MANKATO — A Mankato city ordinance requiring law enforcement agents to unmask and identify themselves hasn’t been put to use since it was enacted. But even as the scale and aggressiveness of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions in Minnesota have waned, only one of the seven City Council members is ready to let the rules lapse.
“It seems like we should keep something like this going for a while,” Council member Jessica Hatanpa said at a council work session Monday night, suggesting an extension of the emergency ordinance approved on Feb. 23.
As an emergency ordinance, passed without the typical public hearings and notifications normally required, it expires after 60 days unless extended or made permanent through the traditional ordinance-approval process. With the expiration date approaching on April 24, City Manager Susan Arntz asked for direction.
Hatanpa favored another 60 days of prohibiting some of the tactics employed by ICE across Minnesota and in some other Democratic cities and states, including almost universal use of face coverings and a lack of badge numbers and names on agents’ attire, often not even the agency they worked for. But she is hoping a permanent ordinance might not be necessary.
“Hopefully we can get out of this tumultuous time and then we can have discussions about what should stay (within the city code),” she said.
Council member Dennis Dieken was the only council member who questioned the need to extend the rules.
“We haven’t seen any action with that, so I wonder if it’s necessary to continue that in the face of that, plus the difficulty in enforcing,” Dieken said.
Arntz and Public Safety Director Jeremy Clifton both verified that local police have not issued citations for violations of the ordinance or even faced situations where federal agents had to be informed that masks are not allowed in Mankato and that identification is required.
“We have not had a reason to speak, to enforce, to educate …,” Clifton said.
That might be partly because the city’s ordinance, despite being fast-tracked, took more than a month to enact after dozens of residents demanded it following the arrival of masked ICE agents in large numbers in early January. By the time the language was drafted and brought back to the council for approval, the White House announced it was bringing Operation Metro Surge, which was portrayed as the largest illegal immigration crackdown in U.S. history, to an end.
The drawdown of federal ICE agents in Minnesota from more than 3,000 to a few hundred appears to have occurred as promised by Trump border czar Tom Homan, as has an apparent abandonment of some of the more pugnacious and legally questionable tactics employed by agents in January and early February.
Despite that, all council members other than Dieken were interested in at least a 60-day extension of the ordinance.
Council President Mike Laven said the city has numerous ordinances on the books that are rarely enforced simply “because everyone operates within the norms.”
The norms listed in the “Emergency ordinance clarifying requirements for law enforcement agencies and officers within the city” include that officers show their faces when working within the city of Mankato. With a few narrow exceptions, such as tactical response teams that regularly wear helmets and other protective gear, officers and agents are prohibited from hiding their identities.
It applies to all types and levels of law enforcement — local police and sheriff’s deputies, state troopers and investigators and federal agents.
Other provisions require law enforcement agencies to “make good faith efforts to notify the city Department of Public Safety of its intended presence before engaging in law enforcement activity in the city.” Officers must identify themselves by last name and badge number (or similar identifier) when asked by a member of the public or by city officials, unless they’re working undercover.
That, too, applies when an officer is involved in “law enforcement activity,” other than undercover operations. So it excludes police or other agents who are in Mankato on personal business or for training conferences.
Finally, officers who work for agencies that require body cams in their home jurisdiction must also use those portable recording systems when engaged in law enforcement activity in Mankato.
City officials acknowledged that enforcement would be difficult if federal agents didn’t voluntarily comply when informed about the ordinance. But the council’s motivation for acting seemed to be as much about making a statement as it was about directly confronting federal agencies.
The resolution passed by the council on Feb. 23 included numerous statements about how much the city values immigrants and about the importance of building trust between residents and police.
“… Current civil immigration enforcement actions by the federal government are undermining trust in the community, spreading fear of all law enforcement, and raising barriers to residents’ accessing essential city services,” one sentence in the resolution stated.
Before next Monday’s vote to extend the rules for 60 days, Arntz asked the council to allow amendments to address concerns by other law enforcement agencies that the ordinance’s language is overly broad. For instance, she said, they don’t see the point in forcing officers or deputies to wear their body cams when dropping off evidence at the new Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension lab under construction in Mankato.
As currently written, the ordinance requires officers to identify themselves, notify city officials of their presence and use body cams only while the officers are “engaging in law enforcement activity within the city.” And “law enforcement activity” is defined as any effort “to enforce local, state or federal laws, including, but not limited to, stops, detention, execution of warrants, arrest, or imposition of other punishments or penalties.”
Arntz said she would ask City Attorney Pam Whitmore to begin fine-tuning the language as soon as Tuesday and have the amendments ready for the April 13 council meeting.