Top federal law enforcement officials on Thursday promised to make “massive changes” in the way immigration cases are pursued.
The pledge comes as U.S. Border Czar Tom Homan admits ICE teams have made mistakes in Minneapolis.
From Minneapolis and Chicago the past few months there have been countless images of aggressive sweeps by immigration teams, some of which were brutally violent.
“We have standards of conduct,” Homan proclaimed Thursday in his first appearance since President Donald Trump sent him to Minneapolis, where Homan now says he’s going to fix things and do better.
The change in oversight for federal operations comes in the aftermath of two officers shooting and killing Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse.
Calls for investigations and changes still continue after Minneapolis woman Renee Good was killed earlier this month. The killings caused public rage and today elicited a promise to “regain law and order” from Trump’s top border officer.
“Nothing’s ever perfect. Anything can be improved on,” Homan said. “I don’t want to see anybody die, not officers, not members of the community and not the targets of our operations.”
Homan says they will return to “targeted” arrests of criminal immigrants, rather than roving sweeps by federal agents that have resulted in violent community encounters, deaths, and arrests of innocent Americans.
According to data in court records, immigration teams have been subjected to “96 court orders that ICE has violated in 74 cases. The extent of ICE’s noncompliance is almost certainly substantially understated…” says Minnesota’s chief federal judge Patrick Schlitz-citing data that mirrors allegations against ICE teams in Chicago.
Homan tonight has promised a force reduction because he says Minneapolis officials will now allow ICE into county jails to arrest criminal undocumented immigrants, something previously not done in the sanctuary state.
“We are not surrendering the president’s mission on immigration enforcement,” emphasized Homan. “Let’s make that clear. Prioritization of criminal aliens doesn’t mean we forget about everybody else. That’s just simply ridiculous.”
Minneapolis’ mayor tonight has doubts and hope.
“We need Operation Metro Surge to end,” said Mayor Jacob Frey referring to the name of the federal immigration search and arrest action underway in Minneapolis. “It is not about creating safety in Minneapolis. If the goal is to find an antidote to chaos, there would be a very straightforward answer, which is to end Operation Metro Surge. Remove the federal agents. We got to move forward.
.“Are we hopeful for progress? Are we hopeful that there will be a draw down in the course that we’re presently seeing in this invasion of Minneapolis? Absolutely, I’m hopeful. Do I expect conduct to immediately change? That is my expectation. That is what we are insisting upon. But again I’ll believe it when I see it,” he added.
The Minneapolis mayor, along with Gov. Tim Walz and Homan, are also waiting for something else: whether immigration enforcement will be overhauled by congressional Democrats as part of a national budget.
Trump announced Thursday that he believes a deal has been reached, one that involves a temporary budget for Homeland Security and ICE to keep the whole government running.
But it does appear there will be some ICE operational reforms as part of a funding plan for DHS.
