed Ms Good broke state law, after they said the federal government withdrew from a joint investigation. At least six federal prosecutors resigned over a request from Justice Department leaders to investigate Ms Good’s widow, Reuters has reported, deepening scrutiny of the way the department is conducting the investigation.

On the morning of Jan 14, the Minnesota Attorney-General’s office asked US District Judge Kate Menendez to issue a temporary order halting the Trump administration’s surge in Minneapolis and the surrounding areas. The judge asked for additional responses from both sides before ruling. REUTERS