Public Safety Committee - Regular Meeting

Bring the public safety committee to order. Roll call. Committee members Coleman. Here. Johnson. Jost. Here. Kim? Here. Naker? Here. Yang? Here. Chair Bowie? So good morning colleagues.

It's okay, Good morning, Polly or colleagues. We are convening our sub and our six public safety committee here today inside of the chambers where we are really looking at the shaping of our local decisions not only in St. Paul but also the federal actions that have been actively unfolding here in our communities. And with the announcement of the decline of Operation Metro Surge, the state, the county, and the city and our local organizations are left picking up the pieces. So, the topics that we have here today may suggest that this moment has passed, but the reality is that the impact is still here.

The legal questions are still active and the responsibility of our city still remains the same. And as a council we have the responsibility to understand what is happening in real time and how it's still affecting our residents and how we have how we show up in coordination with our partners. So I also want to just ground us in this that this is still active litigation and we understand that our city, our county, and our state is an active litigation. There's ongoing legal challenges and there are some real questions about our constitutional protections that are being worked through right now. So I invited the Attorney General's office, ACLU Minnesota, and Ramsey County each who play a different role but yet still a critical role in how this moment is being responded to across our state and locally.

And here in the Public Safety Committee, our role as a as a committee is to be a conduit. A conduit for information, for policy and to ensure our residents understand how to stay informed, protected and engaged. I know later on today we're going to be doing a video talking about the council's response and approach but on this public safety committee I really saw it as a as an avenue to engage our stakeholders and our other agencies as well. So Polly if you please can read into the record item number one.

Item number one is staff report 20 six-fifty five, Updates from

the Minnesota Attorney General's Office, Federal Impact Reporting. Well, welcome. We have Lindsey Middlecamp here who's Special Counsel from the Attorney General's Office. I just want to share in the beginning that we're expecting all of our presenters to keep the remarks at ten to twelve minutes and have time for questions in between. So thank you. Welcome, Lindsey.

Great. And I've set a timer, and there's no stenographer, right? So I can talk quickly and not burden anyone's fingers typing up a perfect record. Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to come and speak to you about the work the Minnesota AG's office does. I have prepared some specific information about Operation Metro Surge, but I also wanted to do a little bit of level setting and ask maybe by show of hands if everyone feels that they know very deeply and well how the AGO is structured and what all of the responsibilities or authorities are, or if it would be valuable to give a little bit of that background first? I'm seeing some thumbs up that backgrounds would be helpful. Or no, is that you know enough about it, you don't need that background.

Middle to the first question, yes to the second question. Okay. Yeah.

I think I think the background would just be helpful as a as a framework for maybe some of our million viewers out there. Great.

So and part of why I think that's helpful is when we do get into questions about what are we doing, what we what may we be able to do going forward in terms of Operation Metro Surge or other federal impacts facing the state of Minnesota and the Twin Cities more specifically. Sometimes our answer may be that falls outside the authorities or the responsibilities of the AGO. It does not mean that the attorneys and staff there do not care very deeply or experience this as community members. But under the law there may be roles we can play and roles we cannot play. So I'm gonna talk quickly.

I'll go through some of these slides very fast. But just at a very high level, the attorney general is the chief legal officer of the state of Minnesota. And the mission of the office is helping Minnesotans live with safety, dignity, and respect. The office has over 450 employees, about a 195 of which are attorneys. I think it were many years in a row voted best legal employer under Keith Ellison's leadership.

It is a great office to work at. I personally feel very grateful to have upgraded from Pam Bondi as a boss to Keith Ellison. We work here in Saint Paul primarily, although many are also remote. And among the many duties of the office, it includes representing over 100 state agencies. If a state agency is sued and needs someone to represent the agency interests in court, that is likely done by the AG's office.

And at times, that might be advice before a lawsuit happens about advisory or regulatory issues. We also have a significant role in enforcing state consumer protection through both consumer protection laws, antitrust laws. The AGO regulates charitable institutions and also advocates for small for people and small businesses in utility matters. And also, one of our major clients is the law, Minnesota law. If someone is to sue over constitutionality of a law that the Minnesota legislature passes, then the AG's office handles that type of case as well.

This slide, I understand these slides will be available to folks afterwards. It's some of our many divisions. I won't get into them in detail. But suffice it to say, the scope of the office is largely weighted towards civil enforcement and civil investigations, not criminal work. But we do also have a criminal division.

The consumer protection and worker protection work that the office does is often one of the main reasons people from the community reach out to our office. If someone is a victim of a scam, if someone's employer is mistreating them, if someone thinks that their lender mistreating them or introducing unfair terms. We have a really robust consumer analyst line, and so I'm gonna talk about the federal action reporting form and spoiler the fact that it might go away at some point in the future. The consumer reporting form has been and will continue to be in place for the future. That tends to be our largest scale outreach from the community because people often need to talk to someone about what they're experiencing.

That said, we do not provide direct legal advice, but our consumer analysts do often mediate resolutions in terms of things that are going on with a business that they think is mistreating them or has subjected them to fraud and can get involved to obtain victories or settlements between the individual constituent and that business. We're also, I didn't know this before joining the office, but not all states have wage theft laws and not all states use wage theft laws, which blows my mind that that's apparently a political issue in some states. But the Minnesota AG is very active in helping enforce our wage theft protections and ensure that the workers of Minnesota are paid and that employers follow the law. What kinds of Oh yes.

Have a question for President Nagel. Sure.

Thanks, Madam Chair. Just to make sure I understand, you said that you don't provide legal advice, but you do get involved in cases where an individual is concerned about wage theft or consumer protection issues. So does that mean that you would represent that individual or that person would need separate legal representation? Like what is how would you get involved if you can't, I guess, give legal advice? How are you winning those victories getting those settlements?

So in wage theft cases, and these these are outside of my direct role, so I will defer to others if I I'm sure I'll be told if I get this wrong. But my understanding is that in wage theft enforcement actions, the AG is empowered under the law to bring an enforcement lawsuit against an employer. That does not mean we represent the individual employee, but the outcome would hopefully still achieve a victory that furthers their rights. I think the best partnership is always that if someone needs specific personal legal advice, they need to have their own attorney. But there are some issues that they bring to us that do clearly violate state law that the AG has authority to advance and enforce.

And so that will end up helping the individual person. It does not mean we can give that individual person legal advice about what other things they can pursue. But some things don't need to go all the way to an enforcement lawsuit. Sometimes a simple phone call, if we think a business is doing something that seems on its face illegal or has in this particular transaction scammed someone or engaged in a charge that is not fair, a mediation phone call with an analyst as opposed to a lawsuit with an attorney can often get the job done and can help the parties reach a resolution, part ways, spare the courts or anyone else the cost of an actual enforcement lawsuit. So there's a lot in between the first phone call and maybe referring them to other counsel that we can do.

