The protests against federal immigration enforcement rocking Minneapolis are frequently framed as a matter of tactics and prudence. Is what the Trump administration is doing strictly necessary to uphold the law? Are the personnel who have been deployed to the area enhancing or undermining public safety? Is this a good use of government resources? Are the new agents and officers being surged to Minnesota properly trained? These are all important questions, especially after two American citizens have been fatally shot in confrontations with federal immigration authorities. But the showdown in Minneapolis also raises more fundamental questions about the legitimacy of immigration enforcement and whether the winners of the 2024 elections will be permitted to govern. Many of those who have taken to the streets to protest the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol in their predominantly liberal state harbor deep convictions that these authorities are there to enforce racist and immoral laws. They believe they are unjust in a way that requires resistance and rebellion, not persuasion or legislative remedy. A significant number of mainstream Democrats are beginning to suspect that these activists are right, even if they may not be ready to go quite as far in their public rhetoric. Protestors clash with federal agents outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on January 8, 2026. (Octavio Jones/Getty) But a few of their elected officials are...