MINNEAPOLIS — Within hours of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s announcement on Monday that White House border czar Tom Homan would be the point man for immigration operations in Minnesota, Homan and two other top homeland security officials were on the ground in what had become an embattled city, beginning to work on a comeback plan.
Less than a week ago, tensions in the Minnesota city were already high. U.S. citizen Renee Nicole Good had been shot by an U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer while driving her car and impeding police operations. Both ICE and Border Patrol agents had engaged in countless clashes with protesters, as well as agitators determined to stop the arrests of illegal immigrants across the region. Relations between activists and immigration officers were worse than when personnel deployed to Chicago last year, with no sign of the thousands of visiting federal police planning to leave town any time soon.
That all changed on Jan. 24 when a second U.S. citizen, Alex Pretti, was fatally shot by two Border Patrol agents in South Minneapolis. Initial video recordings shared online suggested Pretti was a protester who appeared to have been shot when not fighting back, infuriating many viewers.
Since arriving in Minneapolis, Homan has led talks with Democratic officials from the city and state over what a mutually acceptable offramp could look like. Homan indicated on Thursday that immigration officers would turn their focus toward targeted arrests of criminal illegal aliens and away from broader enforcement efforts that have swept up illegal immigrants whose only offense was entering the country illegally.
Democrats called for a full pull-out of immigration authorities in Minneapolis. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) called the killing of Pretti a “coldblooded slaying.” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has maintained that the city will not assist with the enforcement of immigration laws.
But Homan has pressed for more cooperation from Minneapolis officials, including by granting immigration officers access to county jails that have refused to hand over illegal immigrants to the federal government.
Homan has also asked local police to help shield ICE officers from activists who turn violent, imploring them to respond to 911 calls about attacks on immigration officers “not to enforce immigration law, but to keep the peace.”
A community on edge
Julie Fergus, a mother of three visiting Minneapolis from Los Angeles, said she flew in this week to be with friends, Teresa Fox and Arwyn Fox, who own Glam Doll Donuts, which is across the street from where Pretti was killed.
“It’s overwhelming for them, but they’re feeling a lot of love from the community, and they’re just horrified that this is going on,” said Fergus, 52 in a conversation with the Washington Examiner outside the doughnut shop on Wednesday.
Amid the fallout from Pretti’s death, Republicans jumped into the conversation with calls, both publicly and in private, for the Trump administration to turn down the temperature and rein in Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol official overseeing the at-large operations, as well as DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who called Pretti a domestic terrorist the day of the shooting.
The Pretti shooting prompted a far louder rebuke from fellow Republicans than any other seen in President Donald Trump’s first year carrying out what he had promised to be the “largest-ever” deportation operation that targets the “worst of the worst” illegal immigrants. The West Wing heard that criticism and acted.
Trump’s first course of business was purging Bovino, a tenured agent who frequently posted flashy videos of himself on the street to social media. Bovino had become a particularly reviled villain among activists on the Left.
De-escalation talks begin
Under the cover of darkness Monday evening, three men stepped off the plane in Minneapolis with a new set of goals: turn down the temperature in Minneapolis, make real progress in talks with the state and city, and get a new plan in line for how federal law enforcement could work cohesively with ICE going forward, according to three people familiar with the strategy. Those men were Homan, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott, and CBP senior advisor Ron Vitiello.
Two middle-aged residents from the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Park, who spoke with the Washington Examiner at the site where Good was shot earlier this month, said that criminals should be targeted by ICE, but added that they did not believe that that was who ICE was going after in their city.
“Nobody’s for criminals to be on our street hurting people and robbing people and killing people,” said Mr. Anderson, who declined to share his full name. “But they’re also not for what they’re doing here, which is taking law-abiding citizens and getting rid of them. The shootings … they were murders in my mind.”
Anderson’s spouse said ICE used to operate quietly during the Obama administration and went after the “worst of the worst.”
Trump vowed to target the “worst of the worst” upon taking office though Homan warned following the 2024 election that “collateral” arrests of noncriminals was inevitable as long as ICE had to go into neighborhoods searching for individuals.
Since the beginning of December 2025, the DHS has sent in its own federal police, as well as DOJ agents, to the tune of at least 3,000 personnel on the ground in Minnesota. It followed similar ICE operations in other major U.S. cities and was aimed at illegal immigrants from Somalia.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat, said the city “does not and will not enforce federal immigration laws.” Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) has emphatically called for ICE to leave in totality.
Homan touted in a press conference on Thursday that despite the pushback from elected officials, he had made “great progress” in talks with them and others in talks since Tuesday. The Minnesota Department of Corrections has honored some ICE requests to detain illegal immigrants in custody to transfer to the federal agency. The state will “expand upon that” and some county jails “may notify ICE” of the release dates of criminals in jail, Homan said.
“This is common sense cooperation that allows us to draw down the number of people we have here,” Homan said. “Yes, I said it. Draw down the number of people here.”
A senior Border Patrol agent stationed on the U.S.-Mexico boundary said Homan seems to be the “right man” for the job.
“Most agents that I know trust him and Rodney Scott more than anyone else in DHS or CBP,” the agent wrote in a text message. The agent spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the press. “Most agents and leadership support enforcement operations in the interior, but it should be ICE-led and [Border Patrol] can support.”
Talk of a draw down was not comforting to Mr. Anderson, who said he believed it was the Trump administration “recalibrating.”
DHS GRAPPLES WITH PR NIGHTMARE AFTER ALEX PRETTI SHOOTING IN MINNEAPOLIS
“They see how much they can get away with and when people start to push back and resist then they pull back a little bit and then they take another two steps forward,” said Anderson. “This is just another step in the process to try and go full authoritarian regime.”
Fergus was optimistic about what Bovino’s departure meant for the city: “I’m hopeful, definitely.”