Thank you. Often

we get asked, why aren't we charging so and so, why or haven't we gone after this issue? And so I think it's important to also get a baseline set of what types of criminal casework the Minnesota AG's office does not have automatic authority to do. Unless the governor or a county asks us to pick up a felony prosecution, we do not have original jurisdiction to investigate or prosecute felony cases or misdemeanor cases for that matter. The only exception is that under federal law, the Minnesota Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, often called MUFCU, does have authority to investigate and prosecute Medicaid fraud cases. So you will see a lot about our criminal casework in the Medicaid fraud arena, but unless we are asked or invited to intervene, we do not have authority to do other types of cases.

So we collaborate with counties when they need our help. Often that looks like a rural county that is overcapacity and needs a capable criminal prosecution to join their team. But at times it can involve being asked participate in high profile cases even in really well staffed resourced counties as well. Finally, we will at times be asked to give formal legal opinions. There are limits under the circumstances under which the AG's office can do that.

If a constitutional executive officer, state agency, bodies of state legislator, or attorneys for local governments or pension funds ask, then we can issue a formal legal opinion about what the law says or requires. Beyond that, we may issue fact sheets, but they are not formal opinions about what state law or federal law requires. Some of these are formal and published and some are other than in Medicaid cases. We can't provide legal advice or oversight of counties, cities, or townships. We don't represent individual Minnesotans or interpret statutes for citizens.

And if someone has a problem with the federal government that is not related to Operation Metro Surge, like, hey, I'm having issues with my Social Security or I'm having issues with my taxes, that is not something that they should be referred to our office for. But I am part of the rule of law team that has specifically been developed more in the past year to specifically respond to federal actions that are impacting Minnesotans and their rights. So essentially, any time the federal government does something that violates the federal constitution or Minnesota state law or otherwise starts to come for our rights, our rule of law team is in place to assess whether we have litigation options. We work with the litigation teams at other state AGs. You might have seen news reports about multi state cases.

Those largely arise when we find that something happening here is also happening in other states and that we can combine resources and have the most impact by bringing multistate lawsuits. Our track record is great so far. We have filed or participated in over 55 cases in the past year. My understanding is our stats are we've only lost about 10% of those at the early motion stages, and the rest have had a lot of success at the early motion stages. And we have helped either defend or protect 4,300,000,000 for the state of Minnesota and its municipalities.

So that is the team that is involved in the case that you may have some questions about. The litigation that was filed on January 12 in which Minnesota, the state, and then the city attorneys for Minneapolis and St. Paul have collaborated as co plaintiffs. We'll just call it the Operation Metro Surge lawsuit. What that lawsuit asserts are a variety of constitutional claims and claims under the Administrative Procedures Act.

But I was glad to see that someone from the ACLU is also here to talk because an important thing for your constituents to know is that while we are eagerly advancing the stories of individual people, businesses, communities, families that have been harmed, we are not asserting individualized claims. And I know that that nuance might be kind of tricky of like, well, what do you mean you need my story, you're not fighting for me? We are fighting for you, but there may be separate direct legal claims that those people have. Like they may be entitled to damages. They may be entitled to other decisions by the court about what rights of theirs were violated, that they would need to individually participate as a plaintiff, either in their own case or in a class action.

So often when we are getting folks referred to us, we are also trying to assess is there someone else we can refer them to for direct representation? Might they fit into some work that the ACLU or other organizations are bringing? Because our claims belong to the state and to the cities even though they take the stories of the individual people. Yes?

I have a question on the point that I understand the Attorney General does not do individual cases, but you mentioned that you in some scenarios would refer people. Is there like a reference like a directory? Is there like a like what is the process to have a referral directory of other lawyers that can actually represent some of these individuals?

So I'm not aware of any referral directory. I'll certainly ask my leadership if there's something I can send along after this meeting. For this particular juncture with Operation Metro Surge, we have collaborated with the attorneys that we know to be involved in habeas petition work. If we get a call from someone whose main procedural posture is someone in my family or a loved one is subject to enforcement and detention that we think is wrong, we have a network of folks that we're reaching out to see if they might fit their possible representation. And then we've been closely tracking the ACLU class actions and essentially saying, okay, is this a protester who's been retaliated against or whose First Amendment rights have been chilled, in which case I know who's working on that class action?

Or is this a case of racial profiling, in which case I know who's working on that class action? It is not a formalized directory so much as just the amount of conversations we've had helped me to know at least who the first point of contact might be. But we're certainly always happy to hear from other attorneys in the community who say, I have capacity. I'm a pro bono participant, I'd like to take some cases. So let me tell you briefly about our reporting form.

The reporting form was set up in order to be a quick source of contact information and details of incidents at the, what I'll call the zenith or peak of Operation Metro Surge chaos. Its utility has changed over time depending on how intense that concentration is. And I'll give an example of when we were right at the height of it seemed like every time you'd open social media or see the news about what was happening in our community, there were a dozen stories of different incidents all at once. The ability we can't go into court very easily and say, hey judge, turn on the news. Look what happened.

We really wanted to try to quickly turn those into sworn statements that we could actually put in court, ideally with a photo or a video or a statement of what happened. And so that form became essentially a link that the more we got word out that if you saw a story, if you put this link under it and said, if you're the person in this story, please submit your experience through this form. Now we have a name, a phone number, we can get that person on the phone. As one example, there was a woman who went on Reddit and said, I was in Mueller Park today and I found live ammunition left in the park. And someone immediately after commented, put it on this form.

Here's the link to the AG's form. I was able to get her on the phone within a few hours. She didn't just have photographs of what she'd found. She was able to swear out a statement. But she also had videos of the whole incident that had gone up until that point.

So it was a really quick hit way to get in touch with the members of the community. Now that we are at a juncture where the lawsuit, it is still going to be gathering those individual stories, but it is not, we're not at a point where we are trying to get an exhausted documentation of every single person who was affected in every way. And we've noticed that the rate of submissions and the quality of submissions has certainly changed, in part because I think people have found their own other avenues for how they want to get paired up with resources and get their story preserved. So we are evaluating considering whether this particular form, since it is for purposes of litigation, may have a pause. Because it is not just a suggestion box for people to say, hey, I'm hurting.

Here's my community trauma. It's for specific, what can we use in court to advance certain things. And we don't want to inadvertently give people a box where they submit something to and then nothing happens because that can also add obviously to a feeling of frustration and pain. So that may be changing. I think the governor's office is working with other local stakeholders to talk about what the next phase of either a truth commission or accountability commission that wouldn't be so narrowly focused on litigation tools might be where things go. So, I'm a bit over time. I apologize, but happy to take some questions.

Thank you so much, Lindsey. Essie Counsel, President Nacre.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I really appreciate this presentation. I'm curious in sort of the way we often hear about it from our attorneys is sort of our best day in court situation. Obviously, this lawsuit was originated, it was the immediate goal was to have a temporary injunction to end the surge at the moment. Now obviously we're past that point. What are we asking for? What kind of compensation are we asking for? What what would be the if we win, what's what happens?

I'm largely going to defer to your city attorney's office to to give you the the really detailed views of what may happen next in our litigation just because it is so active and evolving. But I'll say that there are many forms of relief that a court can give. As you noted, damages is one of them. Damages generally against the federal government require first that a demand be made and that they refuse to pay it. And so we are not yet at a procedural point where that is likely to be in front of the court soon.

