WASHINGTON — A Democratic Minnesota state legislator took the extraordinary step of rescinding his endorsement in the state’s U.S. Senate race on Friday, switching his support from Rep. Angie Craig to Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan because the former voted for the Laken Riley Act.
State Rep. Dan Wolgamott, who is running in a crowded Democratic primary for state auditor, specifically pointed to Craig’s January 2025 vote for the act, which requires the Department of Homeland Security to detain undocumented immigrants who have been arrested or charged with theft-related offenses, like shoplifting and burglary.
This law helped pave the way for the Trump administration’s “aggressive enforcement and racial profiling” during Operation Metro Surge, Wolgamott said in a Friday statement, referring to the massive Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in the Minneapolis region earlier this year. Thousands of federal immigration enforcement agents swarmed the state for months in search of immigrants to detain, regardless of whether they were in the country legally.
“For my wife, the threat of racial profiling and disappearing into an ICE detention facility was very real, and very traumatic,” said the Democratic legislator, noting that his father-in-law, a Marine Corps veteran, was among those harassed by federal agents.
