The Trump administration will pull 700 federal law enforcement personnel from Minneapolis as the city and nation continue to deal with protests and calls for reform in the wake of two fatal shootings and an unprecedented surge to arrest migrants for deportation.
The remaining Border Patrol agents in the area will move under the command of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and federal objectives will shift to targeting people deemed to be public safety threats, White House Border Czar Tom Homan announced Wednesday.
Speaking at a Wednesday morning press conference, Homan characterized the “drawdown” as the result of “productive discussions” with state and local officials “about increasing coordination in a lawful way between the county jails and ICE to avoid public safety threats being released back in the community.”
“This is unprecedented cooperation,” Homan said.
Homan told reporters that “effective immediately” the administration would “draw down 700 law enforcement personnel,” leaving roughly 2,000 remaining to conduct “targeted enforcement” operations rather than the roving patrols that have terrorized residents of the Gopher State’s largest city for months.
He also said there has been a “joint unified operations center” established and remaining CBP personnel — including Border Patrol agents — have been placed under a single chain of command supervised by Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel.
The announcement comes just days after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the provisioning of body-worn cameras to every officer and agent working in Minnesota as part of what the administration has dubbed “Operation Metro Surge.”
That move came on the heels of the point-blank shooting of Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse who was killed by Border Patrol officers who shot him ten times after another officer removed his legal handgun from a holster on his waistband.
The shooting sparked outrage after videos of the incident showed top administration officials, including Noem, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, and the then-de facto Border Patrol commander in Minneapolis, Greg Bovino, to be lying about what had taken place.
Bovino, a career Border Patrol supervisor in California, had been tapped by Noem to lead roving operations in Democratic-led cities after he made a show of throwing tear gas at protesters during operations in Los Angeles last year.
But in the wake of the Pretti shooting, President Donald Trump reacted to the apparent chaos inside DHS by sidelining Noem in favor of Homan, a career ICE and Border Patrol veteran who had run ICE for part of his first term. Bovino was recalled to California and is understood to be preparing to retire from the Border Patrol.
Homan characterized the return to “targeted enforcement” as a”more efficient” outcome from cooperation between state and local officials who permit DHS immigration enforcement personnel to take custody of deportable immigrants in state and local jails.
He explained that because “only one or two officers” are needed to arrest someone who is already jailed, the large groups of agents and officers who have been seen arresting people on the street will be unnecessary.
“This is smart law enforcement, not less law enforcement. It’s safer for the community, safer for the officers, and safer for the alien.” he said.
Homan added that the federal government was not asking the state or local facilities to hold anyone past their release date for immigration purposes nor were they asking for state or local police to conduct immigration enforcement actives.
“Prioritization doesn’t mean you forget about everybody else, but if we have a criminal here and non-criminal here, the criminal has to be arrested first, because they’re the biggest threat to the community,” he said.