But there is a procedure laid out under the Federal Torts Claims Act that we certainly, any state, city, and individuals have the ability to potentially make a claim under. But there are also, under the law, when violations like the ones we believe happened here happen, just because they may change, just because they may withdraw forces or reduce forces does not mean that those aren't subject to be repeated any time they want. And so certainly some of the rulings that we want to achieve and the declaration the declarative relief that we want that this violated the constitution, this violated the law remain just as strong now as they did when we first brought the suit.

Thank you.

Any other questions? Well, thank you so

much Lindsay. Appreciate your time and also gathering this information. Also want to share that I did get a chance to reach out to our city attorney Irene particularly around this case. She made it really clear for people want to have their own individual briefings since it is an act of litigation. I just wanted to invite the Attorney General's office here.

We were actually expecting to have this presentation last public safety committee meeting last month. But I still want to know for people to be aware of not only the portal but opportunities for them to share it with their constituents. But we are hearing that there's going to be evolution of this portal, a different use for truth and accountability. I definitely support that initiative because I do think there needs to be some type of legal channel for people to share their grievances and also submit their observations. So thank you so much for your time. We're going to be moving forward our

Can I make one quick plug? If you are hearing from local businesses because it can take a bit longer for them to really wrap their heads around here's what we think the impact to our business was economically or our employees. We have also have contact information for a professor and a data scientist who has been making great efforts to collect that information that may be both usable in litigation but has its own other data driven value. And so I'm happy to provide that information to this group as well so that if you do hear from your constituents with that type of report, even if the portal is gone, we'll have a place to send them.

Absolutely. Thank you. And I would love to welcome you back to talk about some other legal challenges that we're dealing with particularly around the copper wire theft. I know that's been a hot topic last year and this year as well.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Polly, you mind reading the second agenda item?

Item number two, ACLU Minnesota updates on constitutional rights violations by federal agents.

Okay so we have here and my apologies I don't I have Paul listed here actually excuse me John Bowler. Yes. As our policy counsel from ACLU Minnesota. So we just heard about the legal framework from the Attorney General's office. I also invited the ACLU to talk about this specific lawsuit that's going into more so like specific individual claims. But thank you so much for coming again. I believe you had came before this council for the separation ordinance. So welcome back.

I did. Thank you. Thank you for having me. John Beeler, policy council for the ACLU of Minnesota. Apologies.

This is a bit of a a broader presentation that we've given to groups, so I probably can skip over the background operation Metro Surge given that we've all lived it and gone through it in detail here. So as of late February, the ACLU portal, which at that point had been open about two months, we had received over 700 reports of constitutional violations. We like to talk about this kind of as the end of the funnel of of what's going on in the state because in order for them to be reported to us, an individual needs to have their rights violated. They need to know that the ACLU portal exists. They need to be confident in their security and their safety to be able to report it to us.

And then what we're seeing a lot in the outstate areas is that we need to have somebody actually available to either witness it or to experience it or to be there to report it. So many violations are occurring just outside of the public scope in our less crowded areas of our state. I believe my numbers from the Minnesota attorney general's office were that they had received nearly 1,500 submissions since their portal opened in January 15. We have over a thousand habeas petitions that have been filed since the start of Metro surge, that's up from an increase of 73 in the 12 preceding that. Habeas petitions are asking relief from government custody.

It's generally a pretty high bar for lawyers to clear, but we have seen most of them of them being granted as opposed to almost none of them being granted in preceding years, and that's essentially saying that your detention is unlawful. And then nationwide, what we've seen is that over 7,000

We have a question from council member Kim. Sorry. Just a quick one.

Does that include, like, partner organizations like the Habeas Project?

Yes. So

the sum of all of

those efforts are represented in this slide.

Yes, the ACLU Minnesota is not handling any of the habeas petitions ourselves. We did help participate in the training for the habeas project, but this has been and a lot of what I'll cover here is either a collaborative effort between ourselves and the Attorney General, or us and private law firms, or individual practitioners who stepped up, trained themselves in the habeas area, and have brought those cases. And then our last note is that there have been over 7,000 unlawful detentions around the country within the last I believe this date is since October. And so when I say those are unlawful detentions, that's not an allegation. Those are 7,000 plus court orders on wrongful detention.

So the ACLU of Minnesota has two major litigations ongoing right now. Tincture v. Nome, which is a First Amendment and Fourth Amendment violation case. This is the rights of our protesters, the rights of our observers, the rights of our documenters. And so the First Amendment claims stem from the wrongful arrests and wrongful detentions related to that observation, which is protected First Amendment activity.

But it also extends to the threats to punish people for recording or observing because that that threat to retaliate against people for using their First Amendment rights is itself a First First Amendment violation because it restricts people's ability to use that First Amendment. The Fourth Amendment are the cert elements of that are the searches and seizures that were done on the protesters when they were detained. That injunction was originally granted. It was stayed by the Eighth Circuit. And then rather than appeal that injunction with Metro Surge ostensibly winding down, we're proceeding with the underlying claims.

And so while the procedural posture of the case is not exactly where we'd want it to be, the underlying facts were vindicating. There were a lot of findings. I believe it was an over a 100 page opinion issued by our district court judge in federal court that First Amendment protesters had their rights violated, that there was an excessive use of force, that people were primarily just participating in the democratic process, utilizing those constitutional rights. Hussein v Noem is our Fourth Amendment case, dealing with racial profiling. This case, the injunction was also denied, but, again, the underlying facts that the court found were quite striking.

We had 23 plaintiffs in the clearance who said they were racially profiled, the court found that every single one of those was a valid claim, that the government offered no defense, no viable reason for detaining any of the individuals whose factual cases we highlighted, and the government found that the DHS hadn't, was not just racially profiling and detaining people on the basis of race and ethnicity, but they had an actual policy to detain people on the basis of race and ethnicity. So this was not rogue agents, this was the policy of federal government, and it was a policy enacted by federal agents on our streets. So both of these cases are proceeding. It was that initial stage, that request for injunctive relief going forward, and the primary objection that federal government raised is that Metro surge is winding down, and there's no need for prospective restrictions on their conduct. So we will still be litigating the actual actions and the harms that occurred, but there is no there are no restrictions on the government contact going forward stemming from these stemming from these actions.

To touch a bit on what the Attorney General staff mentioned in their presentation, we do represent individuals here. We primarily handle the constitutional rights. Because we're bringing these cases, there are elements of damages as well. But for people who've had their rights, who've been harmed, like physically harmed, those cases, they should also be speaking with potentially private attorneys about. What you have in these cases is a weird gap in federal law when the federal government allowed individuals to sue for violations their constitutional rights, the federal government exempted themselves from liability and their agents.

So local governments, state governments, and their agents can be sued for violations of constitutional rights under section nineteen eighty three, but the federal government and its agents cannot. So if you have, in the instance of like the Hussein plaintiffs, if you have an individual who is violently arrested, thrown to the ground on a racial profiling claim, and they say they break their wrist, The Federal Tort Claims Act allows you to sue the federal government for the breaking of the wrist, the harms you suffered physically during the arrest, but they do not allow you to sue for that Fourth Amendment violation, that wrongful detention. So there is actions at the state legislature to try to fill that gap with a state level remedy. Given the nature of the state legislature this year, we do not expect that to become law. But individuals do have rights for those harms, for those physical harms, but for the violations of the constitutional rights, that that action does not generally does not exist at federal law.

