ST. PAUL — The Minnesota House Public Safety Committee advanced a bill Wednesday that would require local law enforcement to report an individual arrested for a violent offense to ICE and to cooperate in data sharing with federal immigration authorities.
The bill, HF16 , sponsored by Max Rymer, R-North Branch, would require local law enforcement to inform U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, when an undocumented individual is arrested on suspicion of committing a crime of violence”, even if the county elects not to file charges. The bill also makes it illegal for officials to restrict the release of individual immigration status data to federal immigration authorities or to establish any policy that would limit local law enforcement officials from cooperating with federal immigration authorities.
“The motive for this bill is to open up a line of communication between local authorities and dealing with dangerous criminals who should not be in our community,” Rymer said in committee on Wednesday, March 12. “Right now, we find ourselves at a moment where you have local officials who are openly defying immigration enforcement and language around it, from the Minneapolis mayor, to the Hennepin County prosecutor.”
Minneapolis and St. Paul in February joined other cities across the country in declaring themselves “ sanctuary cities ” and joining a San Francisco lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s immigration policies. The sanctuary cities have asserted that local law enforcement will not cooperate with federal immigration efforts.
Todd Barnette, Minneapolis Community Safety Commissioner testified in opposition to the bill, arguing it would erode public trust.
“Many people may avoid accessing essential services such as health care, education and social services if they fear that these interactions might expose them to immigration enforcement,” Barnette said in the committee. “This bill will result in decreased safety for Minneapolis and its residents, and it would directly impact the trust that the public and residents have with the city and with our city staff and officers.”
12 counties across Minnesota have also declared themselves “ sanctuary counties ” for immigrants: Anoka, Cottonwood, Dakota, Hennepin, Jackson, Kandiyohi, Lincoln, Lyon, Nobles, Pipestone, Ramsey and Watonwan, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.
Opponents of HF16 to limit non-cooperation with federal immigration protest before the bill’s hearing on Thursday, March 13, 2025.
Rep. Elliot Engen, R-Lino Lakes, argued that this bill would enhance public trust.
“When we’re saying that it’s going to break down public safety, that it’s going to break down community trust, it’s only going to improve that, because if those people are in our communities implementing those acts, we don’t want them there,” Engen said. “We don’t want those people free to roam and create more victims of Minnesotans.”
Ben Gleekel with the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, said before the committee on Wednesday that since HF16 says that anyone “arrested” not “convicted” of a violent offense should be reported to federal immigration, the bill would erode due process rights.
Rep. Sandra Feist, DFL-New Brighton, said in committee that this bill perpetuates ideas that immigrants are inherently a “public safety threat.” Feist referenced written testimony by David Beir, Director of Immigration Studies at the Cato Institute, a policy research organization in Washington, D.C, which found that immigrants are 1.2% less likely to commit serious crimes than U.S.-born individuals.
The bill, which drew about 20 protesters outside the hearing room on Wednesday, passed 10-9 along party lines and now moves to the Elections Finance and Government Operations Committee.
Minnesota has an estimated 81,000 non-citizens at risk of deportation according to the Migration Policy Institute. The state’s total immigrant population, documented and undocumented, is just under 500,000
or 9% of the state’s population, according to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.
In emergency situations, people often fixate on the first responders’ arrival time, unaware of the critical steps that make this process quick and effective. A key factor is reliable, secure and uninterrupted public safety communications, which enable responders to coordinate efficiently and save lives.
However, before any response typically happens, one has to call 911. According to recent findings from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), over 80% of 911 calls during emergencies originate from cell phones, highlighting that the majority of initial alerts come from citizens.
This growing reliance on personal devices during emergencies underscores the importance of having connectivity for both citizens and first responders in a building. This redundant approach, which integrates both commercial and public safety frequencies, marks a significant improvement over systems that rely solely on traditional public safety radio frequencies (RF) such as PS 700/800MHz and UHF/VHF using land mobile radio (LMR) technology.
