President Donald Trump said he is sending border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota on Monday night after federal agents killed a second person in Minneapolis this weekend as protests filled the streets over the Trump administration’s mass immigration crackdown.
“I am sending Tom Homan to Minnesota tonight. He has not been involved in that area, but knows and likes many of the people there,” Trump said in a post on his social media platform Monday morning. “Tom is tough but fair, and will report directly to me.”
On Saturday, U.S. immigration agents fatally shot 37-year-old Alex Jeffrey Pretti in Minneapolis, leading to clashes between protesters and officers near the scene of the killing. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz called in the National Guard in an effort to quell further unrest.
Trump said Monday that he had spoken with Walz on the phone, saying the governor had requested collaboration “with respect to Minnesota.”
“It was a very good call, and we, actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength,” Trump said on Truth Social. “I told Governor Walz that I would have Tom Homan call him, and that what we are looking for are any and all Criminals that they have in their possession.”
Pretti is the second American citizen to have been fatally shot by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis since the Trump administration deployed thousands of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers to the area to carry out a mass immigration enforcement operation dubbed “Operation Metro Surge.”
Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was shot to death by an ICE officer blocks from her Minneapolis home on Jan. 7.
Minnesota City Council member Soren Stevenson, a Democrat whose district includes Pretti’s neighborhood, called Trump’s decision to send Homan to Minnesota “another escalation.”
“They know that they’re losing the media battle,” Stevenson said. “People know that what they’re doing is wrong. People can see this with their eyes. They can sense it, and so they’re trying to to regain some sense of control over the situation.”
Political tensions over the killings in Minneapolis have led to calls for the impeachment of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Senate Democrats have vowed to oppose a spending package that cleared the House last week because it includes funding for DHS and ICE, ratcheting up the threat of a partial government shutdown by next week.
Two lawsuits over DHS action in Minnesota are under consideration Monday, and each will hold major ramifications for the Trump administration’s mass immigration enforcement agenda. The first, filed Jan. 12 by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, seeks an immediate stop to the immigration enforcement surge over concerns of undue harm. “Minnesota should not have to withstand another month, another week or another single day of the lawful and unchecked invasion and occupation by thousands of federal agents,” Minnesota Assistant Attorney General Linsdey Middlecamp said during opening arguments for that case Monday. The second lawsuit will give the federal government a chance to raise objections to a temporary restraining order granted by U.S. District Court Judge Eric Tostrud, a Trump appointee, over the weekend. The order blocks the Trump administration from “destroying or altering” evidence related to the fatal shooting of Pretti. Trump said on Truth Social that Homan would manage ongoing fraud investigations in the state and added that allegations of widespread fraud in Minnesota’s welfare system are “at least partially responsible” for the protests. “The only way to bring safety and peace and comfort back to our city is for ICE to get out right now,” Stevenson said. “They are not making us safe. They are making things dangerous here on the ground.”
Sydney Carruth is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. Recommended
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Homan would “be managing ICE Operations on the ground in Minnesota to continue arresting the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens.”