Do have a question for councilor Harvey Maker? Thanks, madam chair. So I just wanna make sure I'm understanding. If your cons an individual's constitutional rights are violated by the federal government and there are no damages per se, there is no recourse?

There's there's recourse in an in in a non damages context. You can have you can bring a case for that violation, but you cannot obtain money damages for that. You can essentially get a nominal judgment that, yes, your rights were violated. And in the cases of these class actions, there are injunctive or equitable relief that can be granted, but you're just not going get a money settlement out of that for violations of those rights like you would against a state or local government that did the same thing.

So what you can get is an acknowledgment that your rights were violated. Basically.

You have an another question or a comment? Yeah.

I'm wondering if you can maybe speak to the bill that's being presented at the capital. I think it's being led by Jamie Long, but it's to close this loophole, essentially. It allows citizens to take action against the federal government.

Can you speak to

that a little bit?

There's a standalone bill that was carried by representative Long in the house and then senators Fate and Champion in the senate. Though the senate piece has been rolled into a larger package carried by senator Latts, and that is on the that is at the senate floor awaiting hearing. We anticipate it will. And then we can see what actions the house will take on that. And that essentially provides a state level claim for constitutional rights violations.

And it does cover state and local officers as well. We'd like to have that additional state level backup beyond that federal right. You know, we want to have the want to say that the state of Minnesota guarantees these rights regardless of how the federal government treats them for, you know, just backup reasons similar to how we're working on things like Plyler and how we, you know, the state has supplemented the federal government's inaction on Roe, things like that. But that is a there is a state level bill to do that. It has been implemented in some other states, so we are, you know, optimistic that if the legislature did take action on the bill, that the law would work as intended.

And there is a retroactivity piece in that bill. As amended, I think it sets it back to 12/01/2025, so it would encompass the claims and the actions taken during Metro surge, but it's not like a full multi year look back.

And also my follow-up question in terms of the retroactivity, why is just December 2025 when we have seen no evidence of constitutional violations as of November?

That I can't I can't speak to the bill author's intent on that one. That change was made last week, but it was originally intended to be the bill as drafted was was more retroactive. It was the full period. I think it was a six year period because they're tort claims Mhmm. Or similar style styled as tort claims. But I believe it's now just December 1. I think, the way it was looked at was that the start date of metro surge was announced on December 7, so that doesn't include the activities and the actions of the federal agents prior to the official start of Metro surge.

Okay. Thank you. And I just because on the same vein, if there's any other judicial reforms that you can share, that would be really helpful as a follow-up for us, particularly as we're looking at our legislative agenda.

Sure. There is a we have quite a robust legislative agenda this year dealing with the ICE fallout. But the pieces that are sitting on the senate floor that were pulled together from senator Latz, that were carried by various authors, include the protected spaces legislation, which I believe I did talk about with the council a few months ago, and that would cover courthouses, health care facilities, day cares, schools, and higher education facilities. It includes this 1983, the state level nineteen eighty three that we just discussed. It includes a codification of Pilar v.

Doe, which is a US Supreme Court decision requiring access to public education regardless of immigration status. At cases, roughly 40 years old, but it basically is in the same immigrant access to education to public education is in the same situation now that Roe was in prior to its overturn. So we're looking for a state level guarantee of that as well, and that's one piece. There is a duty to render aid that would place it on the federal federal agents, and I think that stems the idea stems from the inaction of the federal agents after Renee Good was shot to render aid there or allow others to render aid. And there are definitely some other pieces that I'm missing to that bill, but that's the that's the large ICE response package the Senate has moved, and we expect those will link it up in the next few weeks.

And any support that can offer from that, either from the city council or from the St. Paul representatives and St. Paul senators would be greatly appreciated.

Wonderful. Thank you. And we have a question or a comment from Vice Chair Coleman.

Thank you, Chair. This is, sorry, more of a comment than a question. But I just wanted to make note for everybody here and anybody who's watching at home that in addition to the legislative reforms that are so critical, I think it's also really important in this conversation to talk about how this litigation is taking place in the context of living in the eighth circuit, which is, if not the most conservative federal circuit court. It is amongst most conservative, probably beat out only by the fifth. We have one democratic appointee on the eighth circuit.

There is currently an effort to confirm Justin Smith as a new Eighth Circuit judge who is Trump's personal lawyer. He's been critical in strengthening strengthening presidential immunity through the courts. Think, like, just I think it's an important context for us to be thinking about in in our role as this body, a body that is seeing the consequences of living in the eighth circuit and has seen some really you know, the fact that the injunction was stayed and teacher v. No. That's a direct result of having just truly heinous, for lack of a better word, circuit court judges who are making decisions about our rights in Minnesota.

So just wanted to name that, I think that there are real opportunities for us to talk about the harmful impacts of that and to think about our role in advocating for judges who really serve the interests of the communities that we seek to represent here. Thank you.

Thank you. There are some other related lawsuits the state of Minnesota touched on theirs that they have filed in conjunction with the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. Fridley Public School District filed, about ICE agents in schools. That's being, helped and supplemented by Education Minnesota. And the advocates for human rights filed a case against DHS regarding the conditions in Whipple, and they actually had a very successful early injunction granted, and that was to restrict transfer out of state, require people to or require DHS to allow people to contact their families, to contact their attorneys, to provide twenty four hour notice before they were transferred out of state, to allow them attorneys, to contact their their families, and allow for any motion practice.

Part of what council member Coleman talked about there is that the way these habeas petitions are filed is it's generally where you're located is where it needs to be filed. So by transferring people out Minnesota and into Texas and Louisiana, you took them out of the Eighth Circuit and you put them in the Fifth Circuit, which has a different standard for habeas relief. And it's a much stricter standard that allows for mandatory detention without bond hearings. So we'd like to keep filing in the District Of Minnesota. And one benefit there is that the district court of Minnesota is now very experienced in dealing with these habeas cases, and they've seen the actions of the federal government there.

A similar case regarding access to to, for to allow religious, practitioners to to access their their congregants at, at Whipple was also recently granted. And then kind of, to speed through what we've seen, in in the cases that reported, we've seen violations of the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, the Sixth Amendment, and the Tenth Amendment. So if you think about those constitutional rights that we generally take for, you know, that we take for granted, but that what we consider our constitutional rights is that they're found in that Bill of Rights, those 10 amendments. And so over 60% of that was violated in a two month period. What we've seen from the DOJ is almost an entire wipeout of the career lawyers that work there.

