Thomas Jefferson and Tim Walz don’t share much in common. One wrote the Declaration of Independence. The other is trying to block federal immigration enforcement.
Still, in Jefferson’s more radical moments, he might have recognized the spirit behind Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s campaign to resist Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). And that’s not a compliment.
In 1798, Jefferson drafted the original version of the Kentucky Resolutions, arguing that states had the right to “nullify” federal laws they believed were unconstitutional. The resolutions were aimed at the Alien and Sedition Acts, which Jefferson and his allies despised.
Jefferson urged states to declare federal laws “void, and of no force,” insisting that “every state has a natural right… to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits.”
That draft was later softened, and James Madison produced a more cautious version for Virginia. Even then, the idea was murky. States were told they should “interpose” against federal overreach—but no one ever explained exactly how.
Fast forward more than 200 years, and Gov. Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey are attempting their own version of “interposition.” They now claim they should effectively control how much immigration law the federal government can enforce in Minnesota.
The state has sued the Trump administration to block a federal enforcement surge, leaning on the Tenth Amendment—the same logic Jefferson once flirted with. One Minnesota lawyer even described the Department of Homeland Security’s operation as an “unlawful and unchecked invasion,” as though Minnesota were its own sovereign nation with its own immigration policy.
Then there is the street-level resistance.
Public officials have encouraged protests and physical obstruction of federal agents, aiming to make Minnesota so hostile that DHS is forced to retreat and surrender its authority to state politicians. This is not constitutional governance. It is a heckler’s veto over federal law.
And it directly collides with the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, which makes federal law supreme over state law.
Jefferson and Madison at least had an excuse. In the early republic, the boundaries of federal power were still being defined. Even then, other states rejected their theories.
Since then, the Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld federal supremacy—from McCulloch v. Maryland in 1819, to rulings enforcing school desegregation in the 1950s, to modern immigration cases.
States retain real sovereign powers. Immigration is not one of them.
Under President Obama, the Supreme Court ruled that federal authority over immigration is so “broad” and “undoubted” that even Arizona’s state laws designed to help enforce federal policy were struck down. If states can’t help ICE without permission, they certainly can’t sabotage it.
Yet Minnesota might still get away with it.
After the tragic deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, political pressure has forced the administration to soften its posture in Minneapolis. Some Trump allies are even urging the president to stand down. Perhaps a political deal is possible.
But consider the precedent.
What if Florida decided it no longer liked paying federal income taxes and used organized resistance to force concessions from the IRS? What if Texas declared federal environmental laws “void” within its borders?
That is the road Walz is pointing toward.
More than two centuries after the Kentucky Resolutions, nullification is back. It is still unconstitutional. It is still dangerous. And it is just as toxic now as it was in Jefferson’s worst moment.
The Constitution did not create 50 separate immigration policies. It created one nation, with one supreme law. And no governor—especially one playing politics with public safety—gets to veto it.
