President’s border tsar meets with Minnesota governor Tim Walz in bid to calm tensions after two gun deaths caused by immigration troop
The move to install Mr Homan in charge of the operation in place of border patrol official Gregory Bovino, who sources said was leaving after having led most of Mr Trump’s crackdowns in Democratic-led cities, is part of a broader reset by the president to soften his administration’s aggressive posture in Minneapolis.
Some advisers are concerned Saturday’s killing of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by federal officers, which sparked national outrage, could derail Mr Trump’s immigration agenda.
Police preparing to disperse a “Goodbye Bovino Noise Demo” demonstration at the Spring Hill Suites in Maple Grove, Minnesota. Photo: Getty
News in 90 seconds – Wednesday 28th January
Mr Homan’s job in Minneapolis is to “recalibrate tactics” and improve co-operation with state and local officials, a source with ties to the White House said.
“The goal is to scale back, eventually pull out,” the source added.
A senior Trump administration official said Mr Homan would move away from the broad, public neighbourhood sweeps that Mr Bovino had conducted in Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis and other cities and adopt a more traditional targeted approach.
In a statement, Minnesota governor Tim Walz said he had outlined the state’s priorities to Mr Homan, including impartial investigations into the two shootings and reducing the 3,000-strong force of federal agents that has been deployed to the city. Mr Homan and Mr Walz agreed to “continue working toward those goals”, the governor said.
Donald Trump. Photo: AP
Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey said he told Mr Homan that the city “does not and will not” enforce federal immigration law and urged an end to Operation Metro Surge “as quickly as possible”.
Mr Frey said he was joined by police chief Brian O’Hara for a “productive” meeting with Mr Homan. He said: “I shared with Mr Homan the serious negative impacts this operation has had on Minneapolis and surrounding communities, as well as the strain it has placed on our local police officers.”
The president spent the weekend huddling with senior advisers to reassess the administration’s response to Mr Pretti’s death on Saturday, according to the same source and a White House official. As in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good earlier this month, some Trump administration officials initially responded by accusing Mr Pretti of domestic terrorism, a claim belied by witness video that showed he posed no threat.
The discussions included reducing the number of agents in Minnesota, recalibrating the mission to focus more narrowly on deportations and exploring greater co-ordination with state authorities. Mr Trump also weighed up whether immigration officers should be required to have body-worn cameras, as many police officers do, according to the White House official.
The killing of Mr Pretti, an ICU nurse shot multiple times by Border Patrol agents during daytime protests, has become a full-blown political crisis for Mr Trump, with even some Republicans in Congress calling for investigations.
The court’s patience is at an end
Coupled with the fatal shooting of Ms Good, a mother of three, earlier this month by an ICE officer, Mr Pretti’s shooting sparked renewed anger over the aggressive tactics of the federal agents who have been roving the streets of Minneapolis for weeks.
Late on Monday, Minnesota’s chief federal judge threatened to hold the acting head of US ICE, Todd Lyons, in contempt for his agency’s failures to comply with court orders that some detainees receive bond hearings.
“The court’s patience is at an end,” US district Judge Patrick Schiltz wrote in ordering Mr Lyons to appear before him on Friday.
Public support for Mr Trump’s immigration enforcement tactics appeared to be waning both before and after the shooting of Mr Pretti, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.
The issue has put Republicans on the defensive ahead of November’s mid-term elections, when the party’s narrow congressional majorities are at stake.
The president held a two-hour meeting with Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem in the Oval Office on Monday evening after Ms Noem asked to meet, a source confirmed.
House Democratic leaders yesterday threatened to launch impeachment proceedings if Ms Noem isn’t fired “immediately”.
The statement, co-signed by House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic whip Katherine Clark and the Democratic Caucus chair Pete Aguilar, accused the Trump administration of using taxpayer dollars to “kill American citizens, brutalise communities and violently target law-abiding immigrant families”.
Minnesota governor Tim Walz. Photo: Getty
“Kristi Noem should be fired immediately, or we will commence impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives,” they said.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
At the White House yesterday, Mr Trump expressed sympathy for Mr Pretti’s family and said he would be “watching over” the investigation into his killing. But he also defended Ms Noem and said she would not be stepping down.
Privately, Mr Trump has made clear to advisers he did not want to defend the agents’ actions or attack Mr Pretti, after deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller labelled Mr Pretti an “assassin” and Mr Bovino suggested he intended to “massacre” officers, despite widely shared videos contradicting those claims.
Senior aides were asked not to target Mr Pretti publicly and the president discussed distancing himself from public comments made by Mr Miller and Ms Noem, the White House official said.
Mr Bovino, who said the officers who killed Mr Pretti were the true victims in Saturday’s shooting, was expected to depart Minneapolis yesterday along with some border patrol agents deployed with him, a senior administration official told Reuters on Monday.
Another source said Mr Bovino had been stripped of his title of “commander at large” and would return to his former job as a chief patrol agent along California’s El Centro sector of the US-Mexico border, before retiring soon after.
Department of Homeland Security officials said agents fired in self-defence after Mr Pretti approached them with a handgun, even though video showed him holding a phone, not a gun, as agents wrestled him to the ground.
Gun rights groups have pushed back on Trump administration officials’ suggestion that Mr Pretti should not have been armed, a rare election-year rift between Republicans and one of their most loyal voting blocs.