The Trump administration deployed border czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis Tuesday, the day after a lengthy meeting at the White House in which the president expressed frustration with the situation in Minnesota since Alex Pretti was fatally shot by Border Patrol.
President Donald Trump said Monday he would send Homan to replace Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, who has been the face of the operation in Minneapolis and previous ones in Los Angeles and Chicago.
Pretti’s sister issued a statement memorializing her brother and condemning “disgusting lies” she said had been told about him since his death on Saturday.
The day Pretti was shot, Bovino suggested he had wanted to “massacre” officers, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem said he was intent on stopping law enforcement and had “committed an act of domestic terrorism.” A Washington Post analysis of the incident’s footage found that agents secured a handgun from Pretti and had restrained him on the ground before he was shot multiple times. Local authorities have said he was carrying the weapon lawfully.
The White House in the last 24 hours has adopted a more measured tone in its response to the shooting. Trump showed his dissatisfaction with the situation in Minnesota during an extended meeting with Noem late on Monday, according to a personal familiar with the meeting who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private conversation.
Trump told reporters Tuesday he wants to see “a very honorable and honest investigation” into Pretti’s killing, adding: “I have to see it myself.”
Homan on Tuesday met with state officials in Minneapolis, including Gov. Tim Walz (D), whose office said the governor “reiterated Minnesota’s priorities,” including “impartial investigations into the Minneapolis shootings involving federal agents, a swift, significant reduction in the number of federal forces in Minnesota, and an end to the campaign of retribution against Minnesota.”
“The Governor and Homan agreed on the need for an ongoing dialogue and will continue working toward those goals, which the President also agreed to yesterday,” Walz’s office said in a statement on Tuesday. “The Governor tasked the Minnesota Department of Public Safety as the primary liaison to Homan to ensure these goals are met.”
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) said Monday night he had spoken to Trump and that some federal agents would begin leaving the area Tuesday.
Pretti’s sister, Micayla Pretti, in the statement shared by an Associated Press reporter late Monday, described her grief as “a pain no words can fully capture” and expressed a sense of exasperation. “When does this end? How many more innocent lives must be lost before we say enough?” she wrote. It was not immediately clear what falsehoods she was referring to.
Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, was the third person to be shot by federal immigration authorities in Minneapolis this month, and the second to be killed.
In a remarkable filing late Monday, Minnesota’s chief federal judge demanded that Todd M. Lyons, the acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, personally appear in court on Friday to explain what he said were repeated failures to comply with court orders amid ICE’s enforcement efforts in the state.
The order threatened possible contempt proceedings against Lyons and sets up another potential showdown between federal judges and Trump officials.
It was not clear Tuesday how Lyons would respond or whether Justice Department attorneys would seek to block the order in court.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) on Tuesday also said Lyons and other top federal immigration enforcement leaders should appear before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which he leads.
“Congress has a duty to oversee how billions in taxpayer dollars are being spent to secure the border, enforce the law, and protect the American people,” Paul wrote on X.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania) on Tuesday called on Trump to fire Noem, saying the DHS secretary is betraying the department’s core mission and “trashing” the president’s “border security legacy.”
When asked by reporters Tuesday if Noem would step down, Trump said no.
First lady Melania Trump called for unity in Minneapolis in a “Fox & Friends” interview Tuesday morning, saying: “I know that my husband, the president, had a great call yesterday with the governor and the mayor. And they are working together to make it peaceful and without riots. I’m against the violence. So please, if you protest, protest in peace. We need to unify in these times.”
“Nobody in the White House, including President Trump, wants to see people getting hurt or killed in America’s streets,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday. “It is President Trump’s hope and wish and demand for the resistance and chaos to end today.”
Isaac Arnsdorf, Dylan Wells and Maegan Vazquez contributed to this report.
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