Trump Border Czar Says ICE Will Leave Minnesota if Protests Stop First
The state-sponsored violence in Minnesota will not stop until citizens desist from protesting it, according to Trump officials.Border czar Tom Homan revealed Wednesday that the administration’s strategy is not to comply with local demands—which have included calls from both politicians and residents for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection to leave Minnesota altogether—in order to quell the civil unrest. Instead, under the guise of closing the agencies’ bloody Minnesota chapter, Homan demanded that Minnesotans stop fighting back under their First Amendment rights so that the Trump administration could continue its mass deportation agenda unfettered by public opposition.“My goal, with the support of President [Donald] Trump, is to achieve a complete draw down and end this surge as soon as we can,” Homan said during a press conference in the state. “But that is largely contingent upon the end of the illegal and threatening activities against ICE and its federal partners that we’re seeing in the community.“We will not draw down on personnel providing security for our officers. I will not let our officers be put at risk,” Homan continued. “So we will not draw down on personnel providing security and responding to hostile incidents until we see a change in what’s happening with the lawlessness, with the impeding and interfering and assaulting ICE and border patrol officers.”Homan in Minnesota: "My goal, with the support of President Trump, is to achieve a complete draw down and end this surge as soon as we can. But that is largely contingent upon the end of the illegal and threatening activities against ICE and its federal partners that we're seeing… pic.twitter.com/UDHM0ld2eq— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 4, 2026Later in the presser, Homan declined to confirm that the agencies would not stop random citizenship checks and racial profiling during their operations.Federal agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis last month: ICU nurse Alex Pretti and award-winning poet Renee Nicole Good. Meanwhile, zero ICE agents have died during immigration enforcement operations since the agency was founded in 2003. Almost all protesters arrested and accused of assaulting ICE officers have seen their charges dropped.Pretti’s and Good’s deaths—and the Trump administration’s ensuing smear campaign to frame the duo as “domestic terrorists”—were not received well by the American public. Instead, protests ensued across the country, demanding an immediate end to ICE’s brutality. People of all stripes flooded town halls for Republicans and Democrats alike to vent their frustrations, booing lawmakers’ support for a recent Homeland Security funding package that provided ongoing support for ICE.