In a brief but revealing seven-minute statement, on Monday the Democratic governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, announced he was suspending his re-election campaign. Walz, former Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate in the 2024 presidential election and a rumored 2028 presidential candidate, had previously announced last September that he would seek a third term.

Walz’s decision comes more than a month after federal immigration agents began kidnapping operations in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis–St. Paul, the largest metropolitan area in the state and home to approximately 3.7 million people. It also coincided with reports from multiple major media outlets, citing federal police, that the Department of Homeland Security is preparing a massive escalation, including the deployment of more than 2,000 federal agents to the metro area under the command of Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino.

This deployment represents a qualitative escalation of Trump’s mass deportation operation and a further step toward dictatorial forms of rule. The number of federal officers now being sent into Minneapolis is comparable in scale to the National Guard deployment in Washington D.C. following the January 6 coup attempt.

Bovino personally oversaw violent and illegal federal occupations in Los Angeles, Chicago and Charlotte, North Carolina last year. Often backed by video cameras and heavily armed masked agents, Bovino has played a central role in separating families, trampling democratic rights and publicly posturing as Trump’s chief anti-immigrant thug.

While only a tiny fraction of the Twin Cities population are Somali Americans, up to 100,000, the community has been the target of a concerted fascist campaign from the Trump White House and the Republican Party at-large. The racist campaign, a component of Trump’s mass deportation operation, began with the publication of a New York Times report in November detailing a multi-year federal investigation into alleged fraud perpetrated in the state.

Trump immediately seized on the report to cast all Somalis, in the US and abroad, as “garbage.” In social media posts and in a December tirade publicly aired from inside the Oval Office, Trump attacked Walz and Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, the first Somali American elected to Congress, for allegedly abetting the supposed fraud. Referring to Omar, Trump hissed, “She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage. These aren’t people who work.”

Trump’s rant was warmly received by neo-Nazis. Speaking of Trump’s rant on his December 3, 2025 livestream, Nick Fuentes remarked, “He is saying what we are all thinking. … He talks and sounds like we do. He is echoing the concerns of the forgotten men and women.”

Following Trump’s December rant, DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents began operating in force in the state, seizing over 1,000 people so far, according to the agency. In furtherance of the deportation operation, a video published last month by Trump-aligned YouTuber Nick Shirley claimed to have uncovered more than $100 million in Somali-organized fraud at childcare and healthcare centers.

Following the posting of Shirley’s video on social media, the Trump administration suspended billions of dollars in federal funding to Minnesota and four other states governed by Democrats, including Illinois, New York, California and Colorado.

Despite the fact that many of Shirley’s claims have been proven false, Walz devoted several minutes of his announcement speech to lamenting “criminals” in the state who allegedly took “advantage of our generosity,” thus lending credibility to Republican narratives about mass fraud.

“For the last several years an organized group of criminals have sought to take advantage of this state’s generosity and even as we make progress in the fight against the fraudsters we now see an organized group of political actors seeking to take advantage of a crisis,” he said.

Walz repeatedly used the word “criminals” to describe the alleged fraudsters, but not once did he refer to the cabal of fascists in the White House, who ordered the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in an illegal military operation that resulted in the deaths of at least 80 people, as criminals.

“Every minute I spend defending my own political interest would be a minute I can’t spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who prey on our generosity and the cynics who want to prey on our differences,” he said.

Walz’s decision not to run came amid Republican threats and accusations of supposedly multibillion-dollar fraud schemes allegedly perpetrated by immigrants “imported” by Democrats, none of which have materialized and all of which, including Shirley’s so-called “investigation,” have proven to be fabricated and baseless.

Trump’s federal occupation of Minneapolis is only possible because of the political capitulation of the Democratic Party and figures such as Walz. Even though Walz and his family have been repeatedly targeted by Republican extremists, he nonetheless echoed Republican talking points and appealed for bipartisan cooperation. Walz pleaded to work with Republicans, “anyone” to take on the “criminals.”

“We welcome ideas from anyone in any party, from any walk of life who wants to help us continue to stay ahead of these criminals,” Walz said. Turning to Trump’s Department of Justice and the FBI, working hand in glove with the Trump White House to suppress the Jeffrey Epstein files, Walz added, “And we welcome the involvement of the federal government. I am grateful for the career professionals at the U.S. Attorney’s office and the FBI who have been helping us fight this fight for years.”

Just as former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Joe Biden sought to build a “strong Republican Party” following Trump’s failed coup five years ago, Walz now offers to aid his Republican “friends” through the final year of his term and beyond:

“As an optimist, I will hold out some hope that my friends on the other side of the aisle will consider what servant leadership demands of them in the moment. We can work together to combat the criminals. We can work together to rebuild the public’s trust and make our state stronger.”

An emboldened Trump responded to Walz’s announcement on Truth Social with fresh attacks on Omar and Somalis as a whole and threats to imprison Democratic governors:

Minnesota’s Corrupt Governor will possibly leave office before his Term is up but, in any event, will not be running again because he was caught, REDHANDED, along with Ilhan Omar, and others of his Somali friends, stealing Tens of Billions of Taxpayer Dollars. I feel certain the facts will come out, and they will reveal a seriously unscrupulous, and rich, group of “SLIMEBALLS.” Governor Walz has destroyed the State of Minnesota, but others, like Governor Gavin Newsum, JB Pritzker, and Kathy Hochul, have done, in my opinion, an even more dishonest and incompetent job. NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW!

The cowardice of Walz and the Democrats is not a personal failing but the product of definite class interests. The Democratic Party does not oppose Trump’s assault on the working class in Venezuela or the United States because it represents the same banks, corporations and oligarchs as its Republican counterparts.

The defense of democratic rights and social programs requires the independent mobilization of the working class against both parties on the basis of a socialist program. The attack on immigrants is the spearhead of a broader assault on the economic and social conditions of the entire working class.