And that has led to failed prosecutions across the board, both on individuals charged in relation to Metro Surge, but also in areas outside the scope that are traditionally with the DOJ that have, let's see if I can skip ahead to that. So when the DOJ loses an attorney, they take a look at their caseload, they prioritize what cases they can transfer to an existing attorney or to a new attorney, and they drop some of the other cases. Because they've been prioritizing immigration, they've dropped charges against a man charged with trafficking 7,600 fentanyl pills, 12 pounds of cocaine, dropped charges against a man with conspiracy three pounds of methamphetamine, and dropped charges against a man with 12 previous convictions, including strangling pregnant women, who was also facing charges for trafficking methamphetamine. So, in an effort to ensure that they can fully staff their immigration cases, these are the types of individuals that DOJ has decided not to pursue their charges against. And obviously, these individuals are entitled to all of the due process rights of anyone charged with a crime.

They're entitled to hearings, they're entitled to bond if available, they're entitled to counsel, and they're entitled to, you know, a neutral jury. But when the DOJ is prioritizing who they want to continue prosecuting, they have chosen members of our community who've committed no crimes and lived here for decades over these individuals, and that is a political choice. That criticism from the federal judiciary, has coming both in our state and out of state. Judge Shelton said ICE violated this was in January. He said ICE has violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.

At his count, he had about 96 cases in one month. He was challenged on that by the U. S. Attorney, so he went back and revisited it, and it's actually over 200 in a two month span. So what we're not seeing is that we're not seeing the DOJ acting more or better, but they have, instead of continuing to challenge a lot of these cases, just started waving the white flag and pulling them back.

So we've seen additional violations that we're kind of expecting More litigation to come on our warrantless entries into our residents' homes and businesses. We see ongoing litigation related to the actual harms, and what we anticipate too, as these policies are growing and they're spreading around the state, what federal government is using are what we call two eighty seven gs agreements or intergovernmental service agreements. Those would likely be prohibited from by Saint Paul based on the separation ordinance that exists. But what we're seeing in outstate counties is this collaboration cooperation where ICE is delegating their immigration authority to local local sheriffs, deputies, local police agencies, and it's a program that they've they've increasingly using around the country. They've gone from roughly a 100, a 130 agencies to over 1,500 in the last year.

And unlike the federal government, when state and local governments do immigration enforcement and they violate constitutional rights, they are liable for that. So we're seeing massive judgments in these types of cases. The ACLU obtained one several years ago against Nobles County in the amount of $200,000 Massachusetts County settled one for $800,000 Long Island, a county on Long Island, $92,000,000 New York City, $112,000,000 When their sheriff Arpaio was in Phoenix, Maricopa County, they had a $300,000,000 judgment, which has prevented them from reentering the two eighty seven g agreement. And so what we're seeing as these as ICE steps in to train our local officers, this this increased collaboration, increased cooperation that we've heard so many people calling for, is that our local officers are not making ICE better, but ICE is making our local officers worse, and we're all paying the price for that as they're doing immigration enforcement, as they're increasing their racial profiling, as they're increasing their violence against our residents. So we thank City of St.

Paul for keeping that and maintaining and strengthening that separation ordinance, and we'd like to encourage more areas in the state to reevaluate their cooperation with the federal government.

Thank you so much, John. And we have a question or a comment from Councilmember Coleman or Coleman, Councilmember Johnson.

Thank you, Chair Bui, and thank you, John, for being here as well to present on this. There are a few different times through the presentation where my face was definitely not being hidden by facial expressions because I think there's so much that has been covered. I just want to go back to the effects on nonimmigrant immigration enforcement in Minnesota slide. Help me for the final four bullet points on this piece, can you just further share a little bit more about each of those and when you share prioritization of immigration, therefore leading to these cases being released, could you say two more things about that so I can understand that a little bit further? I think that's pretty significant and don't want it glossed over.

Yeah, sorry, I was trying to be cognizant of time there, and I can follow-up afterwards with the article that talks about these cases in a little bit more depth. But essentially, when DOJ is trying to figure out how they can staff their cases, how much prosecutorial time they have, and what they're using their prosecutorial and for. They just take a look at the list and they say, what what are we gonna do? What can we assign to these new prosecutors? And the turnover hasn't really helped.

So the more complicated a prosecution, the harder it is going to be to maintain it. And the federal government, the US attorney's office in Minnesota has complicated cases they're they're they've been working on that they're not willing to drop, which we understand. A lot of the fraud related cases, the prosecution of Vance Belter related to the shootings last year and the murders last year, They are maintaining staffing on those, but some of these other prosecutions, they've decided just don't meet the or just for some reason not meeting whatever internal standard they've set to continue prosecuting. And we have not seen this level of dismissal in immigration related cases. So it it tells us from the outside looking in that if you're dismissing cases against people with criminal histories and facing serious criminal charges, but not dropping those cases against immigrants for whatever violations you believe they've committed, you're making that you're making that decision.

And so most of these cases, you know, the the one I can speak to the best is is that first one, the man with 12 convictions. In his initial hearing, the judge refused to grant any form of bond or release, stating that he was a flight risk, that he was a risk to his community, that he was a risk to re offend. And so the judge said, Under conditions, I release you back to the community pending trial. And the DOJ eventually said, you know, the prosecution itself is going to be too much work, and they dismissed the charges, effectively releasing him back into the community.

Thank you. And I just as a follow-up. Yeah. I think it's just very interesting because, you know, we watch a lot of the the news coverage, especially from the federal government, that often talks about going after the worst of the worst. So just seems counterintuitive and contradictory to what they're doing. But I can say that. I'm sure you can't. So just looking into that, I think overall, I do appreciate your presentation. And again, there were several moments where I am not surprised, but also just like that affirmation, continued affirmation of the level that we are dealing with. I am curious as to for folks that are in like, how I guess, what is the capacity right now for ACLU statewide?

And then are you still taking additional cases, I guess, if folks are reaching out? What is the for constituents that maybe are looking at it and maybe impacted but maybe aren't currently being in the loop, how do they get connected with you all? And then also, what's the capacity of the team?

It's a good question. We are we still have capacity to continue to litigate things. We are working well with outside counsel and with other cases. What we've what our legal team has done a good job of is kind of dividing up who's tackling what issue. With some of the other law firms, that's why the advocates took conditions at Whipple and access to counsel, and we have the racial profiling element.

And there are other firms and other non profits doing doing that sort of capacity. Our reporting portals are still active. We're still supplementing our first amendment violation and our racial profiling claims, and ongoing reporting does continue to help. It allows us to show that the federal government, despite winding down on a metro surge at a at a at a superficial level, is has not reformed their policies and practices. Just because there are less officers in the state doesn't mean that those remaining officers have somehow decided to start abiding by the constitution.

So we do like that the people continue to report to us, that they continue to report to the attorney general's office, and then, you know, our staff, if if they're not gonna fit into existing ACLU litigation, can help refer them either to somebody handling that style of litigation or, you know, private attorneys who may be able to help them on that claim.

Thank you. Thank you.

And I have a question around policy. Do you see like what do you see as like legal or policy gaps particularly not only in St. Paul but for our state particularly in response to Operation Surge that just kind of expose some of the gaps when I think about really just the pandemic like it really showed, know, some of our gaps or lack of investment in like public health, right, our joint coordination. What would you say that was most fragile and what are some policy or legal changes that we need to make to strengthen our systems because you talked about just how the surge have really challenged our police force and actually made it worse, right? But can you speak to just like what are some of the impacts and some future recovery that we need to look at?

