As anger grows over the deployment of federal immigration agents to Minnesota, some in the state are calling for a new solution — becoming Canada’s 11th province.

Jesse Ventura, a former professional wrestler who served as the state’s governor from 1999 to 2003, for example, floated the idea last weekend.

“Instead of Canada becoming America’s 51st state and losing our health care … I’d like to see us all become Canadians,” Ventura, now a political commentator, said in one episode of the SpinSisters podcast.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents killed two people in Minneapolis this month amid mass protests and calls for them to leave the state. US President Donald Trump sent agents to Minneapolis and St. Paul in early December, the latest cities where his administration is carrying out a controversial crackdown on immigration.

Ventura said it’s “obvious” Trump doesn’t want Minnesotans and he’s sure Canada would be “happy” to take them.

When the podcast hosts laughed, he doubled down.

“I’m serious about this,” Ventura, who has a history of unconventional ideas, said bluntly. “I think someone serious should contact Canada and ask them if they are open to this.”

It’s not a new idea

The idea is not new to Minnesota residents.

They thought about that possibility in online postsand advocates appeared in local news outlets over the yearswith renewed interest in recent months.

The state shares a border with Ontario and Manitoba, and its twin cities are further north than Toronto.

John Vaughn, a resident of Stillwater, near St. Paula, wrote on The Twin Cities Pioneer Press last March proposed that Minnesota become Canada’s 11th province, citing similarities in accents, climate and love of hockey.

“I have long felt an affinity for our northern cousins,” he wrote, concluding that the new province might be called “Minnetoba.”

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Vaughn told CBC News that his “half-joking” proposal now seems “more reasonable” in light of recent events.

“Things have taken a dark turn here,” he said.

Vaughn says he’s seen a lot of Canada, traveling to all the prairie provinces and planning a trip to Nova Scotia.

He even turned his “Minnetoba” gag into bumper stickers, which he says his family members are too embarrassed to put on their cars.

All kidding aside, Vaughn is still concerned about ICE’s presence in his home country.

“I very much share the sentiment with my neighbors that we just find it hard to believe this is happening,” he said. “It is actually an invasion and we all want it to stop soon.”

‘It’s not in the cards’

Such sentiments reflect growing anger among Minnesotans that “masked agents of the U.S. government are killing American citizens in the streets,” said Asa McKercher, the Hudson Research Chair in Canada-U.S. Relations at the University of St. Francis Xavier in Nova Scotia.

“I think it gives the impression of what a hotbed Minnesota has become,” he said.

McKercher says residents of the Democratic-led state have a lot in common with Canadians, including similar social programs and a focus on community.

Calls to switch countries also came from north of the border, if only in jest.

Earlier this month, in response to Trump’s threats to raise tariffs and annex Canada, Ontario Premier Doug Ford he told reporters he would make a counteroffer to buy Minnesota and Alaska.

However, McKercher notes that the US Supreme Court determined after the Civil War that a state could not secede from the Union without the consent of all other states.

The only other way to leave would be by force.

“No country has the right to do it unilaterally. So legally, it’s just not in the cards,” he said.