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Donald Trump is deploying his border juggernaut to Minnesota as backlash against his administration’s immigration crackdown grows after a second man was shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis over the weekend.
The president said in a post on his Truth social platform on Monday that he was sending Tom Homan to the state. Trump described the former director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as “tough but fair.”
White House press secretary Carolyn Leavitt said Homan would manage on-ice operations on the ground in Minnesota and “will continue to arrest the most egregious criminal illegal aliens”.
But the decision to send Homan was nonetheless seen as a change for the administration as public outrage grows after 37-year-old intensive care nurse Alex Pretty was shot to death by immigration agents on the streets of Minneapolis on Saturday. His murder came less than three weeks after Ice agents shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis.
Homan — who also served in the federal government under Democratic President Barack Obama — has long been at odds with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who has led an immigration crackdown in Minnesota in recent weeks.
Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Monday called Homan’s involvement a “positive development that I hope will lower the temperature in Minnesota and restore order.”
Trump also appeared to extend an olive branch to Democratic leaders in Minnesota on Monday, saying in a social media post that he had spoken to the state’s Democratic Governor Tim Walz in a “very good call.” “Indeed, we seemed to be on a similar wavelength,” he wrote. The president previously described Walz as “grossly incompetent” and a “stupid, low-IQ governor.”
Walz’s office described the call as “productive” and said Trump had agreed to let state officials conduct an independent investigation into the murders of Pretty and Good.
The governor’s spokesperson also said that the President “has agreed to consider reducing the number of federal agents in Minnesota and working with the state in a more coordinated manner on immigration enforcement regarding violent criminals”.
Preeti’s murder sparked outrage across the political spectrum and increased pressure on the White House, which has made mass deportation of illegal immigrants a centerpiece of its domestic political agenda.
Several Republican lawmakers and state governors have publicly expressed concern about the shootings, calling for a full investigation and suggesting that Ice should cease operations in Minneapolis.
Chris Madel, the Republican candidate for governor in Minnesota, suspended his campaign against the president and his own party on Monday, saying: “I cannot support the alleged vendetta of national Republicans on the citizens of our state, nor can I consider myself a member of the party that would do so.”
Democratic lawmakers have refused to sign off on more funding for the Department of Homeland Security and have threatened to shut down the federal government in protest.
The CEOs of more than 60 Minnesota-based companies — including Target, 3M, Best Buy and UnitedHealth — also called for de-escalation in Minneapolis.
“With yesterday’s tragic news, we are calling on state, local and federal officials to immediately de-escalate tensions and work together to find real solutions,” they wrote in an open letter organized by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal published late Sunday, Trump said his administration was “reviewing everything” about the Preeti shooting, adding that immigration agents would withdraw from Minneapolis “at some point.”
The president has been engaged for months in a war of words with Democratic state and local leaders in Minnesota, including Walz, who dropped a re-election bid this year as public scrutiny grows over a scandal involving a group of Somali immigrants who are accused of defrauding the state’s public welfare system.
Leavitt said Monday that Homan would “coordinate with those leading the investigation” into fraud in Minnesota, while Trump said on Truth Social that his Justice Department is investigating the state’s Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who was born in Somalia and has been one of the president’s most ardent critics.
