Donald Trump’s border “czar” Tom Homan appeared across the Sunday news show circuit and presented a view for the future of immigration enforcement in Minneapolis as the Trump administration says it is withdrawing hundreds of officers from the state and ending an enforcement surge following the deaths of two Americans.
Homan recently took over as the top federal immigration enforcement authority on the ground in Minnesota following the removal of Gregory Bovino, ICE’s acting commander, from the role this month. His appointment followed calls from both Democrats and Republicans in Washington for federal officials to shift their tactics and outrage over the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in confrontations with ICE and Border Patrol agents.
Though he announced this past week that the surge in Minneapolis was ending, Homan said on Sunday that a force would remain in the city to conduct operations in the future. Homan said that the agents remaining behind would include a “security force” whose purpose would be to stop protesters and others from interfering with ICE and Border Patrol enforcement operations.
“There will be a small force, a security force…that will respond when our agents are out and get surrounded by agitators,” said Homan. “They will remain for a short period of time to make sure the coordination, the agreements we have with local and state law enforcement stay in place.”
Homan also said that agents tasked with investigating a fraud scheme in the state will remain, as will a team investigating an incident where activists conducted a protest at a church and were arrested alongside journalist Don Lemon, who was documenting the protest.
As his role grows in prominence, Homan is also facing questions about tumult reported within the ranks of Donald Trump’s DHS team, and in particular surrounding the ongoing work of Kristi Noem as DHS secretary. Noem is reportedly suspected by Trump and others to be in a relationship with Corey Lewandowski, her de facto chief of staff, which she denies but a factor that nonetheless adds a layer of frustration to a tenure as DHS secretary that has been loudly derided on the Hill, including by some Republicans.
Noem, already facing calls for her firing in Washington, was the subject of a Wall Street Journal exposé this week that detailed an agency in a constant state of chaos under her and Lewandowski’s management.
The piece cited many problems but also highlighted how the secretary apparently disliked Homan grabbing TV screens over her.
“Noem routinely berated staff if she saw Homan on TV and kept track of both their appearances to make sure she was on TV more than him,” the WSJ reported. “On at least one occasion, she asked aides to ensure she drew a bigger crowd at a conference than Homan, who was speaking on a different day.”
On Sunday, Homan declined to answer questions about Noem’s tenure as DHS secretary, while not defending her record from calls for her resignation from Congress.
“Look; it’s one team, one fight. I’m not playing into that media. They’re trying to divide this administration,” Homan claimed, before he admitted that he did not agree with Noem on her decision-making 100% of the time. The border czar claimed that any disagreements he had with Noem were worked out in internal discussions.
He added that the record-low number of border crossings spoke for themselves.
Some aspects of Homan’s different approach to running the show in Minneapolis were on display on Sunday, regardless. Asked by CBS’s Face the Nation guest host Ed O’Keefe, Homan took a clearly different strategy to the give-no-ground approach that Noem and others have taken in response to allegations of wrongdoing by individual ICE or Border Patrol agents as he was asked by O’Keefe about agents placed on leave for giving misleading testimony.
Instead of defending the agents, Homan insisted that those cases had been sent to internal affairs for review and added that he had brought on more internal affairs staff to investigate claims of wrongdoing.
“Well look, you know, my first press conference in Minnesota I said I was bringing more internal affairs officers in, just to ensure officers were doing the right thing,” Homan said. “As the ICE director said on Friday, people will be held accountable.”
“Disciplinary action or prosecutions will occur” if accounts of ICE or Border Patrol agents committing violations of the law are found to be credible, Homan said.
Donald Trump himself has sought to balance his administration backing off Minneapolis in response to growing anger with a desire to deny any appearance of weakening or softening as it pertains to ICE and Border Patrol’s enforcement or operational standards.
“We’re going to de-escalate a little bit,” the president said in an interview in late January. In an interview with NBC Nightly News a few days later, he added: “I learned that maybe we could use a little bit of a softer touch. But you still have to be tough.”
