Donald Trump’s border czar has savaged the president’s top immigration enforcers for their failed handling of the Minneapolis mission that has plunged the administration into crisis.
Tom Homan, 62, has been sent by Trump to Minnesota to replace Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s favored Border Patrol commander, Gregory Bovino.
Bovino’s “Green Machine” oversaw an aggressive “turn and burn” street operation that led this month to two U.S. citizens being shot dead by federal immigration agents, sparking public outrage.
Homan—who is known to despise Noem, 54, after she sidelined him in favor of Bovino, 55, as the Daily Beast reported Wednesday—marched into his first press conference Thursday and vowed to do the mission “smarter.”
In what was a clear attempt to quell public anger, Homan stressed twice during his speech that he “didn’t come to Minnesota for photo ops or headlines”—a pointed rejection of Noem and Bovino’s camera-ready approach during the botched Operation Metro Surge in the Twin Cities.
And while he did not mention either of them by name during his speech—only doing so when taking questions from reporters afterwards—the rebuke was unmistakable.
Since the start of Trump’s second term, Noem and Homan have been locked in a feud as both fought to lead the president’s mass deportation efforts. Trump’s decision to deploy Homan to Minnesota was thus viewed inside both the White House and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as a vote of no-confidence in Noem’s handling of operations.
Bovino’s trench-coat theatrics and high-profile media and courtroom clashes have likewise rattled the West Wing, with Trump describing him as an “out there kind of guy” and vowing to “de-escalate” the situation.
Homan’s remarks confirmed the shift.
“I didn’t come here for photo ops or headlines,” he said. “I came here to seek solutions.” He repeated the line later, emphasizing that he was rejecting the showmanship that had defined the mission so far.
Homan admitted that his move to the state came after Trump personally phoned him Monday morning—it had been reported the president made the decision moments after a Fox News pundit suggested it—asking him to stabilize a deployment that Homan said even the president conceded was failing.
And the law enforcement veteran made clear he intends to overhaul the operation from top to bottom by reversing the operational style that produced two deadly shootings and left agents themselves describing the mission as “lost.”
Making a point of repeatedly distancing himself from past tactics while insisting he would not accept excuses from ICE leadership, Homan said the reforms he is instituting will make the operation “safer, more efficient, by the book”—a direct acknowledgment that what he inherited was neither.
“I do not want to hear that everything that has been done here has been perfect,” he said. “I’m not here because the federal government carried out its mission perfectly. Nothing is ever perfect. Anything can be improved on.” He added, “The mission is going to improve because of the changes we are making internally.”
Homan revealed that Trump himself had “recognized that certain improvements could and should be made” and tasked him with strengthening discipline and refocusing the mission on what the administration originally promised, to go after the “worst of the worst.”
That is by targeting “public safety” and “national security” threats, not street-level roundups of anyone who looks deportable, Homan said. “We will conduct targeted enforcement operations,” he added. “Targeted, strategic… with a prioritization on public safety threats.”
The pivot is a striking repudiation of Noem and Bovino’s scattershot tactics that have thus far defined Metro Surge, and that state officials have repeatedly blasted as dangerous, destabilizing, and ineffective.
Homan’s comments suggest Trump has accepted those criticisms and is repositioning ICE around a narrower, more defensible strategy after weeks of catastrophic headlines.
Homan also confirmed reports that he has already met Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, and multiple sheriffs—an approach that sharply contrasts with Noem’s combative posture. He said he and local officials disagreed on plenty but agreed on “paramount” public safety and on not releasing “public safety risks back into the community.”
Homan praised Minnesota’s Department of Corrections for honoring ICE detainers and said Ellison had clarified that county jails may inform ICE of release dates—steps Homan framed as “big wins” that would allow ICE to reduce its manpower footprint.
He also noted he has ordered ICE and CBP to begin preparing a “drawdown plan” once targeted arrests, not broad sweeps, become the norm, in another quiet rebuke of the mass-presence strategy of Noem and Bovino.
While he defended frontline officers and denounced what he described as dangerous anti-ICE rhetoric and violent protests, Homan again implicitly criticized the operation’s conduct before his arrival. “If they don’t [perform professionally], they will be dealt with like any field agency,” he warned.
Homan ended by stressing that “President Trump wants this fixed, and I’m going to fix it.”
The Daily Beast has contacted DHS and the White House for comment.
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