Yes, I think a lot of what we're pushing at the state and local level is going to depend on, you know, say if we're talking about the mask ban, is I think I may have even mentioned or left out, or we talk about the Protected Community Spaces bills, or we talk about, you know, how ICE is required to or how local PDs would be required to identify ICE or THS officers, a lot of this requires our local PD, our local PDs, our local sheriff's offices to be willing to do that, to be willing to engage with federal agents or potential federal agents on behalf of their on behalf of their residents. And what we've been accused of in several committees at the state and local level is asking our local law enforcement. We're trying to put them between the federal agents and our residents. And on some level, that's unavoidable. That is both their job.

Their job is to protect our community. It's to ensure that our feel safe and feel protected by our local law enforcement. And the unfortunate reality is that one of the major predators in our in our local environments is the federal government right now, and that our local officers need they need they need training, they need confidence, they need the support of their their leadership and their elected officials, that when they go out there and that they do confront those federal agents for simply simply things like, do you have a warrant? Do you have ID? Can you take the face mask off?

That they are both confident in their in their standing to do that, but that they do need to they do need to be doing that, and they need to be protecting their residents as well. And that there's you know, it's a it's it's a unique spot for a lot of local law enforcement jurisdictions to not be working with the federal government or not be working directly with the federal government. But the you know, whether or not it's trainings, whether or not it's additional legal support, there does need to be some some backing and some confidence on how to engage with federal agents when they're breaking local ordinances, state laws, or violating rights and local agents can and how local law enforcement can step in.

Wonderful. Well, thank you so much, John. I have one last question and open the floor for discussion, comments, or questions before we transition to our next speaker. I'm just curious around the settlement funds or future settlement funds. I know you mentioned several examples of settlement funds across country, but if we just look at just ACLU here in Minnesota, are there any legal requirements to any of the settlement funds? I'm just curious because when we hear about a case is settled and there's like $10,000,000 or $12,000,000 are there legal requirements of how those funds are used? And does that is that are those funds going to ACLU Minnesota or are these going into a specialized program?

So it's going to differ case to case and it's going to differ agency to agency. The state has clear laws in place and regulations on what they do with settlement funds collected, how they disperse those. The cases that we talked about that we're bringing out of Metro Surge on Tinsure and Hussein would apply to members of the class if there were financial damages. They're not really structured as financial claims. They're encompassed in them, but they're mostly those constitutional violation claims.

Excuse me. To which I remember to which I call back that they just don't really have a lot of financial remuneration for those violations. The two eighty seven gs agreement violations that I did, those are members of the class that has specifically had their rights violated. So, you know, the $200,000 that the ACLU obtained on behalf of four individuals who were wrongfully detained by Nobles County in 2022, That money is split between those four plaintiffs and the ACLU according to whatever retainer agreement they enjoined. And similar with the large numbers that I was citing earlier, those are specific individuals who had their rights violated by Suffolk County or New York County, I can't remember the county of Massachusetts off the top my head, but it's those direct individuals who were harmed.

And I think, you know, what we'll see as these agreements have grown in scope is that we'll see those litigations growing commensurately, And a lot of the funding that the federal government is promising is one time funding coming from that one big beautiful bill that is not necessarily going to be there in the future, but the liabilities liabilities do remain.

And just a follow-up as well, because I know we've been thinking about this at the city level in terms of our litigations and lawsuits. Like is there a tort law in like the federal government? I'm just, you know, very brand new, curious around what with how the federal government actually budgets out for their settlement claims.

Yes, there's the Federal Tort Claims Act, and that allows individuals to bring claims for injury against federal agents and against the federal government. I'm not an expert in that area, so I don't know where those funds necessarily come from. I guess the bottomless pit of federal funding that they have put forward on this issue. But there are remedies for those, for you know, the actual physical or emotional injuries. It's just that it's that constitutional violations that lack a remedy at this point against federal government.

Perfect. Any other questions before we move forward? Wonderful. Well, thank you so much. We definitely have some follow ups. I would love to follow-up to get some of the legislative agenda. And if we have some council members who will want to support, it sounds like there's already active support and active tracking of what's happening at the state level. But thank you so much for your time. And if there's any other follow ups, I'll be happy to convey that to you.

Great. Thank you again for taking the time.

Absolutely. So, Polly, could read agenda number three. So, we actually have two speakers for agenda item three.

Item number three is updates from Ramsey County related to Operation Metro Surge.

Oh, we'll be done. So we have it sounds like to 11:30. Yes, we'll be yeah, we'll be done before that. So, we have agenda item number three. So, we're hearing from two speakers from Ramsey County.

These will be short ones. Sounds like we have County Attorney John Choi here joining us. I believe there's not a presentation, but there's just a brief overview particularly around how the systems and the County Attorney's Office is absorbing the impact and some of the decisions that have been made. We also have the Chief of Staff Maria Saribia here. She's going to be speaking particularly of some of the system changes that they've made and policy changes that they've made at the County level.

So, County Attorney John Choi, you please or it's Chris Colbert? Okay, County Attorney John Choi, please join us here and we have brief remarks, would say about seven minutes. So, we have to be out of here by 11:30. But thank you so much for spending time with us.

Thank you, Chair Bowie, and members of the St. Paul City Council. Thank you for the invitation to be here to talk about some of the work that we have been doing in the Ramsey County Attorney's Office in the role that I have as the elected chief prosecutor for our our community. First of all, I wanna thank all of you because I can look around this room and see the important work that all of you have been doing to represent us as a resident of Saint Paul. I wanna thank each and every one of you for how you have showed up during this really horrible time in our community, the brutality that we have witnessed, the cruelty.

And it's just so important that our leaders are showing up to represent the values of our community and do everything that we can to sort of help and protect our residents. And I'm also very grateful just for the leadership that we have in our state, Attorney General Keith Ellison, who has been just a real remarkable leader in ensuring that our state interest is protected and that includes, local units of government like Saint Paul and and Ramsey County. And so the work of the county attorney's office began, right after president Trump was first inaugurated. One of the first things that we recognized, we didn't recognize that we would have something as cruel and brutal as operation metro surge, but we knew that things would be different. And we knew that there would be issues relative to immigration enforcement.

So back in January 2025, we created a public lawyers group that comprised of the city attorney in Saint Paul and Minneapolis and county attorneys in Hennepin and Ramsey working in collaboration with the attorney general and all of the various lawsuits that he has worked on with his team and to make sure that the local interests were taken care of as a part of some of those conversations. We also felt it was important to clarify what Minnesota law was about the authority of local units of government and sheriffs to hold particular individuals after their time had expired or there were no reason or probable cause to hold them in custody. And so the attorney general clarified that in an attorney general opinion back in January, February. And then we also and it was mentioned about the cooperative agreements that ICE has been working on with some of our rural outstate Greater Minnesota counties. And again, we needed to get some more clarification about who could actually enter into those agreements, not the sheriff, but actually the elected body like the county board so that there would be more accountability.