The Evolving Public Safety Communications Landscape
Historically, LMRs have been the primary device for public safety communication. Two-way radios have played a critical role in providing reliable, instant communication in challenging environments. They operate exclusively on dedicated public safety bands such as UHF (380-512 MHz), VHF (138–174 MHz), as well as Public Safety 700 and 800 MHz.
While LMR systems have been upgraded over time to improve reliability and integration with newer communication platforms, they still face limitations. For instance, they often don’t support multimedia such as video or imagery, which could be beneficial in emergencies, and mostly do not work across state borders because the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) allocates LMR frequencies based on geographic regions. Local factors such as population density, geography and the needs of public safety agencies influence specific frequency allocations in each state or region.
Given these limitations, the federal government, in partnership with AT&T, began work on FirstNet in 2017—the first public-private nationwide public safety network. FirstNet operates on Band 14, a highly coveted swath of spectrum in the 700MHz frequency band used exclusively by responders on FirstNet-ready smartphones. This became one of many accelerants for smartphones overtaking LMR as the primary communication method for first responders.
Verizon and T-Mobile followed suit with their nationwide approach with Frontline and Connecting Heroes, respectively. All three networks provide emergency responders—such as firefighters, police officers, military personnel, National Guard members and even school teachers—with a secure and reliable communication platform, ensuring they can use their phones for emergency communications with priority access over the general public.
Supporting LTE and, in some cases, 5G, these networks offer advanced features like telemetry data, live streaming, GPS tracking and communication beyond traditional two-way push-to-talk radios. For example, during the recent Los Angeles wildfires, the mobile carriers provided first priority to ensure first responders were able to communicate even during peak demand. In some cases, they also deployed portable cell sites and satellite units to maintain connectivity in areas with damaged infrastructure.
However, these nationwide networks are not immune to outages or failures. For example, AT&T’s 2023 outage and Verizon’s 2024 outage disrupted critical communication services for both the public and first responders, revealing vulnerabilities in systems designed to enhance emergency preparedness.
The outages underscore the dangers of relying on a single communication network for public safety, especially during emergencies when uninterrupted communication is most crucial.
The Importance Of Redundancy
Having emergency responder communication enhancement systems (ERCES) in buildings that support LMR public safety bands and the nationwide networks that leverage smartphones establishes powerful redundancy that helps further mitigate downtime in the event of an emergency. When it comes to public safety, more options are always better, so these nationwide networks will always be a complement to traditional public safety and not a replacement. This ideology can be extended to commercial wireless (e.g., cellular connectivity for ordinary citizens), which also plays a vital role in public safety, considering citizens are often the literal first responders in emergencies.
While some may have viewed the creation of nationwide public safety networks as the new way for first responders to communicate, the reality is that it’s just another way. More connectivity options will always be better. When one system faces disruption, the others serve as reliable backups, ensuring continuity and dependability during all emergencies.
“This is just one of the cases, I just thought, ‘man, I told you so,” said Stephen Meyer, who worked at SLC 911 for roughly two years. “Anyone that was involved in the planning in this, could see this coming.”
“For Salt Lake, it made more sense for us to go it alone,” Meyer said. “Well UCA got involved and they threatened the city administration that they were going to come forward and go through the legislative process and basically force us to go with them if we don’t ‘play nice’.”
Meyer said that Salt Lake City didn’t want to risk a loss of funding which resulted in the city moving forward with UCA’s new statewide radio project. Meyer says that he, along with the Salt Lake City police and fire chiefs objected to the move.
“UCA has publicly threatened, publicly behind-the-scenes has threatened agencies with funding, political retribution, legislative action, if you don’t go along with them, they’re going to find a way to make you go along with them,” Meyer said. “For these agencies, especially the smaller ones, they don’t have the tax money coming in, they don’t have the dollars where they can make up for that loss of funding. Salt Lake City would have probably been able to figure it out.”
