Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said he spoke to U.S. President Donald Trump Monday about the immigration crackdown in his city and that some federal officers will begin leaving.
Frey said he asked Trump in a phone call to end the immigration enforcement surge and that Trump agreed the present situation cannot continue.
Frey said while some agents will begin leaving Tuesday, he will keep pushing for others involved in Operation Metro Surge to go.
Trump posted on social media that he had a good conversation with Frey. “Lots of progress is being made!” he wrote.
Among the agents who are expected to depart was senior Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.
Bovino has been at the centre of the administration’s aggressive enforcement surge in cities nationwide. His departure marks a significant public shift in federal law enforcement posture amid mounting outrage over the fatal shooting of 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents.
Earlier in the day, Trump said he ordered his border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota to oversee the immigration crackdown there.
Bovino’s leadership of highly visible federal crackdowns, including operations that sparked mass demonstrations in Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte and Minneapolis, has drawn fierce criticism from local officials, civil rights advocates and congressional Democrats.
Criticism has increased around Bovino in the last few days after his public defence of the Pretti shooting and disputed claims about the confrontation that led to his death.WATCH | Retired FBI agent critical of shooting:
Trump speaks to the governor
Trump and Democratic Gov. Tim Walz also spoke by phone earlier Monday and later offered comments that were a marked change from the critical statements they have exchanged in the past, with Trump declaring in a social media post that he is now on a “similar wavelength” as the governor.
Walz, in a statement, said the call was “productive” and that impartial investigations into the shootings were needed. Trump said his administration was looking for “any and all” criminals the state has in their custody. Walz said the state Department of Corrections honours federal requests for people in its custody.
The two conversations came the same day a federal judge heard arguments in a lawsuit aimed at halting the federal immigration enforcement surge in the state.
Attorneys for the administration, the state and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul appeared Monday before U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez, who is considering whether to grant requests to temporarily halt the immigration operation.
She said the case was a priority, though she issued no immediate ruling.
Judge Menendez questioned the government’s motivation behind the crackdown and expressed skepticism about a letter recently sent by Attorney General Pam Bondi to Walz. The letter asked the state to give the federal government access to voter rolls, to turn over state Medicaid and food assistance records, and to repeal sanctuary policies.
“I mean, is there no limit to what the executive can do under the guise of enforcing immigration law?” Menendez asked. She noted that the federal requests are the subject of litigation.
Video contradicts Trump administration accounts of shooting
The president’s decision to send Tom Homan to Minneapolis came after Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Bovino led contentious news conferences over the weekend about the fatal shooting on Saturday of Alex Pretti.
Both officials defended the actions of Border Patrol agents almost immediately, instead of waiting for an investigation to play out.
Videos of the scene reviewed by The Associated Press appear to contradict statements by the Trump administration that the shots were fired “defensively” against Pretti as he “approached” them with a gun. While Pretti was armed, he was licensed to carry a concealed weapon, and may have been properly following state laws on carrying weapons.
Pretti appears to be seen with only a phone in his hand in the videos of the moments before his killing.
3 investigations underway
Asked during a briefing Monday if Noem had made a mistake that led Trump to send Homan to Minnesota, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said no.
She said that Homan “is in a unique position to drop everything and go to Minnesota to continue having these productive conversations with state and local officials.” Homan would be “catching a plane in just a few hours to do just that, at the at the request of the president,” Leavitt said.
The Press Secretary said the shooting and killing of Pretti “occurred as a result of a deliberate and hostile resistance by Democrat leaders in Minnesota.”
The White House continues to say that resistance to Trump’s agenda is what led to the shootings and killings of Pretti and Renee Good after ICE agents have engaged in aggressive operations in Minnesota.
Both Pretti and Renee Good, fatally shot on Jan. 7, were bystanders who were not targets of federal operations.
Leavitt said that a trio of “active investigations” and internal probes of the shooting were underway by federal agencies. Leavitt said that the Department of Homeland Security and FBI were investigating the shooting and that U.S. Customs and Border Protection was “conducting their own internal review.”
State, cities update suit against DHS
The state of Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul sued the Department of Homeland Security earlier this month, five days after Good was shot and killed by an ICE officer.
Since the original court filing, the state and cities have substantially added to their original request in an effort to restore the order that existed before the Trump administration launched Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota on Dec. 1.
In yet another case, a different federal judge, Eric Tostrud, issued an order late Saturday blocking the Trump administration from “destroying or altering evidence” related to the Pretti shooting.
A hearing in that case is scheduled for Monday afternoon in federal court in St. Paul, Minn.
The unrest, largely in Minneapolis-St. Paul, could have political ramifications that affect Americans outside of the state. Democratic anger over the tactics of the immigration blitz have led many of the party’s senators to oppose a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security, a stand that increases the prospect of a partial government shutdown by the end of the week.
Six of the 12 annual spending bills for the current budget year have been signed into law by the president. Six more are awaiting action in the Senate, and if senators fail to act by midnight Friday, funding for Homeland Security and the other agencies covered under the six bills will lapse.
Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada accused Noem of attempting to “mislead the American public” and said she “must be impeached and removed from office immediately.”
Impeachment proceedings are highly unlikely in the Republican-controlled Congress, though several Republicans have called for a deeper investigation into federal immigration tactics in Minnesota.
A week after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis, another ICE-involved shooting in the city is fuelling growing tension between federal law enforcement and protesters. As President Donald Trump threatens to bring in the National Guard, Andrew Chang explains ICE’s heightened presence in Minnesota’s Twin Cities. Images provided by The Canadian Press, Reuters and Getty Images