Border czar Homan says small security force to remain in Minnesota
President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, said Sunday that a “small” security force will remain in Minnesota to support immigration operations, even as the surge of federal agents there is set to end soon.
Speaking to CBS News’s “Face the Nation,” days after declaring an end to Operation Metro Surge, the Trump administration’s largest immigration operation since the president took office, Homan said more than 1,000 immigration agents had left the Twin Cities area and that hundreds more will depart in the coming days.
The operation ended after widespread protests against the raids and fatal shootings by officers of two American citizens.
Homan said “we’ll get back to the original footprint” of federal agents carrying out immigration operations in the state, but that a small number of officers will stay behind for a period of time to respond to protests and what he described as “agitators.”
“There will be a small force, a security force … that will respond to when our agents are out and they get surrounded by agitators and things got out of control, and they’ll remain for a short period of time, just to make sure the coordination, the agreements we have with local state law enforcement, stay in place,” Homan said.
Homan did not provide details on the size of the force to remain but said, “Hopefully, those security forces … can be removed really fairly quickly.” Homan also said the administration will leave behind a number of agents to conduct the investigation into allegations of fraud in Minneapolis child care centers.
When the immigration enforcement operation began, the administration quickly increased the number of immigration officers in the Minneapolis area from 80 to about 3,000.
Trump sent Homan to oversee the operation in Minneapolis last month after the White House removed Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, who had been leading the operation after spearheading similar deployments in other cities, from the operation following the deaths of two U.S. citizens. Officers shot three people during the Minnesota operation, killing two, mother of three Renée Good and ICU nurse Alex Pretti.
In his first news conference after replacing Bovino, Homan said in late January that the federal government had not “carried this mission out perfectly” in Minneapolis and, without making specific concessions, that Trump and others “recognized that certain improvements could and should be made.”
Homan at the time signaled the administration was working on a plan to draw down the number of federal immigration enforcement agents in the Minneapolis area.
ICE and Border Patrol tactics in Minneapolis drew condemnation from Democrats and some Republican lawmakers. Large swaths of the Department of Homeland Security were shut down Saturday after negotiations stalled between the White House and congressional Democrats over new restrictions on federal immigration agents in the wake of the Minnesota surge.
On Thursday, Homan - former acting ICE director - said the operation in Minneapolis was coming to a close soon because Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison agreed to allow state and local jails to work with ICE to detain and deport immigrants who have been arrested for crimes.
Minnesota officials have said they already communicate with ICE and facilitate the transfer of serious offenders from state prisons.
When asked by CBS News whether he expects another surge of federal agents to occur in the future, Homan said, “It depends on the situation.”
“I’ve said from day one that, you know we need to flood the zone in sanctuary cities with additional agents,” he said. Homan said the agreement with Ellison to get local jails to collaborate with immigration agents “is a win” that other cities should replicate.