“I think anyone that would put these political decisions above the brave men and women who are out there protecting us, whether they’re on the fire side or the police side, they should be ashamed the way this project was handed,” Meyer said. “The system frankly shouldn’t have even been launched without better testing being done to make sure that these types of things weren’t going to happen.”
Meyer, who joined SLC 911 in 2021, said he was terminated in 2023 over voicing concerns about various projects brought forward by communications departments and centers, including Salt Lake Valley Emergency Communications Center. “While I was on FMLA, I was terminated for not engaging with the other center,” Meyer said about his termination.
“There are certain risks that we can’t control. We can’t control the bad guys with guns, we can’t control the structure fires, but we can control the radio issue,” Meyer said. “We can control the politics that gets involved and standing in the way of making these things go forward, right?”
Today’s complex environment presents school administrators and security professionals with a range of emergencies they must protect students, faculty, and staff against, from severe weather and unauthorized intruders to potential violent incidents.
Although high-profile, mass-casualty events often capture headlines, most emergencies in schools are smaller in scale, yet still require rapid and reliable responses. Two key technologies that bolster school safety are the Emergency Responder Radio Communication Systems (ERRCS) and the Public Safety Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS).
An ERRCS enables first responders to communicate through two-way radios (walkie-talkies) during an emergency. An ERRCS amplifies signals from local emergency radio towers throughout a building, while also boosting outgoing radio signals from the radios of individual emergency first responders.
ERRCS and public safety DAS are both systems that improve communication, but they have different purposes. ERRCS is for emergency first responders, while DAS is for general mobile cellular communications within the school.
Together, these systems provide an integrated communication backbone that seamlessly integrates with other security systems to create proactive, resilient, and enterprise-wide security and safety capabilities. Traditional communication methods like Wi-Fi calling or cellular networks can falter during emergencies due to network overload. Dedicated systems like ERRCS and Public Safety DAS are designed to overcome these limitations. They ensure that first responders, school administrators, and security teams can communicate clearly and reliably, regardless of commercial network conditions.
In environments such as concrete buildings or underground garages where radio and cellular signals are typically weak, these systems are critical. Regulations by organizations like the NFPA and IFC mandate robust in-building coverage on UHF, VHF, and 700/800 MHz frequencies, underscoring the importance of dependable communication in life-critical scenarios.
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Understanding ERRCS and Public Safety DAS
So, what’s the difference between ERRCS and Public Safety DAS? Here’s a breakdown.
Emergency Responder Radio Communication System (ERRCS)
ERRCS is built primarily for first responders, offering a dedicated two-way radio channel that remains operational during emergency incidents. Unlike commercial networks, which may become congested or unreliable, ERRCS channels are prioritized so that emergency personnel can communicate without interruption. The ECCRS frequency channels that integrate fire and police first responder radios are totally separate from those frequencies that the local two-way radio communication system that the school has in place. ERRCS’ mission is to provide an unbreakable communication link when every second counts.
ERRCS standards are set by bodies such as the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) to ensure that ERRCS installations meet strict criteria. For instance, NFPA 72 outlines requirements for design, installation, and maintenance so systems perform reliably even in challenging conditions.
Public Safety Distributed Antenna System (DAS)
While ERRCS strengthens first responder two-way radio communications capabilities at the school campus, public DAS strengthens cellular coverage for anyone with a cell phone. DAS works by distributing cellular frequencies and enhance signal strength through a grid network of strategically located antennas. This is particularly beneficial in large, multi-story school buildings or those with dense construction materials that may block or weaken cellular signals.
A DAS amplifies and spreads the cellular signal throughout the school building to ensure that the school’s emergency personnel, administrators, educators, and staff maintain uninterrupted connectivity, even during emergencies when commercial cellular networks might be overloaded.
Real-Life Scenario: Swift Response to a Security Breach
Imagine a suburban high school where an unauthorized individual breaches a secured entry point. Without an integrated communication system, the response might be delayed, leading to greater risk and exposure to danger. If a school has an ERRCS in place, local law enforcement will be able to instantly coordinate their response when they arrive at the school campus.