And then of course, Operation Metro Surge happened to our community starting in December and it really intensified in January. And one of the things that I thought was very important is that, you know, on every cop car in this country, it says to protect and serve. And I think it's really important, and I think it was discussed a little bit earlier about just maybe some training and some some recalibration about how we best meet this moment because this, I think, suddenly happened to us in the state of Minnesota. But I think it's really important that we have this concept of civilian control of our police and that should something like this ever happen again, I mean, obviously, the the the situation is still here. But surge like what we witnessed, I think we just need to have some conversations in preparation for that and also a reconciliation of some of the things that did happen.

And a part of that, I believe, is to properly calibrate the way that police show up and have proper and good direction from elected bodies. And so I think that conversation, as we have this more in our rear view mirror, we need to have that conversation about what should our local police departments be doing across our state when the federal government is exacting harm on our residents. And so that was one of the first things that I started working on back in January with conversations with every one of my police chiefs, all nine of them. And so after the killing of Renee Good, we created some clear understandings about how we would handle the use of deadly force if a federal officer was involved, and we created some guidance and protocols that all of the law enforcement agencies were in agreement with. And so I issued out request requests for compliance with these guidance, and that was helped developed by the police leaders in our community.

And then subsequent to that, in January 27, we updated that memo, and we also recognized, and this is to get to that question of protecting and serving our residents, it became very clear that what we needed to do was to make it very clear to the public that we are here to take police reports and to actually do robust criminal investigations of violations of Minnesota law. And so I made very clear to all of our police chiefs that that is my expectation and that we would do everything that we can to support their efforts to get to the truth and to seek accountability in that process. And so we announced on January 27, we had we we updated the first memo on deadly force, and then we created a new memo about reporting crime. So the procedure in Ramsey County, and it's anything that all of you can do to help make sure that people understand that they can call 911, they can call the non emergency number, they could also contact my office and we'll facilitate and try to help people figure out may maybe where the crime might have occurred. And we need to have a victim.

So in order for us to proceed, a victim would come forward in the active investigations that we have. I think it also helps when we're working with organizations like the ACLU and other immigration attorneys where they have consulted with their attorney first and then through that process they then come forward. We have a very victim centered approach in terms of these investigations. And the reason why is that we have a number of preliminary investigations, but we have not moved them to active investigations because the victim does not want us to proceed with the criminal investigation for a number of reasons. Fear of retaliation, fear that it might harm a family member.

Right? So there's a number of those that we're aware of. We also have an intelligence unit in the sheriff's office. And so they have gathered just about every possible social media video that's out there. So we're we're aware of the situations.

In some instances, we have tried to contact the victims. But right now, we have two active investigations where we are robustly investigating and doing the things that we need to do to move those criminal investigations forward. And there's a lot of steps to that, and I just I can't go into the details, but just wanna assure all of you that with regard to those two, they are very active. And I want to thank our Saint Paul Police Department, who has one of them, and I want to thank our Ramsey County Sheriff, who has the other one. Both of them have assigned an investigator to work on these cases.

And we have hired prosecutor specifically to work on the investigations and enforcement of federal laws. And as you can imagine, just because of the novelty of the situation, we're kind of in unchartered territory. So there's just a lot of things that we are learning and that we're and we're learning a lot from the work, the good work that's happening across the river with our chief prosecutor there Mary Moriarty and our attorney general Keith Ellison and our BCA. And I think it was very smart of them to take the step that they just did yesterday and also to choose a venue not here. We talked about the eighth circuit, someone had mentioned that, and to file that lawsuit in Washington DC.

So the the message that I just wanna make very clear is that every one of our police departments, all the way from White Bear Lake to the sheriff's office to Saint Paul, if you're in Ramsey County and you were harmed by a federal agent and it's a felony crime, so we are looking at allegations of assault, kidnapping, false imprisonment. Those are the three that come to mind very quickly that we want you to. But if you are but you have to be in that place that you need. And I think the first thing is to take care of people's victims' needs to whatever they need to ensure that. And part of that is, I think, seeking out legal resources.

And then when people are ready, we will meet them with somebody who will come out and take a report. We'll open up a case number, and then the investigative agency will be contacting our office, and then we'll work on evaluating what we have. And then, of course, one of the biggest challenges is that we don't we're not getting cooperation from the federal government. So we may not know in an investigation who the person is, but we will not let this go. And the way that I look at it is is that statute of limitations for many of these crimes is three years.

I think statute of limitations can also be told. I also think that we're gonna have some change in our country that might make the cooperation better, but we will not let it go. We will use every power, every investigative tool that we have at our disposal to seek and get to the truth and have transparency and ultimately have an accounting of what needs to be done in the interest of upholding Minnesota law. And so with that I'll stop and stand for any questions.

Thank you so much, County Attorney. We have two questions. Council Member Kim?

Yeah. Thank you. And I apologize if this is not in Ramsey County, but my understanding is that there's eight counties in the state that have ICE contracts. And ICE contracts fall under three categories: jail enforcement, task force model, and warrant service. Earlier, you referenced that there's maybe an interest or a determination that was made around who gets to decide who enters that contract. I'm wondering if you can just preliminarily answer, like, who gets to determine that? Is it the sheriff's office? Or is it the county boards, or is it the cities? And then does that agreement depend on the type of ICE contract, or is it any ICE contract?

I'm trying to remember exactly the I would defer to the attorney general opinion. But the gist of it was, and this the second opinion, is that the the sheriff doesn't have the authority to unilaterally enter into these contracts of whatever county that sheriff was elected in. It actually needs to go to the county board and they need to approve in some fashion. I suppose it could also be a ratification, but and I think that's really important because then you're going to have, you know, five or seven county commissioners who are elected to represent the interests of the public, and they have the authority, I think, to and that's what the attorney general opined on to make ultimately that decision. So that's important.

But the reason why that's important though is because these agreements could be validated if they didn't follow those procedures. And then more importantly on the issue of just qualified immunity, etcetera, if the attorney general is telling you that this is what the law is and you intentionally ignore that, that certainly makes the case stronger for anybody that is pursuing some form of a remedy.

Any other question from County or County's Council President Aker?

Thanks so much Madam Chair. I just want to thank you County Attorney Choi. I have been getting a lot of questions from people lately about the county's role in responding to the surge. And one of the things that I continually refer to is your leadership in that moment because I think what we were all dealing with besides being overwhelmed, feeling powerless, feeling like we were here to help and we suddenly couldn't, was this great fog of confusion about what our officers were were not able to do to protect and serve people. And in reading the memo that you sent out to local law enforcement being crystal clear that a crime is a crime is a crime, whoever commits it, and that our local officers should gather evidence, should investigate, and that your office would charge and prosecute, I think was really helpful clarity in a time when that was difficult for all of us to find.

So thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Nacre. But I just want to go back to what I had mentioned before. I think we should give some grace to our police about this thing that happened and then they had to quickly respond. But now we have some time. And I think your voices as the civilian oversight, the mayor, city councils across the state, I think we need to have this conversation with their police about kind of like if this were ever to happen again, just having that safe conversation about what it should look like the next time and just being I think better prepared for that situation.

Because I know that it was harmful. And I know it was hurt ful for some people especially I heard it over at Minneapolis and maybe a little bit here in Saint Paul that there was a feeling that maybe the police weren't doing that. Right? And I think their jobs are very complicated. I mean they're balancing a whole bunch of things and their job isn't to favor one side or the other.

