With the rental assistance bill passed through the Senate, the DFL is now focused at getting it through the tied House. DFL House and Senate leaders, along with Minnesotans who’ve struggled to pay rent over the last few months, spoke at the Capitol Thursday about their hope that the House will pass the same bill. A woman who only gave her name as Esmerelda, talked about how she and her husband work in construction, but could not find work for three months because contractors were halting projects and telling workers to stay home because of ICE activity. They ended up selling their vehicle to make ends meet and now rely on friends to give them rides. She said the money from the vehicle sale has run out, and they had to go to a community group to get money for their March rent. Esmerelda, who speaks Spanish, said through a translator: “Members of the House, I implore you to listen to our stories as workers and Minnesotans across the state. Speaker Lisa Demuth, we need your leadership to ensure that this bill also passes in the House.” House DFL Leader Zack Stephenson said this will be a major focus for his caucus: “House Democrats will make this bill a priority all session long, because we will stand up for those Minnesotans who had to stay home because of ICE. We will stand up for them every single day, and we will use every tool in our arsenal to ensure that people are protected.”

The bill stalled in the tied House Housing Committee this week and GOP caucus leaders say it’s a no-go. House Speaker Lisa Demuth said her caucus won’t support the measure and said that there are other ways lawmakers should be looking to make housing and other key expenses more affordable for Minnesotans. In an interview with MPR News she said Democrats and Republicans agree that it’s important to bring costs down but have “polar opposite” ideas on how to do that. “Republicans are looking at, how can we make things affordable by keeping the cost low? Not just giving another handout, because that's temporary,” Demuth said. “Eventually that runs out, as we're seeing as we go into a (budget) deficit.” A rent assistance deal could be included in an end-of-session deal or Democrats could look to pick off a GOP lawmaker set to retire or otherwise willing to buck party leadership. Or the issue could be left to local communities and mutual aid groups.

A federal prosecutor who made headlines for saying “this job sucks” about working on immigration cases for the Department of Homeland Security is now running for Congress. Julie T. Le, who was fired from a special assignment with the U.S. Department of Justice after making those comments to a federal judge, says she is running for Congress in Minnesota's 5th District . In early February, Le told a judge that she hated her job arguing for the Department of Homeland Security and wished the judge would hold her in contempt so she could get some rest. She was fired by the Justice Department shortly after that. Le has launched a campaign website which says she's running as a Democrat against Representative Ilhan Omar, a Democrat who has served in Congress since 2019. On the site, Le says she, quote, "has witnessed firsthand the failures of our broken immigration system." She has not yet filed official paperwork to raise money for a campaign.

 

A Minnesota Senate committee passed a bill that would allow child care workers to stop ICE agents from entering daycares. The bill would allow employees at daycares to ask for identification, a written statement of purpose and a judicial warrant if ICE agents come to their doors. About a dozen people testified in support of the proposed legislation in the Senate Health and Human Services Committee. One of them was Jocelyn Rousey. She has a daughter that attends a Spanish immersion daycare in south Minneapolis, where ICE detained a staff member in January. "I arrived in time to witness armed masked federal agents pull a staff member from her car, a few feet from the center's front door, and in full view of parents and young children,” she said. “The agents detained our day care’s cook, the woman who prepares food for our kids, who is an asylum seeker with a valid work permit and no criminal record, it would be weeks before she was released." Opponents of the bill, including Republican Senator Bill Lieske raised concerns about child care employees inserting themselves into ICE enforcement actions. The bill cleared the committee on a 7-3 vote and is headed to another Senate committee for further discussion. Its House companion stalled in a committee last week.