Federal agents will draw down, but Minnesota must cooperate, White House says

MINNEAPOLIS – White House border czar Tom Homan said Thursday that a plan is in the works to reduce the number of federal agents in the area, after conversations with numerous political and law enforcement leaders in Minnesota.

That drawdown, Homan added, will require the cooperation of Minnesota law enforcement and political leaders with ICE and Customs and Border Protection.

“As we see that cooperation happen,” Homan said at a news conference at the Whipple Federal Building, “the redeployment will happen.”

State leaders, including Attorney General Keith Ellison and Gov. Tim Walz, said the arrival of Homan has improved dialogue and coordination with the Trump administration, but they pushed back at the notion that state officials have been impeding Operation Metro Surge or that the actions of the state have created the tension that has roiled Minnesota.

President Donald Trump sent Homan to Minnesota earlier this week to manage immigration enforcement on the ground after a second fatal shooting involving federal law enforcement in Minneapolis. The killing of Alex Pretti by federal agents on Saturday, two weeks after the killing of Renee Good by an ICE officer, ignited new criticism over the federal government’s heavy-handed approach. Homan’s arrival coincided with the departure of Border Patrol Cmdr. Greg Bovino.

Homan struck a diplomatic posture in his first address to the press since arriving here. He wore a dark suit and spoke of the need for effective communication between state and federal leaders to carry out immigration enforcement. It offered a stark contrast to the green uniform and pointed criticisms of local officials that Bovino deployed while leading the immigration efforts in Minnesota.

While Homan’s request of Minnesota was the same as others in the Trump administration – if you want Operation Metro Surge to recede, cooperate with Operation Metro Surge – his tenor was different. He didn’t criticize federal agents for their tactics during the operation, which have been widely denounced in political and law enforcement circles in Minnesota, but said the federal government had a role to play in improving public safety.

“I don’t want to hear that everything we’ve been doing here has been perfect,” Homan said. “Nothing is ever perfect. Anything can be improved on, and what we have been working on is making this operation safer and more official. The mission is going to improve because of the changes we’re making.”

He said President Donald Trump sent him here “to regain law and order in a city beloved by many.”

In response to Homan’s news conference, a spokesman for Gov. Tim Walz said, “As the governor has said, we need a drawdown in federal forces, impartial BCA investigations, and an end to the campaign of retribution against Minnesota.”

Ellison said in a statement that he had a cordial meeting with Homan that was focused on solving problems. Ellison said he told Homan his commitment was to “protecting Minnesota and Minnesotans from Operation Metro Surge,” and pushed for a joint state-federal investigation into the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents.

“I raised with him directly the rage Minnesotans feel at the unconstitutional tactics federal immigration agents have been using,” Ellison said. He also laid out the legal standards that state prisons and county jails were following to help federal officers carry out immigration enforcement.

That topic was at the center of Homan’s plan to reduce the deployment of federal agents to Minnesota.

Homan, who was first appointed to a leadership position in ICE in 2013 by then-President Barack Obama, has worked in customs enforcement since 2003, when he became a border patrol agent in the wake of 9/11.

He said he is not leaving Minnesota until the “problem is gone.”

Homan said that the easiest way to decrease the level of officers in the state was to have the Department of Corrections and county jails help deliver illegal immigrants wanted by ICE to federal agents.

He praised the Minnesota Department of Corrections for “honoring our detainers” of immigrants.

A detainer is a two-part request made by the federal government. ICE wants local law enforcement to notify federal authorities as early as possible before releasing a person who could be deported. ICE also asks that jails or prisons hold that person for up to 48 hours after their release date until they can be taken into federal custody.

Earlier this month, Minnesota Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell said state law requires his department to notify ICE when a noncitizen enters prison, and the prisons fully comply. He said the state has always worked with ICE to transfer prisoners with immigration detainers to ICE upon their release.

Homan said he spoke to Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison about getting increased cooperation from county jails and that Ellison told him county sheriffs would notify immigration enforcement “of the release dates of criminal public safety risks, so ICE can take custody upon their release.”

In February, Ellison issued another advisory opinion that “Minnesota law prohibits state and local law enforcement agencies from holding someone based on an immigration detainer if the person would otherwise be released from custody.”

Sheriffs across Minnesota responded to Homan’s intimation that they hadn’t been cooperating with immigration enforcement by noting they have been cooperating, but there is an inherent tension between state law and the federal government.

Isanti County Sheriff Wayne Seiberlich said that if his office violates state law, the attorney general could revoke his license.

“What good do we do our communities, then, if we no longer can be a sheriff or a police chief because we stepped on the toes of the attorney general?”

Sieberlich said the Sheriff’s Office cannot arrest or detain anyone solely on immigration status because that jurisdiction is outside state law. Even if he could detain people on immigration charges, he said, he would not want to because of the liability and expense to taxpayers.

Patrick Barry, chief deputy with the Carver County Sheriff’s Office, said they notify ICE when they have a detainer request and the inmate is getting ready to be released. He said federal immigration enforcement agencies have access to the county jail, but the Sheriff’s Office cannot legally hold a person beyond their release date without criminal charges.

“This is a matter that has been dealt with in court several times at the federal level and state level,” Barry said. “Until that gets resolved, I’m not sure how they think we can do that. That’s going to involve the state of Minnesota, legislators and the courts to be involved.”

Barry said the county would risk a lawsuit if it were to hold someone without criminal charges, “because we would be in violation of their Fourth Amendment rights.”

Dakota County Sheriff Joe Leko said he has worked closely with federal partners in the past, but when the surge came, that communication seemed to break down when thousands of new officers arrived. He said there was no pre-surge meeting with the federal government to cooperate and plan on the front end. He said that if someone has been charged with a violent crime then local law enforcement can and does arrest people.

Leko believes the “rapist murderers” the federal government has highlighted were already convicted and had done their time in prison but are being picked up for deportation, which is not the role of local police.

“It’s not people that we’re ignoring,” Leko said. “(ICE) might be taking them off the street, but we took them off the street first and they already did their time in prison. So that’s a misconception that goes out there that can just inflame the whole thing, that we are just allowing murderers and rapists walking our streets.”

Leko said the Minnesota Sheriff’s Association met with Homan and the conversation focused on how they can improve working relationships.

Homan said his conversations with police chiefs, county sheriffs and politicians created a plan that will allow federal agents to have better access to illegal immigrants who have been arrested or convicted of a crime and are targets of immigration enforcement. Homan said that access should allow for less enforcement activity in public.

He referred to it as “common-sense cooperation that lets us draw down on the number of people here.”