Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan met with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Tuesday after taking over the president’s immigration operation in Minneapolis, as the White House tries to calm national outrage over the second shooting death of a U.S. citizen this month by federal agents.
In a statement reported by CNN, Walz said he had outlined the state’s priorities for Homan, including impartial investigations into the two deaths and reducing the force of 3,000 federal agents that was sent to the city.
Homan and Walz agreed to “continue working toward these goals,” the governor said.
The decision to replace Homan with Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol’s top official, who sources say is leaving after leading most of Trump’s crackdowns on Democratic-controlled cities, is part of a broader reset by the president amid concerns among some aides that the killing of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by federal agents could derail his immigration agenda.
Homan’s job in Minneapolis is to “recalibrate tactics” and improve cooperation with state and local authorities, a source close to the White House said.
“The aim is to de-scale and eventually withdraw,” the source added.
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Homan is also expected to meet with Mayor Jacob Frey, Trump said on social media.
The president spent the weekend meeting with senior advisers to reassess the administration’s response to Pretti’s death on Saturday, according to the same source and a White House official.
Discussions included reducing the number of agents in Minnesota, recalibrating the mission to focus more narrowly on deportations rather than broad enforcement operations, and exploring greater coordination with state authorities. Trump also weighed in on whether immigration agents should be required to have full-body cameras, as many police officers do, according to the White House official.
Support for Trump’s immigration initiative declines
The killing of Pretti, an ICU nurse shot multiple times by Border Patrol agents on Saturday during daytime protests, has become a full-blown political crisis for Trump, with even some Republicans in Congress calling for investigations.
Coupled with the shooting death of 37-year-old Renee Good earlier this month by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, the shots fired at Pretti have sparked renewed anger over the aggressive tactics of federal agents who have been roaming the streets of Minneapolis for weeks.
Late Monday, Minnesota’s top federal judge threatened to hold the acting head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Todd Lyons, in contempt over his agency’s failures to comply with court orders that some detainees receive bond hearings.
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“The court’s patience has come to an end,” District Judge Patrick Schiltz wrote in ordering Lyons to appear before him on Friday.
Video of Pretti’s killing was widely shared, contradicting initial claims by some in the Trump administration that Pretti, who was legally carrying a concealed gun but never touched it before he was shot, posed a threat to agents.
Public support for Trump’s immigration enforcement tactics appeared to be waning both before and after the Pretti shooting, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. The issue has Republicans on the defensive ahead of November’s midterm elections, when the party’s narrow majorities in Congress will be at stake.
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Trump in damage control mode
The president held a two-hour meeting with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in the Oval Office on Monday night after Noem asked to meet, a source familiar with the matter confirmed. Noem’s position is not in jeopardy, the source said. The New York Times first reported the meeting.
The normally combative Trump has also struck a more conciliatory tone in his public comments. He characterized private conversations with Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Monday as productive, while both Democratic leaders offered similarly positive comments, a far cry from the hostilities the two sides had previously exchanged.
Walz’s office said Trump had agreed to direct the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to ensure that state authorities could conduct their own investigation into Pretti’s death, while Frey said on X that his understanding was that some federal agents would begin leaving the city on Tuesday.
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In private, Trump made it clear to aides that he did not want to defend the agent’s actions or attack Pretti, after Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller labeled Pretti a ‘murderer’ and Bovino suggested he intended to ‘massacre’ the police officers, among other attacks by government officials. Video footage of the incident verified by Reuters contradicts these claims.
Senior aides were asked not to publicly attack Pretti, and the president discussed the possibility of distancing himself from public comments made by Miller and Noem, the White House official said.
Bovino, who said the agents who killed Pretti were the real victims of Saturday’s shooting, is expected to depart Minneapolis along with some Border Patrol agents deployed with him, an administration official told Reuters on Monday.
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Another person familiar with the matter said Bovino had been stripped of his specially created title of ‘special commander’ and would return to his old job as chief patrol agent along the El Centro sector of California on the US-Mexico border, before retiring soon after.
Asked about Bovino’s future on Tuesday, DHS pointed to a statement from spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin on Monday that said, ‘Chief Gregory Bovino has NOT been relieved of his duties.’
DHS officials described the incident as an attack by Pretti, saying the agents fired in self-defense after he approached them with a firearm, although the video shows Pretti holding a phone, not a gun, as the agents tackled him to the ground.
The video also showed officers removing a firearm from his waistband after he was subdued, moments before they fatally shot him. Pretti was a licensed gun owner who lived half a mile from the crime scene.
Gun rights groups reacted to Trump administration officials’ suggestion that Pretti should not be armed, marking a rare election-year rift between Republicans and one of their most loyal blocs of voters.
