Minneapolis mayor defends sanctuary stance after illegal immigrant kills woman while driving drunk

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Wednesday doubled down on his position of not cooperating with federal immigration authorities when asked about the case of an illegal alien who allegedly killed a local woman while drunk.

Frey, who has repeatedly called on the Trump administration to scale back the deployment of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to the city, defended his stance during a Wednesday appearance on “Fox & Friends.”

“We’re willing to work with people when it’s about Murder and when it’s about crime. But the truth is it’s not about that,” Frey said. “We love them and we care about them,” he said of the city’s immigrant community.

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Fox News’ Griff Jenkins then asked Frei about the case of Victoria Eileen Harwell, who was killed in August 2024 by an illegal immigrant from Ecuador.

Llangari Inga was arrested on suspicion of the crime before ICE filed a request to detain him at the Hennepin County Jail, which released Inga without notifying federal authorities.

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Lalangari was arrested again on May 10, 2025 by the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office on a warrant for vehicular homicide and taken into custody by ICE the same day. He was released three days later without notice from ICE.

ICE finally arrested Inga on May 16, 2025. An initial breathalyzer showed that Inga’s blood alcohol content was more than twice the legal limit for driving in Minnesota. A test of a blood sample collected by police about 2.5 hours later found his BAC was 0.141%, still above the legal limit, authorities said.

“Remember, sanctuary politicians are fighting for criminal illegal aliens,” DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said at the time. “President Trump and Secretary Noam Eileen Harwell are fighting for victims of illegal alien crimes.”

Since Trump took office, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Frey have refused to cooperate with ICE and released nearly 470 criminal illegal immigrants onto Minnesota’s streets — including the suspect in the death of Victoria Eileen Harwell, the Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday.

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Jenkins asked Frey why his administration does not cooperate with ICE to take illegal immigrants with criminal records into federal custody.

The mayor said most of the people arrested by ICE are not a “problem” for the city.

“If you commit a crime, if you commit fraud, if you commit carjacking or murder, you should be investigated, charged, prosecuted, held accountable, and yes, arrested and put in jail,” Frey said. “That’s my position. If you commit a crime and you’re a problem on the streets of downtown Minneapolis, it’s made us less safe.”

“What I’m saying is that the number of people that ICE is picking up in our city right now is not a problem for Minneapolis,” he added.

He said many of the city’s immigrants have opened businesses and have been in the city longer than he has.

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“We must think of other people as if it were ourselves,” he said. “What do we do in these situations? How do we handle ourselves?

“We care deeply about our immigrant population. We care about everyone in our city, and we’re seeing right now that the chaos caused by this massive influx of ICE agents is not helpful.”

Original article source: Minneapolis mayor defends sanctuary stance after illegal immigrant kills woman while driving drunk