MANTORVILLE, Minn. —The Dodge County sheriff, Scott Ross, defended Trump deportation agents in a Facebook post that he hoped would quiet rumors that he was complicit with ICE agents who recently showed up at his Mantorville office. The backlash was quick in the 21,000-popuation county just west of Rochester. The sheriff’s message in part:
“We need to remember these men and women serving as ICE agents aren’t responsible for the broken system, our government is. Many mistakes were made during Metro Surge. Mistakes made because of poor
Ross had been a growing target in local grapevines that that he had been yukking it up and swapping law enforcement tales with ICE agents at his Mantorville office. His Facebook response to the rumors was indeed contraditory. At one point in the message Ross said that ICE agents had come by merely to use the toilet. This seemd odd: There are Kwik Trips in nearby Dodge Center and Kasson and Mantorville too, as well as countless other public restrooms. Elsewhere in his Facebook message, Ross admitted the ICE interchange at his office was deeper. He said that the ICE agents expressed frustration that “an agitator” had been trailing them for hours from the Twin Cities and harassing them. About his Facebook discrepancies, Ross declined to return news media queries Meanwhile people in Dodge County, which is 10% Latino, mostly farm hands, was split along pro-Trump and anti-Trump lines regrading hundreds of Minnesota arrests as part of the Trump plan to round up 1 million immigrants by December.
Ross. First elected sheriff in 2014. Third term ends this November. Lists his interests online as U.S. Customs and Border Protection.