Trump Says He Ordered Withdrawal of 700 Immigration Agents From Minneapolis

 

Trump Says He Ordered Withdrawal of 700 Immigration Agents From Minneapolis

 

About 2,000 personnel will be left in Minnesota, where President Trump’s immigration crackdown has generated outrage.

 

Madeleine NgoMitch Smith

By Madeleine Ngo and Mitch Smith

Reporting from Washington

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/us/politics/homan-minnesota-dhs-immigration-agents.html

Feb. 4, 2026

 

President Trump said on Wednesday that he personally ordered the withdrawal of 700 law enforcement officers involved in the federal immigration crackdown in Minnesota and that his administration could use a “softer touch.”

 

The administration had sent thousands of federal officers and agents to Minnesota starting in December, a deployment that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said was the agency’s “largest operation to date.” But the surge drew criticism because of the aggressive tactics used by immigration officers, and outrage intensified after two U.S. citizens were fatally shot in confrontations with federal authorities.

 

In an interview with NBC, Mr. Trump said the administration’s approach would continue to be “tough” and he urged local officials to cooperate with federal immigration officers. “It didn’t come from me because I just wanted to do it,” he said. “We are waiting for them to release prisoners.”

 

Earlier in the day, Tom Homan, the White House border czar, said about 2,000 officers and agents would be left in the state.

 

Mr. Homan said the change came after an “unprecedented number of counties” were cooperating with federal officials and allowing ICE to take custody of unauthorized immigrants before they were released from jails. But he did not specify which counties had increased their cooperation.

 

“This is smart law enforcement, not less law enforcement,” Mr. Homan said.

 

As of last month, sheriffs in at least seven of Minnesota’s 87 counties had signed agreements with ICE to collaborate with the agency on immigration enforcement, sharing information about inmates who might be in the country unlawfully. The state’s Department of Corrections has long worked closely with ICE, notifying the agency when an immigrant convicted of a felony is set to be released.

 

But Hennepin County’s jail has had a policy of refusing to share information with ICE for basic immigration enforcement since 2019 over concerns about public safety and undocumented immigrants’ reluctance to report crimes. Minneapolis is in Hennepin County.

 

Minnesota’s attorney general, Keith Ellison, has said that agreements to hold detainees for federal officials require the approval of a county’s elected board.

 

State and local officials said the drawdown was welcome but did not go far enough. Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis, a Democrat, said in a statement that the reduction in officers was “a step in the right direction” but that 2,000 federal officers in the region was still “not de-escalation.”

 

“My message to the White House has been consistent — Operation Metro Surge has been catastrophic for our businesses and residents,” he said, referring to the name of the federal crackdown in the city. “It needs to end immediately.”

 

The message was echoed by Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, also a Democrat, in a statement.

 

“Today’s announcement is a step in the right direction, but we need a faster and larger drawdown of forces, state-led investigations into the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, and an end to this campaign of retribution,” Mr. Walz said, referring to the two Americans who were killed in encounters with federal immigration officers.

 

Mr. Trump tasked Mr. Homan with taking over the enforcement operation in Minnesota last week, days after Mr. Pretti, an intensive care nurse, was fatally shot by officers with Customs and Border Protection. Mr. Pretti’s killing worsened tensions in the region and prompted some Republicans to criticize the Trump administration’s operations. His death came more than two weeks after Ms. Good was shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis.

 

Shortly after the shootings, Department of Homeland Security officials said that federal officers acted in self-defense in both cases, and that Mr. Pretti and Ms. Good intended to harm law enforcement officials. Those accounts have conflicted with witness videos and accounts by local officials.

 

Outside the B.H. Whipple Federal Building near Minneapolis on Wednesday, a small contingent of protesters, who have maintained a daily presence outside the building for weeks, listened to Mr. Homan’s remarks on radios.

 

James Woehrle, 78, said he was not impressed by the number included in the drawdown. “We’re already overwhelmed,” he said. “Seven hundred? I don’t know if you’d even know the difference.”

 

Mr. Homan also said on Wednesday that there would be a reorganization of law enforcement officers on the ground. Agents from C.B.P. and ICE would now be under “one unified chain of command.” Last week, the Trump administration decided to move Gregory Bovino, a top Border Patrol official whose enforcement tactics have prompted controversy, out of the Minneapolis region.

 

Mr. Homan did not provide a timeline for the full drawdown of the operation, saying that it was dependent on the continued cooperation of local and state officials, along with a decrease in the violence and rhetoric aimed at immigration officers.

 

Minnesota sheriffs have discussed entering into agreements with the federal government that would allow them to hold detainees sought by immigration agents for up to 48 hours past when they would otherwise be released, said James Stuart, the executive director of the Minnesota Sheriffs’ Association.

 

The agreements that would need to be changed by county boards to do this are known as “basic ordering agreements,” he said. They would apply to people who were arrested on local charges, who were wanted for immigration violations and who were slated to be released.

 

Those people would remain in jail for up to 48 hours, Mr. Stuart said, but during that time they would become federal detainees in the custody of the local sheriff rather than local detainees.

 

Minnesota officials were also discussing ways to improve communication with federal officials, Mr. Stuart said. Some were open to making arrangements to transfer more local detainees to ICE officials inside a jail, a process that law enforcement considers to be safer than making a new arrest after a person is released onto the streets.

 

Mr. Homan on Wednesday suggested that efforts to impede immigration enforcement could prolong the deployment in Minnesota.

 

“I’ve been saying this for almost a year now: Hateful or extreme rhetoric against ICE personnel is completely unacceptable,” Mr. Homan said. “If the hateful rhetoric didn’t stop, I was afraid there would be bloodshed, and there has been.”

 

The Trump administration’s crackdown in the region has resulted in weekslong clashes between protesters and law enforcement officers. Residents opposed to the crackdown have blown whistles, honked car horns and shouted profanities at immigration agents. Federal officers have deployed pepper spray and responded violently at times.

 

In the past month, 158 people have been arrested in connection with assaulting or impeding law enforcement officers, Mr. Homan said.

 

Ernesto Londoño, Erica L. Green and Claire Fahy contributed reporting

 

Madeleine Ngo covers immigration and economic policy for The Times.

 

Mitch Smith is a Chicago-based national correspondent for The Times, covering the Midwest and Great Plains.