MANKATO — A municipal ordinance requiring federal agents and other law enforcement to put on badges and take off masks will be in force in Mankato through at least June 24.
The City Council voted to extend for another 60 days an emergency ordinance targeted at Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents but applying to all law enforcement. It prohibits officers from concealing their faces, requires them to identify themselves and their agency, and mandates the use of body cams in most cases.
The rules were enacted in reaction to Operation Metro Surge, which the Trump administration imposed on Minnesota last winter, calling it the largest immigration crackdown in American history. More than 3,000 agents were sent to the state, including to Mankato and other south-central Minnesota towns.
The council rushed the ordinance into place at the insistence of local residents who accused ICE of violating due process, of operating without accountability and of using everything from threats of arrest to pepper-spray to discourage people from recording their activities.
By the time the ordinance took effect, the Trump administration was winding down Operation Metro Surge after a widespread backlash to the tactics employed in Minnesota, including the shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens by ICE agents. Mankato Public Safety Director Jeremy Clifton said the local ordinance has not been utilized a single time since it was enacted.
Nonetheless, only Council member Dennis Dieken was ready to let the ordinance lapse on April 24. That’s when the emergency ordinance was set to expire under the 60-day maximum length allowed by the City Charter when an ordinance is passed through an expedited process.
The rules require the Mankato Department of Public Safety to be notified any time someone is “engaging in law enforcement activity in the city.”
Individual officers and agents must also identify themselves by last name and badge number (or similar identifier) when asked by city staff or members of the public. And if they regularly use body cameras in their home jurisdictions, they are required to do the same when working in Mankato. Exceptions are allowed for undercover operations.
The only change made as part of the 60-day extension is in the definition of “law enforcement activity.” City Manager Susan Arntz said area law enforcement were concerned that the previous definition was overly broad and could be construed as requiring, for instance, body cams to be used even if an officer was simply dropping off evidence at the new Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension lab under construction in Mankato.
As previously written, the ordinance required officers to unmask, identify themselves, notify city officials of their presence and use body cams when engaged in 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.”
The new language adds “execution of searches” to the actions that define “law enforcement activity” and drops “imposition of other punishments or penalties.”