In his first press conference since taking over federal immigration operations in Minnesota after the killing of two U.S. citizens, border policy advisor Tom Homan said street operations in the state would wind down if the agents are allowed into the local jails instead.
“The withdrawal of law enforcement resources here is dependent upon cooperation,” Homan said Thursday. “As we see that cooperation happen, then the redeployment will happen.”
Homan, who Trump deployed to Minnesota this week to bring down the political temperature after Border Patrol agents’ fatally shot Alex Pretti on a Minneapolis street, stated that the federal government was not backing down on its aggressive immigration agenda.
“We are not surrendering our mission at all,” he said. “We are not surrendering the president’s mission of immigration enforcement: let’s make that clear.”
Homan’s focus on jails is not a new position for the Trump administration. He and other senior officials have long argued they would not be targeting immigrants in communities in Democratic-led cities if local officials allowed federal immigration officers access to their jails.
“Sanctuary cities lock us out of the jails,” Homan told ABC News last January just after Trump took office.
On Saturday, the day federal immigration agents shot Pretti, Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz saying he could “bring an end to the chaos” in his state by, among other things, repealing sanctuary city policies and allowing federal agents into local jails.
Data from last year shows that Republican-led states, such as Texas and Florida, have higher arrest numbers of immigrants than Democratic-led states, particularly when measured against population. That’s because they have a longer history of working directly with ICE and are more committed to collaboration.
In red states, local law enforcement officers tend to work with federal agents, either by taking on ICE duties through so-called 287(g) agreements or by identifying undocumented immigrants who are incarcerated and letting ICE into their jails and prisons.
While blue states, such as California, do cooperate with federal immigration, sharing information with ICE about undocumented immigrants with serious felonies, they do not allow federal agents access to those who have committed lesser infractions. Red states, however, are more likely to share information about offenses that may not be as severe, such as traffic infractions.
President Trump announced Monday he was sending Homan to Minnesota, sidelining Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino who had been leading operations in the state, as public outrage swelled over the killing of Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse.
Pretti was the second U.S. citizen fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis in recent weeks. On Jan. 7, a federal officer shot and killed U.S. citizen Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three.
“I’m not here because the federal government has carried out this mission perfectly,” Homan said Thursday. “Nothing’s ever perfect, and anything be improved on. And what we’ve been working on is making this operation safer, more efficient, by the book.”
Homan said “President Trump wants this fixed, and I’m going to fix it.”
Since Homan arrived in Minnesota, he has met with a range of Democratic officials, including Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.
“Bottom line is you can’t fix problems if you don’t have discussions,” Homan said. “I came here to seek solutions and that’s what we’re going to do.”
Homan said that Ellison had agreed that county jails “may notify ICE of the release dates of criminal public safety risks” so ICE can take them into custody. If local officials agreed to allow ICE access to jails, Homan said, the Trump administration would deploy fewer agents in communities.
“More agents in the jail means less agents in the street,” Homan said. “This is common-sense cooperation that allows us to draw down on the number of people we have here.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has long conducted targeted operations of criminals. However, in the first year of Trump’s second term, federal agents began to broaden their focus, conducting sprawling raids that picked up non-English speakers and brown people in parking lots of Home Depots, car washes, or operating vendor cards on the streets.
Positioning himself as a moderate, Homan, a former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement under Trump, said he had begged for months for de-escalation.
“I don’t want to see anybody die, not the officers, not members of the community and not the targets of our operations,” Homan said.
“I said in March, if the rhetoric didn’t stop, there’s going to be bloodshed, and there has been,” he said. “I wish I wasn’t right. I don’t want to see anybody die — not officers, not members of the community and not the targets of our operations.”
The Trump administration has faced harsh rebuke this week from top judges in Minnesota, who have accused federal immigration agencies of repeatedly violating court orders.
On Wednesday, Patrick J. Schiltz, the chief federal judge in Minnesota and a George W. Bush appointee, accused ICE of defying more court directives over the past month than “some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.” He presented the agency’s acting director, Todd Lyons. with a list of 96 court orders ICE had ignored and warned Lyons he could be found in contempt unless the agency begins following court decisions.
“ICE is not a law unto itself,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, another federal judge ordered the agency Wednesday to stop its deportation of refugees in Minnesota that had lawful status in the country. The Trump administration has said it would reevaluate thousands of cases of refugees granted legal status under the Biden administration.
“Refugees have a legal right to be in the United States, a right to work, a right to live peacefully,” wrote the Clinton-appointed judge, “and importantly, a right not to be subjected to the terror of being arrested and detained without warrants or cause in their homes or on their way to religious services or to buy groceries.”
On Thursday, Homan said federal immigration officers were performing their duties in a challenging environment and “were trying to do it with professionalism.”
“If they don’t, they’ll be dealt with,” he said. “Like any other federal agency, we have standards of conduct.”
Homan said he had also urged local law enforcement leaders to work with the federal government to keep immigration agents safe.
“The chiefs I’ve talked to are committed to responding to 911 calls when protesters turned violent, agents are in a dangerous situation and there’s assaults,” Homan said. “They have committed to upholding public safety and responding to the needs not to enforce immigration law, but to keep the peace.”
Homan said that people in Minneapolis have threatened and assaulted federal agents. “If you don’t like what ICE is doing, go protest Congress,” he said.
More than 3,000 federal immigration agents have been working in Minnesota under the Trump administration’s aggressive enforcement, Operation Metro Surge.
Homan spoke as an internal memo reviewed by Reuters showed ICE officers operating in the state were directed on Wednesday to avoid engaging with “agitators” and only target “aliens with a criminal history.”
“DO NOT COMMUNICATE OR ENGAGE WITH AGITATORS,” Marcos Charles, a top official in ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division, instructed officers via email, according to Reuters.
Times Staff Writer Michael Wilner contributed to this report.