Updated ,first published
Minneapolis: Some federal agents will begin leaving Minneapolis on Wednesday and President Donald Trump is sending his border tsar, Tom Homan, to take over ICE operations in the city as he shifts strategy amid ongoing unrest and growing political backlash.
The decision to effectively sideline Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and send Homan to Minnesota to take over immigration enforcement operations comes after two American citizens – Renee Good and Alex Pretti – were shot and killed by federal agents in three weeks.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey – who told ICE to “get the f— out” of the city when Good was killed – said Trump “agreed the present situation can’t continue” when the two men spoke on Monday, US time.
“Some federal agents will begin leaving the area tomorrow, and I will continue pushing for the rest involved in this operation to go,” Frey said on X.
Frey said Minneapolis police would co-operate on “real” criminal investigations, but would not enforce federal immigration law or participate in “unconstitutional arrests of our neighbours”.
Trump has been frustrated by images coming out of Minnesota, where people protesting and documenting ICE raids are clashing with officers daily, and has tried to focus the narrative on efforts to remove violent criminals who are in the US illegally.
In the past few months, multiple US news outlets have reported on a feud between Homan and Noem that is believed to involve, among other things, disagreement over deportation strategy. The New York Post reported they were “barely on speaking terms”.
Homan is said to prefer a more targeted approach to removing known criminals, while Noem and her powerful DHS operative Corey Lewandowski are thought to be pursuing raw numbers, including undocumented migrants without criminal records.
“I am sending Tom Homan to Minnesota tonight,” Trump announced on social media. “He has not been involved in that area, but knows and likes many of the people there. Tom is tough but fair, and will report directly to me.”
Homan will effectively replace Border Patrol commander-at-large Greg Bovino, who has been the face of the special enforcement operation in Minneapolis and attracted criticism for saying – without evidence – that it looked like Pretti intended to “massacre” officers.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Bovino would continue in a national role. CNN and other US media outlets reported Bovino would leave Minneapolis imminently. DHS was contacted for comment.
Leavitt denied Trump’s intervention showed the president was dissatisfied with how officials were conducting operations in the city, and said he still had “the utmost trust and confidence” in Noem.
Asked whether Trump agreed with descriptions of Pretti as a “domestic terrorist” and “would-be assassin” – terms used by Noem and Trump’s deputy chief-of-staff Stephen Miller – Leavitt said: “I have not heard the president characterise Mr Pretti in that way.”
Meanwhile, Trump also spoke with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who yesterday invoked the Nazis as he demanded ICE leave the state.
Trump said Walz called “with the request to work together” and that the two men “seemed to be on a similar wavelength”. He claimed Walz was happy about the decision to dispatch Homan to Minnesota and that they would speak by phone.
Walz, who was Kamala Harris’ vice presidential running mate in the 2024 election, confirmed the “productive” call, saying he urged the president to reduce – not eliminate – the number of federal agents in Minnesota.
He said Trump had also agreed to talk to DHS about ensuring Minnesota police could conduct an independent investigation into Pretti’s death.
The apparent shift in strategy from the White House came as several Republicans publicly questioned ICE’s tactics and called for an independent investigation into Pretti’s death, and as conservative media outlets and MAGA influencers increasingly raised concerns.
Monday’s editorial in The New York Post, a Trump favourite, called on the president to de-escalate the situation. “Simply being in the right isn’t enough. Team Trump needs to cool things down, and let the American public see calm leadership,” it said.
On Fox News on Monday morning (US time), host Brian Kilmeade said Trump should send Homan to take charge in Minnesota, which is what Trump did moments later.
Prominent podcaster Joe Rogan has also been critical of ICE recently. After Good’s death, but before Pretti’s, he interviewed outspoken Republican Senator Rand Paul and likened ICE to the Gestapo of Nazi Germany.
“You don’t want militarised people in the streets just roaming around, snatching up people, many of which turn out to be US citizens that just don’t have their papers on them,” Rogan said. “Are we really gonna be the Gestapo, ‘Where’s your papers?’ Is that what we’ve come to?”
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal yesterday, Trump declined to defend the ICE agent involved in the Pretti shooting and said the administration was “reviewing everything” about the incident.
“I don’t like any shooting,” Trump told the newspaper. “But I don’t like it when somebody goes into a protest and he’s got a very powerful, fully loaded gun with two magazines loaded up with bullets also. That doesn’t play good either.”
Noem praised Trump’s decision to dispatch Homan, saying it was good for peace, safety and accountability in Minneapolis – though her statement focused on the assistance he would give to fraud investigations, not ICE operations.
“We continue to call on the leadership in Minnesota to allow for state and local partnership in our public safety mission,” Noem said.
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Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political reporter in Canberra.Connect via X or email.
