Vance, in Minneapolis, calls on native officers to ‘decrease the temperature’ amid anti-ICE protests

Vice President JD Vance, visiting Minneapolis on Thursday amid growing clashes between federal agents and anti-ICE protesters, said President Donald Trump had given him a “directive” to “meet these guys halfway” on reducing tensions, referring to local officials.

He said Trump had told him “work with them so that we can make these immigration enforcement operations successful without endangering our ICE officers, and so that we can turn down the chaos a little bit, at least, I think a lot, actually.”

Local and state officials have strongly opposed how the immigration enforcement surge in the city was being carried out.

While he repeated calls to all involved to “turn down the temperature” — even conceding that federal agents had made “mistakes” — Vance appeared to blame local and state leaders for not doing enough and called on city police to work with federal officials on immigration policy enforcement.

Speaking in front of federal agents, Vance said, “That’s what would work in any normal situation that’s what happens in nearly every jurisdiction, red or blue, in the United States of America. The reason it hasn’t happened here is because the local authorities have been told stand down, do not help ICE, promote the agitation but don’t do anything to lower the temperature and lower the chaos. That’s a problem.”

“If the ICE officer is being assaulted by a far left agitators, you should help them,” Vance said. 

“And there are a lot of things all of us could do better to lower the temperature but the number one thing I learned today is that the best way to facilitate reasonable enforcement of the law, but also to lower the chaos in Minneapolis, would be for state and local officials to cooperate,” he added.

“One of the things that I want to send a message to is, yes, come out and protest. Protest me, protest our immigration policy, but do it peacefully,” Vance added.

“If you assault a law-enforcement officer, the Trump administration and the Department of Justice is going to prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law. And I wanted to show some support for these guys who frankly are operating in a very very tough environment,” he added.

In the recent weeks, federal agents have been using tear gas and engaging with protesters throughout Minneapolis as they arrested and detained alleged undocumented immigrants and, in some cases, American citizens.

Vance said federal agents do not want to use “the kind of tactics necessary when violence is committed against officers,” and notably repeated Trump’s comments from earlier this week about federal law enforcement agents making “mistakes.”

“You will have people that make mistakes. That’s the nature of law enforcement,” he said.

Asked if he saw anything that would cause him to advise Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, Vance said “right now, we don’t think we need that right now,” but that Trump could change his mind. 

Vance said it was not ICE’s job to arrest American citizens, but he defended agents whom he claimed were being assaulted.

“So, then I look into it and I find out the American citizen who was arrested took a swing at an ICE officer, you can’t have that happen,” he said. “And, of course, they have to defend themselves, and of course they have the right to detain somebody who assaults a law enforcement officer. Now this is my point.”

Vance had said the day after the shooting of Renee Good that the officer who opened fire on the 37-year-old Minneapolis mom, had immunity.

“The precedent here is very simple. You have a federal law enforcement official engaging in federal law enforcement action, that’s a federal issue. That guy is protected by absolute immunity. He was doing his job,” he said.

However, Vance told the Washington Examiner in an interview published Thursday that when appropriate, the administration might take disciplinary action against ICE agents.

Asked by ABC News’ Matt Rivers if this is a change in opinion, Vance said no.

“What I did say is that when federal law enforcement officers violate the law, that is typically something that federal officials would look into. We don’t want these guys to have kangaroo courts. We want them to actually have real due process,” he said.

Vance was asked about the case of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos who was detained Tuesday after arriving home from preschool while his father was in their driveway. The Minneapolis boy has a pending asylum case and no order of deportation, according to officials at the boy’s school.

The father and child are both in government custody, school officials and the father’s attorney said.

Vance said he had heard about the story before arriving in Minneapolis and felt for the child, but said he did “follow-up research” and alleged that the boy’s undocumented father fled when federal agents were trying to arrest him.

“If the argument is that you can’t arrest people who have violated the clause because they have children then every single parent is going to be completely given immunity from ever being the subject of law enforcement,” he said. “That doesn’t make any sense. No one thinks that makes any sense.”  

Marc Prokosch, an attorney representing the boy’s father, pushed back against Vance’s claims that they were undocumented in a news conference on Thursday.

“Liam and his dad did enter the United States at a port of entry to seek asylum through the CBP One app,” he explained.

“They came to the border and presented themselves to Customs and Border Protection. They were just trying to secure safety from persecution for their family from their home country,” Prokosch stressing the father and son “came properly.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for Homeland Security said, “ICE did NOT target a child. The child was ABANDONED.”

“As agents approached the driver, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, fled on foot — abandoning his child. For the child’s safety, one of our ICE officers remained with the child while the other officers apprehended Conejo Arias,” the spokesperson said.

Vance’s comments come just weeks after he said Good, a mother of three was shot by an ICE agent on Jan. 7, brought the tragedy on herself. Vance and DHS have alleged Good was attempting to run over the ICE officer when he fatally shot her.

Local officials have disputed this claim, citing video of the incident.

“So, the tragedy is multilayered,” Vance said Thursday. “The tragedy is that there was a misunderstanding, the tragedy is that Renee Good lost her life. The tragedy is that you have I.C.E. officers who are going into communities where they are worried if they call 911, no one is going to come to help them,” he alleged. “That is what produces this terrible situation and it’s something state and local officials here in Minnesota can solve.”

-ABC News’ Laura Romero contributed to this report.