A public safety DAS will also be able to maintain robust cellular coverage throughout the school building, allowing school administrators, teachers, and security staff to send critical updates to first responders as they make their way through the school to mitigate the breach. This type of coordinated response, integrated with real-time video surveillance and access control, can help to quickly contain the incident with minimal disruption to school operations.
Navigating a Severe Weather Event
Severe weather conditions can create chaotic conditions, challenging even the best-prepared schools. For example, a large school district might experience a sudden thunderstorm that results in localized power outages. Traditional commercial cellular networks might be overwhelmed with calling traffic, but schools equipped with public safety DAS would continue to receive strong reliable communications. This enables administrators to promptly issue mass notification messages through text, email, and voice alerts.
Simultaneously, ERRCS ensures that first responder law enforcement, fire department, and emergency personnel will be able coordinate their response at the school. The combination of ERRCS, DAS, and a school’s two-way radio systems will enable a swift and organized response to an emergency.
Building an Integrated Safety and Security Ecosystem
Modern school campuses require a multi-layered approach to security and safety. ERRCS and Public Safety DAS serve as foundational components that work in tandem with other security measures and systems to create a comprehensive safety and integrated enterprise-wide security program.
Key elements include:
Video Security: Continuous surveillance and real-time video analytics help monitor critical campus areas, gathering areas and circulation pathways. AI-powered systems can detect unusual behaviors or unauthorized individuals, enabling preemptive action.
Access Control: Secure entry systems combined with automated alerts ensure that only authorized personnel can have access to school premises. These systems can also integrate with emergency protocols to initiate a school-wide lockdown, to unlock doors for safe evacuations or to allow quick access for first responders.
Mass Notification Systems: In any emergency, clear communication is vital. Mass notification systems can deliver urgent alerts to staff, parents, and local authorities via text, email, and voice, ensuring everyone is informed in real time of not only what is happening and the nature of the emergency, but also what actions they should take.
Environmental Sensors: Sensors can be implemented to detect anomalies, such as sudden temperature changes, chemical leaks, or unusual sounds. These sensors can alert security personnel to potential threats before they escalate.
When these elements are unified on a single platform, schools become less reactive and more proactive at emergency management. Integrating security and communication technologies not only reduces risks, but they can improve the learning environment because administrators, teachers, and staff no longer need to worry about their ability to respond in an emergency — they can now focus on providing the best educational experience for their students. Security and safety have become an integral part of daily school operations.
Cost and Implementation Considerations
Investing in ERRCS and Public Safety DAS is more than a matter of regulatory compliance; it is a commitment to the ongoing safety of the school occupants and property. The cost of an ERRCS system can vary, typically ranging from $1 to $4 per square foot depending on building layout complexity, number of floors, and construction materials.
When planning implementation, schools should have professional consultants and communications contractors conduct a thorough assessment and develop a plan based on factors such as building layout, population density, construction materials, and potential radio frequency interference (RFI)/electromagnetic interference (EMI) sources. It is also critical to ensure that installation of the ERRCS and DAS comply with current standards like NFPA 72 (with updates like NFPA 1225 on the horizon) and FCC regulations to guarantee optimal performance during an emergency.
Investing in an Emergency Responder Radio Communication System (ERRCS) on school campuses is a critical decision that offers substantial long-term benefits, including faster emergency response times, improved coordination among responders, and the potential to save lives.
While specific statistical data on ERRCS implementation in schools is limited, several key points underscore its importance:
ERRCS ensures that first responders can maintain seamless communication during crises
Many jurisdictions have adopted stringent fire and building codes mandating reliable in-building radio coverage for emergency responders
A significant number of U.S. schools have areas that do not meet building code requirements for minimum indoor radio signal strength
Addressing these gaps through ERRCS and public safety DAS installations at a school is essential for safety.
