President Donald Trumpâs border czar Tom Homan says ICE agents are pulling out of Minnesota as part of a âsignificant drawdownâ following weeks of chaos.
The top immigration official insisted that the buildup of agents in the state, which led to the killing of two U.S. citizens, was a success, but nonetheless said the surge operation will wind down.
âI have proposed, and President Trump has concurred, that this surge operation conclude. A significant drawdown has already been underway this week and will continue through the next week,â Homan said at a press conference Thursday.
It was an anticlimactic conclusion to a controversial operation that scarred a community and led to widespread backlash across the country.
Homan was sent to Minnesota by President Trump late last month to work with local officials as the administration scrambled for damage control in the aftermath of federal immigration agents killing 37-year-old VA nurse Alex Pretti.
His shooting in the middle of a Minneapolis street on Jan. 24, captured on camera, sparked widespread outrage as the country was already grappling with the shooting death of 37-year-old mom Renee Good by an ICE agent in the city just two weeks earlier.
Despite the deaths and fallout, which led to a fight over ICE funding back in Washington, D.C., Homan on Thursday declared âOperation Metro Surgeâ a success.
Trumpâs border czar argued that the mass immigration crackdown, which brought roughly 3,000 federal agents to the state, made the community much safer.
âAs a result of this surge operation, we have greatly reduced the number of targets for enforcement action, and many criminal aliens have been arrested and taken off the streets including murderers, sex offenders, national security threats, gang members and other violent criminals,â Homan said.
He vowed the administration would continue to enforce immigration laws against anyone in the country illegally.
The operationâs âdrawdownâ comes after Homan had already announced a decision to scale back by 700 officers earlier this month.
In declaring the operation over, he bizarrely insisted that ICE was a âlegitimate federal law enforcement agencyâ despite a series of shocking videos showing agents harassing and shoving Americans.
âWeâre not out scouring the streets to disappear people or deny people their civil rights or due process,â Homan claimed.
Homan also argued that federal agents were not snatching people from hospitals or elementary schools and challenged people to bring him legitimate examples of such cases.
But Americans largely disapprove of the agency and its work both in Minnesota and nationwide.
A PBS News/NPR/Marist poll earlier this month found only three in ten Americans approve of the job ICE is doing.
Homan appeared to take a veiled dig at Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who was at the center of the ICE backlash before he took over leadership on the ground.
The border czar admitted there were âsome issuesâ but claimed âwe fixed those issues.â
He also went on to thank state and local leadership for their work with him after the president and Noem fiercely clashed with them at the height of the surge.
âI want to thank Governor Walz for his messages focusing on peace and his support for the Minnesota state troopers to respond to unlawful situations that put federal officers and the public at risk,â Homan said.
He also thanked Mayor Jacob Frey and Minneapolis Police Chief Brian OâHara, both of whom had sparked Trumpâs wrath by criticizing ICEâs heavy-handed tactics in the state.
Walz reacted to the news with a post on Thursday that simply said, âThank you, Minnesota.â
âThe long road to recovery starts now,â he wrote on X. âThe impact on our economy, our schools, and peopleâs lives wonât be reversed overnight. That work starts today.â
In a separate press conference on Thursday, Walz said he was âcautiously optimisticâ that the surge of âuntrained, aggressive federal agentsâ would leave his state.
He warned there were still many questions from the operation that remain, including on the investigations into those who killed Good and Pretti, but he vowed state officials will continue to pursue answers.
