Donald Trump has gone into damage control over the killing of yet another U.S. citizen in Minneapolis, sending in his border czar and effectively marginalizing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
With polls showing that Americans are increasingly turning on ICE—and Noem facing internal dissent over her response to the shooting of veteran affairs nurse Alex Pretti—the president announced on Monday morning that Tom Homan would be sent to Minneapolis in a bid to de-escalate tensions.
“He has not been involved in that area, but knows and likes many of the people there. Tom is tough but fair, and will report directly to me,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The move is significant given that Noem has previously been at odds with Homan, who prioritized deportations of “the worst of the worst” criminals and gang members.
In contrast, insiders say Noem, nicknamed ICE Barbie for her love of cosplaying on immigration operations, wanted broader public round-ups and the theatrics of promoting them, often bypassing Homan in the process.
But tensions escalated in Minneapolis over the weekend after Pretti, 37, was shot by federal agents after he filmed an immigration operation on his phone.
Noem, alongside Customs and Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino, sought to justify the shooting as an act of self-defense and painted Pretti as a “domestic terrorist” intent on harming law enforcement.
“This is a violent riot when you have someone showing up with weapons and are using them to assault law enforcement officers,” she said on Saturday in the aftermath of the shooting.
The claim came despite multiple videos appearing to contradict her version of events, and the fact that Pretti had a permit to conceal-carry a gun, as allowed under Minnesota law.
Notably, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Trump refused to back Noem’s claim that Pretti’s shooting was justified, repeatedly declining to say if the agent who killed him had “done the right thing.”
His decision to send in Homan came as internal dissent over DHS’s messaging is reportedly boiling over. Fox News reporter Bill Melugin said he had spoken to more than half a dozen federal immigration officials who saw DHS’s messaging as “a case study on how not to do crisis PR.”
According to CNN, multiple DHS insiders were also “furious” after watching bystander footage of the shooting, saying Noem’s public statements no longer match what Americans can see themselves. One official told the network: “The department needs a law enforcement leader, not a sycophant.”
Despite the well-known tension between Trump’s Homeland Security Secretary and his border czar, Noem took to social media on Wednesday to welcome the decision.
“This is good news for peace, safety, and accountability in Minneapolis,” she said.
“I have worked closely with Tom over the last year and he has been a major asset to our team—his experience and insight will help us in our wide-scale fraud investigations, which have robbed Americans, and will help us to remove even more public safety threats and violent criminal illegal aliens off the of streets of Minneapolis.
“We continue to call on the leadership in Minnesota to allow for state and local partnership in our public safety mission.”
Footage taken of the shooting from multiple angles shows Pretti apparently recording federal agents as they shove a woman, then placing his body between the woman and agents as she is pushed.
An agent sprays Pretti at close range with a chemical irritant, which leads to Pretti struggling on the ground beneath several agents, before he is shot numerous times. The footage does not show him attempting to draw or use a firearm.
“The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting,” Alex’s parents, Susan and Michael, said in a statement.
“Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He has his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down all while being pepper sprayed. Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man.”
The administration’s divided response over Pretti’s death comes after they took a more united front following the ICE shooting of unarmed mother Renee Good two weeks ago.
In his Truth Social post, Trump also took aim at the long-running welfare fraud scandal that has plagued Minnesota, claiming without evidence that it “is at least partially responsible for the violent organized protests going on in the streets.”
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