The Future of School Safety
As technology evolves, so do the tools available for improving school security and safety. The next generation of security, two-way school radio, ERRCS, and DAS systems will incorporate advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning data analytics, which will be able to predict and identify emerging threats before they fully develop. These proactive capabilities, combined with the robust unified communication networks at our schools, promise an even safer school environment.
Investing in these advanced security, safety and communications technologies should remain a top priority for school administrators. With enhanced predictive tools, school administrators, teachers, and staff can focus more on teaching and operating the building better, and less on reacting to emergencies.
Real-life scenarios have shown that when every element of a comprehensive enterprise security, safety and communications programs function together, response times improve, risks are minimized, and the overall environment becomes safer for everyone.
William Sako is a senior officer with Telgian Engineering & Consulting, a fire protection and security consulting company. He can be reached at his office at (847) 595-1160, his mobile phone at (847) 417-8023 or via his e-mail at [email protected].
NOTE: The views expressed by guest bloggers and contributors are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, Campus Safety.
Fire Chief Scott Wiley provided an update on Chelsea joining Winthrop and Revere in the Metro North Regional Emergency Communications Center (MNRECC) at last week’s town council meeting.
Wiley talked about the background of Winthrop’s history with the MNRECC, current training for dispatcher and call-takers, how Chelsea joining will impact the center, and some concerns that have been raised by residents.
“In 2017, we entered into the Metro North Regional Emergency Regional Communications Center with Revere police and fire and Winthrop police and fire,” said Wiley. “The RECC is located at the Revere Police Department headquarters on Revere Beach Parkway. When it was built, it was not meant to be a permanent location for them.”
Winthrop is currently assessed $440,000 per year to be a member of the MNRECC and Revere is assessed about $1.6 million, based on the call volume per community.
The RECC is overseen by a board of directors, which Wiley currently chairs. The board also includes the Winthrop police chief and town manager as well as the Revere mayor, police chief, and fire chief and one rotating member.
Several weeks ago, the Chelsea City Council voted unanimously to join the MNRECC alongside Winthrop and Revere.
“It’s approximately a two-year project, and there will be a major rehabilitation of the McKinley School in Revere that will be paid for completely by the state and grant money,” said Wiley, adding the total cost of the project will be around $15 million.
Once Chelsea is onboard, staffing will increase from five to six dispatchers and call-takers on duty per shift to nine dispatchers and call-takers at night and 10 during the day.
“One of the issues brought up in public comment last week was an issue that happened approximately five years ago on a call when a dispatcher or call-taker was not familiar with some of the landmarks in Winthrop,” said Wiley. “Since that time, we have gone through a couple different iterations of both the board of directors and executive directors of the RECC. About 18 months ago we brought Whitney Morgan in as the executive director of the RECC … and since she came aboard, there has been a big turnover in the direction of the RECC; it is much more professional and it is really a well-run organization.”
One of the things the RECC has implemented in its training sessions, the fire chief said, is that dispatchers must know the communities they serve to ensure rapid and accurate dispatches. To achieve that goal, either the executive or deputy director takes new dispatchers through the area to familiarize them with key locations.
“Dispatchers must be able to recognize areas, like for Winthrop, the Five Sisters, the Landing, and the Kilmartin Path … immediately to avoid delays in emergency response,” said Wiley.
Another positive change over the past several years is that all calls from cellphones in the region now immediately go to the Revere dispatch center, and not to the state police center in Framingham as it did years ago.
Wiley added that having Chelsea onboard with additional personnel in the dispatch center should improve safety for the communities.
“I can’t see how anyone can say 10 dispatchers in a room isn’t better or safer than having six dispatchers or four dispatchers,” he said. “It increases the numbers and they are all capable of jumping on each other’s calls. If a major incident is happening in Chelsea and nothing is happening in Winthrop, they are able to help the Chelsea people take control of the phone calls and dispatches; they are all able to work with each other.”
Learn about current efforts to continue to protect the 4.9 GHz Band for public safety as well as recent filings, key decisions impacting these efforts, and how you can support PSSA’s initiative to protect the 4.9 GHz band for public safety.