It's just to try to you know provide that safe situation for everybody. But I think that all of this happened so quickly. And I don't think none of us ever predicted that we would have the thousands of federal agents descending upon Minnesota and Minneapolis especially and doing the type of enforcement that we saw and experienced. So but I think now we have that opportunity to revisit all of that and just come out stronger because what doesn't kill us will make us stronger.

Absolutely. Well, you so much County Attorney John Choi. I appreciate the updates providing guidance. You made it very crystal clear on some of the steps that you took and also one of the things I want to just highlight is having a victim centered approach. I appreciate your call to action to this elected body to properly calibrate and you know we're doing that consistently when we're thinking through about our policy and what directives we want to have in our policies regarding training, regarding staffing, regarding you know our just having clear response and that communication like you mentioned is very key in ensuring that we have mutual respect.

So thank you so much for your time and I'm also going to invite our Chief of Staff and I'll make sure that everyone can Thank you so much for your time. We're going to invite Chief of Staff.

Morning.

I just

said your name Maria.

Thank you. And Maria and my apologies, I know you have a presentation. I'm really just going to ask if we can get through that within seven minutes. Just give some time, it's about two or three minutes for questions. We do have an engagement after this around 11:30, I believe. And Polly looks like it's going to help with uploading that

slide.

Thank you. But last but not least, we invited Maria here to talk about some of the systems and programs. So this is not on a legal response. This is more so on a programmatic and systematic response from Thank Ramsey

That's correct. Thank you, Madam Chair, members. And, thank you, County Attorney John Choi for representing the County. And, yes, this is more of an administrative and operational perspective as Ramsey County is the thirty seventh largest employer according to MSP Business Journal. And so, we have about 3,800 employees in Ramsey County.

And we're going to discuss more about our response as an organization and some of the administrative and operational changes that we had to implement. I'd also just be remiss if I didn't share that our elected board also condemned the aggressive tactics used by immigration enforcement agents and the loss of life that occurred during this surge. And so I, for one, am humbled and honored to serve here in Ramsey County and a resident of Saint Paul, and I'm proud to be here. And the work that we did impacts a lot of employees, but also the people who receive and rely on benefits and different programs throughout Ramsey County. And so we've had this experience.

It required a coordinated countywide, response, and we set up a a proper team. It was just short of a formal incident management framework, but our emphasis was really, continuity of services and promoting safety and well-being for our staff who deliver those services to our residents. We were here to really keep operations going and keep our doors open. In terms of our impacts here at Ramsey County, again, from a systems perspective, there was disruption in terms of increased stress, increased challenges for people to get their services in a seamless manner. However, Ramsey County remained open and and fully open for business and maintained operations during the surge.

We saw an increase in housing and social services needs and strains. We saw a request of up to 59% of rental assistance that was increased in the county as well as statewide. We saw people presenting with mental health services and increased referrals and anxiety and trauma that was experiencing across our communities. And then, saw public health clinics who offer services to not only families, but just infants and some of our most vulnerable populations. We saw decrease in nutrition and wellness for our families.

Examples would be including diluting baby formula, and this is particularly important for Ramsey County employees who actually provide services in the home while folks were shuttered in and didn't feel safe going out. Some extreme cases were families anticipating, well, if I do get picked up, who's gonna take care of my kids? And just having those really tough discussions with our residents. I'd also say that we had specific actions. On February 3, our elected board passed a resolution, again, that condemned these actions.

This was our system's response. We wanted to make sure that residents understood what is public spaces and what is not public spaces. We provided signage at our parks and various facilities. We, the partnership with the Ramsey County Attorney's Office is invaluable. We were able to provide supports and trainings for our staff to have a sense of agency in doing their core required duties, but also having preparation in terms of if they were to engage or have exposure to an ICE agent while doing their work.

Also, we connected with partners. We needed to support mental health. And one of the bigger things that you might see in the Pioneer Press just yesterday was Ramsey County within our governance and our jurisdiction authority. We pushed out the deadline for tax taxes to be due sorry, the due date for taxes, the property tax extension was and that's with all taxing jurisdictions. So Ramsey County facilitates the taxing processes for Saint Paul Public Schools, the city, and the county itself.

So we've instituted a temporary relief for a two month property tax payment extension for the first half of the property taxes for 2026. Again, this is to support residents who experience income loss and or businesses who are facing financial strain. There's eligibility for folks is there's a form, and we can provide those links for folks as well, but there's a form that can be submitted and the eligibility is around homestead properties with that are non escrowed homesteads. So, that meaning as folks set up their mortgage payments, the taxes isn't included in their escrow, it's a separate payment. And, if you have that type of arrangement, then there's this opportunity is may be eligible you may be eligible for this opportunity.

This also applies to small businesses and non escrowed small businesses and their annual property tax obligation is under 50. As well as residential non homestead properties that are one to three units, and again, the annual property tax obligation for that circumstance needs to be under 20 k. The application process, there's an online form. The deadline is July 15 to apply for that benefit. Again, it's a two month extension.

There's no penalties. We if penalties would apply, though, retroactively if folks weren't able to pay by the time that the deadline was extended. This is temporary. It's a very case specific, and it's a it's not a permanent change, but it's something that we knew we need to stand up to be responsive to our residents, and it's something that we've done previously during the pandemic. In terms of public sector employees, I would just be remiss as the chief of staff to not acknowledge the challenges and the pressures and the strain and the trauma that our employees have faced.

And they themselves sometimes feel pressure to come in to serve every day. There's emotional exhaustion, hypervigilance. As a system, we've provided online supports and learning. We brought in healers, leaders, practitioners and leveraged our learning management system to increase access for employees to have those supports. And despite those challenges, staff continue to show up.

They continue to serve every day. We run our operations. We run our programs. And we continue to manage our workload and the increased pressures that our residents are facing. We're prioritizing our staff well-being, and it's critical for us to be able to do that to navigate the pressures that they're experiencing, not just with the metro surge, but other federal pressures and other fiscal challenges that we're experiencing as an ecosystem. So, that was a high level and swift overview of how we responded as an employer, but also as an organization from our role as administering programs and also maintaining services. And that's all I have. I stand for questions.

Absolutely. Well, I appreciate your time. I'm just gonna open up if there's any questions or comments at all. I'm not seeing any, but I just wanted to say I am just so, so grateful to not only be living in St. Paul, but also in Ramsey County, have like excellent leadership that's been fierce, been responsive and functional When and really I reached out to the county manager, Elaine Becker, about getting a presentation, she was so excited and immediate I mean, said yes before she even looked at her calendar.

So, I just want to just appreciate how our partners at Ramsey County has been so collaborative. And I really look forward to you know having future responses or future collaborations when we're looking at our programs particularly also at our policies and our budget. So there's not any other questions moving forward. It's just with the sake of time. I'll follow-up via email with what's going to be on the agenda for next month. But this also is the first meeting that we're having as our sitting Vice Chair Molly Coleman. So just wanted to, you know, make reference of that on a record. So we are now adjourned.