Trump dispatches border czar to Minnesota amid protests over federal shootings

Border czar Tom Homan will go to Minnesota following massive outcry after federal immigration officers shot and killed a second U.S. citizen over the weekend, President Donald Trump announced Monday.

Homan “has not been involved in that area, but knows and likes many of the people there,” Trump wrote on social media. “Tom is tough but fair, and will report directly to me.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on social media that Homan would oversee ICE operations in Minnesota.

In a second social media post, Trump said he spoke with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, about Homan traveling to the state and that he would continue ICE operations.

“It was a very good call, and we, actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength,” Trump said of his conversation with Walz. “The governor, very respectfully, understood that, and I will be speaking to him in the near future. He was happy that Tom Homan was going to Minnesota, and so am I!”

Early in his second administration, Trump tasked Homan with carrying out the president’s mass deportation campaign, which has faced significant pushback in Minneapolis.

Homan’s arrival comes while thousands of Minnesotans mourn and protest the death of 37-year-old Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a nurse who was shot and killed by Border Patrol agents on Saturday.

His was the second fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen by immigration officers in Minneapolis this year. Federal immigration officer Jonathan Ross killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, a mother and poet, Jan. 7.

Multiple videos captured the killings of both Good and Pretti, further sparking outcry from the community.

Several congressional Democrats over the weekend coalesced to oppose any funding for the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration enforcement, increasing the chances of a partial government shutdown at the end of the week.

For nearly two months, 3,000 federal immigration officers have descended on Minneapolis, dwarfing the city’s police force of roughly 600. The Trump administration deployed the officers for immigration enforcement after right-wing media influencers resurfaced instances of fraud in Minnesota’s social service programs.

Trump, in his Monday social media post, blamed the massive protests in Minnesota on “Welfare Fraud that has taken place in Minnesota, and is at least partially responsible for the violent organized protests going on in the streets.”

Homan, who is expected to be in Minnesota by the evening, is the former U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement head of removal operations during the Obama administration and served as acting ICE director during the first Trump administration.