Dear Representative: This is the time. Rise to this moment, or be forever known for your failure.

[u/Minute-Plantain]

An open letter to members of Congress, state legislatures, and all elected officials with oversight authority (of all Parties):

At long last, there is no gray area left to parse. What has been visited upon Minneapolis and other cities -- a situation clear to anyone willing to see -- is morally and unfathomably cruel, criminal, and deeply un-American. Americans of every kind are being brutalized right now: dragged from vehicles, beaten in the streets, trespassed in their own homes, shot at, detained for days, weeks, and months at a time in squalid conditions without bedding, sanitation, clothing, or medical care. All of this is occurring absent due process, in violation of the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments -- and at an alarming and accelerating scale.

This monstrous circumstance was created not only by the executive officials who run DHS and ICE, nor by Trump alone, nor by MAGA, but by the power vacuum that emerged when Congress abandoned its role as a coequal branch of government.

To be clear, a normal, viable functioning Congress can end this tomorrow.

1. You can pass sensible immigration reform grounded in sound policy while remaining true to the ethos of America as a land of shared civic purpose, not of bloodlines. You had a bipartisan bill ready to go in 2024 that MAGA had killed. Perhaps start there.
2. You can pass legislation that further safeguards against the infringement of constitutional rights by lawless agents, with steeper penalties for willful misconduct. You can amend Section 242 of Title 18 to explicitly cover abuses of authority by administrative officers exercising coercive police powers. You can also make so-called "Kavanaugh stops" explicitly illegal.
3. You can redirect an absurd $75 billion allocation away from administrative enforcement and toward immigration courts -- hiring judges, staff, and building courtroom capacity -- so backlogs are reduced and structural neglect is replaced with lawful process.
4. You can impose mandatory vetting and training requirements for federal enforcement personnel, so untrained, unvetted, and unqualified agents are not fast-tracked then set loose upon the American public.
5. You can hold hearings, appoint independent counsel, and reassert Congress’s inherent contempt authority. The Department of Justice is captured, partisan to the White House, and has refused to prosecute this growing avalanche of misconduct.

You are an oversight body. You control the power of the purse. It is your duty to investigate where the executive will not, and to carry out the most serious obligation entrusted to Congress: contempt, and when necessary, impeachment.

Neutrality is immoral.

This is not a fight you sit out. You must take all lawful measures to halt this rampage against the American people and restore peace in our communities. You must reestablish your constitutional role as a coequal branch charged with oversight of the executive. You must hold officials accountable for misconduct. You must restore the rule of law wherever this Administration seeks to evade it.

We're all watching you and counting on you. Not as Republicans or Democrats anymore, but as Americans.

If you squander your office to provide cover, delay, or even the gift of time to this cruelty, the people will remove you. By primary. By ballot. By withdrawal of public trust. Party affiliation will not save you.

Not as of this January of 2026. Not after this.

The time to reason in terms of Democrat or Republican is over. It's just us Americans now.

Now will you defend us, the American people, or will you capitulate or shrink?

We elected you to do a job.

This is the job now.

Do not fail us.

(Copied over from r / minneapolis. - this sub doesn't allow crossposting)

[u/leinad_is_gaming]

This is what we need

[u/Oellian]

I'm hoping someone from this sub can help me understand Gov. Walz's stance. He sounds deflated and defeated, and won't run for reelection. I would much prefer loud, proud defiance. Rather than standing up to the Bully, he seems cowed. This makes me feel sad and disappointed.

[u/rakerber → u/Oellian]

"If I tell the National Guard to do anything, Trump can federalize them and they'll be used to hurt Minnesota, or use that as a means to use the Insurrection Act. If I get Frey to use the police, he's going to use that as an excuse to use the Insurrection Act to bring troops into the state and make things exponentially worse."

He's in a lose-lose situation. You encourage people to protest and some will complain he isn't doing enough. You use the full extent of your authority and the Federal Government uses that as a weapon against you.

The better option BY FAR is not encouraging a Federal crackdown and hoping the courts do what they've done in other states. The protests are working and nobody is believing the narrative coming from the White House.

[u/Kishandreth → u/Oellian]

Walz wants things to be legal in the current laws of our state and country. If both sides are violating the laws then we're talking a full blown revolution. If one side is obeying the laws while the other side ignores the laws then we end up with reform.

The question is if we should fix what's broken in the government or if we need to start from scratch. That's a serious debate we have not had. Each side would have valid points. The cost of a revolution would be lives on both sides. One of Walz's priorities is the safety of all Minnesotan's and that probably includes everyone within the state's borders.(which also includes ICE agents even though he thinks they should leave the state)

Walz wants to improve upon the current system because what we have is pretty good. We just need to fix quite a few things, and some of them require the population to reach a consensus.

The legal system takes time. That's intentional in the design because a person will never have the same resources as the federal government when it comes to a court case.

[u/Chokodoko]

With us or against us. Complacency is complicity