U.S. Border Czar Tom Homan speaks at the Tampa Convention Center on July 12, 2025. (Photo by Mitch Perry/Florida Phoenix)

WASHINGTON — U.S. border czar Tom Homan is expected in Minneapolis by Monday evening, President Donald Trump said, amid increasing criticism of the administration’s immigration enforcement methods following the second fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen by immigration officers in Minneapolis already this year.

The move was part of an apparent toning down of the administration’s rhetoric against the city as a growing number of members of Congress from both parties raised concerns about the Saturday shooting death of 37-year-old Alex Jeffrey Pretti by federal immigration agents.

Trump reported a notably civil call with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat with whom the president has often clashed, around midday Monday.

“It was a very good call, and we, actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength,” Trump said of the conversation. “The Governor, very respectfully, understood that, and I will be speaking to him in the near future. He was happy that Tom Homan was going to Minnesota, and so am I!”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during an afternoon briefing that Gregory Bovino, the U.S. Border Patrol commander-at-large, would “continue to lead” immigration agents across the country, but did not address whether he would be active in Minneapolis once Homan arrived. 

CNN reported Monday afternoon  Bovino and some of his agents were set to depart the city. 

The Atlantic reported late Monday that Bovino would be removed from his position of commander-at-large and return to his former job as chief of Border Patrol’s El Centro, California, sector ahead of an imminent retirement. The New York Times also reported Bovino was being reassigned.

Homan “has not been involved in that area, but knows and likes many of the people there,” Trump wrote on social media. “Tom is tough but fair, and will report directly to me.”

Leavitt repeated throughout a 20-minute White House press briefing the administration’s position that Democratic state and local officials were responsible for the situation in Minneapolis, but declined to endorse the harshest descriptions of Pretti that administration leaders, including top White House aide Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, have used.

Border czar

Early in his second administration, Trump tasked Homan with carrying out the president’s mass deportation campaign, which has faced significant pushback in Minneapolis.

Homan, who is expected to be in Minnesota by the evening, is the former ICE head of removal operations during the Obama administration and served as acting ICE director during the first Trump administration. 

Leavitt said Monday that Homan will be “the point person for cooperating with state and local authorities in corresponding with them, again, to achieve this level of cooperation to subdue the chaos on the streets of Minneapolis.”

Homan’s arrival comes while thousands of Minnesotans mourn and protest Saturday’s killing of Pretti, an intensive care nurse who appeared to be acting as a legal observer when Border Patrol agents tackled him to the ground, pinned him and shot him multiple times.

His was the second fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen by immigration officers in Minneapolis this year. Federal immigration officer Jonathan Ross killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, a mother and poet, Jan. 7. 

Multiple videos captured the killings of both Good and Pretti, further sparking outcry from the community. 

Investigation underway

Leavitt said an investigation into Pretti’s killing is underway with the FBI, Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations. Noem, who oversees HSI and CBP, labeled Pretti “a domestic terrorist,” the same term she applied to Good.

“The administration is reviewing everything with respect to the shooting, and we will let that investigation play out,” Leavitt said. 

Bovino said on CNN Sunday that the agents involved in the shooting of Pretti, are still on duty and while they will be taken off the streets of Minneapolis, they will still be allowed to conduct immigration enforcement.

The top Democrat on the House Committee on Homeland Security, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said in a statement Monday that those officers still being on duty is contrary to CBP’s use-of-force policy, which requires three days of paid leave after an agent uses deadly force either on duty or off.

“It defies commonsense – and is completely inexcusable – that the agent who killed Alex Pretti Saturday is already back in the field terrorizing our communities and believing – as Greg Bovino has so wrongly asserted – that he is the victim,” he said. “At a minimum, the agent should be on Administrative Leave.”

Congressional response

Saturday’s killing could have far-reaching consequences on Capitol Hill.

Several congressional Democrats over the weekend coalesced to oppose any funding for the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration enforcement, increasing the chances of a partial government shutdown at the end of the week. 

The shooting also appeared to prompt a handful of congressional Republicans to adjust their position on Trump’s year-long immigration crackdown. 

The chair of the Senate Committee on Homeland and Governmental Affairs, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, called Monday for the heads of ICE, CBP and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to testify for a hearing by Feb. 12.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Andrew Garbarino, a New York Republican, also called on the same officials to testify in front of his committee. 

Sen. John Curtis of Utah was the latest of a handful of Senate Republicans calling for a thorough investigation into the killing and for “those responsible—no matter their title—” to be held accountable.

“I disagree with Secretary Noem’s premature DHS response, which came before all the facts were known and weakened confidence,” he wrote on social media. “I will be working with a bipartisan group of senators to demand real oversight and transparency, including supporting calls from @RandPaul for leaders of these operations to testify, so trust can be restored and justice served.”

White House’s terms for Minnesota

For nearly two months, 3,000 federal immigration officers have descended on Minneapolis, dwarfing the city’s police force of roughly 600. The Trump administration deployed the officers for immigration enforcement after right-wing media influencers resurfaced instances of fraud in Minnesota’s social service programs. 

Leavitt said Monday the Trump administration would only end immigration operations if state and local leaders instructed police to cooperate closely with federal immigration officers.

Immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility, and states and localities are not required to assist.

Some localities and states have agreements that local police will notify federal immigration officers if a person they arrest is an immigrant without legal authorization. 

But some jurisdictions don’t participate because the practice can divert resources or can open law enforcement up to lawsuits for unlawfully detaining an individual for an immigration violation, unless there is a judicial warrant. 

Attorneys representing the state of Minnesota and city of Minneapolis argued to Judge Kate M. Menendez on Monday that the Trump administration was trying to bend the state to the federal government’s will, a violation of the Constitution’s 10th amendment. 

The suit, in the U.S. District Court in Minnesota, is attempting to block the ICE surge in the state. 

Trump, in his Monday social media post, blamed the massive protests in Minnesota on “Welfare Fraud that has taken place in Minnesota, and is at least partially responsible for the violent organized protests going on in the streets.” 

Green Bay residents protest the shooting of Alex Pretti | Photo by Andrew Kennard/Wisconsin Examiner

Green Bay protesters took to the streets Sunday afternoon in temperatures well below freezing to protest the killing of Alex Pretti, a graduate of Green Bay Preble High School who worked as an ICU nurse at a VA hospital in Minneapolis and was shot and killed Saturday by Border Patrol agents. As they crossed the Fox River, marchers formed a line longer than the Ray Nitschke Memorial Bridge, which crosses the Fox River. 

“The only people who can defend us is us,” Daniel Castillo, a member of the Green Bay Anti-War Committee, told the crowd. 

After he was shot by federal agents, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called Pretti a “domestic terrorist,” and Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino said Pretti, who was carrying a registered handgun when six Border Patrol agents tackled him, but did not unholster it, appeared eager to inflict “maximum damage” on assembled federal agents. Videos taken at the scene, showing Pretti holding a cellphone camera, not a gun, and trying to help a woman who was knocked to the ground by agents, as well as  what’s known about Pretti’s background, belie the Trump administration’s claims, the Minnesota Reformer reported.

In a statement, Pretti’s parents said they are “heartbroken but also very angry” and requested, “Please get the truth out about our son.” They said that “the sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting.”

“Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital,” the parents’ statement said in part. “Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately he will not be with us to see his impact. I do not throw around the hero term lightly. However his last thought and act was to protect a woman.”

Lori Blakeslee, communications director for the Green Bay Area Public School District, confirmed to the Wisconsin Examiner that Pretti graduated from Green Bay Preble High School in 2006. 

In an interview early Sunday afternoon, Travis Vanden Heuvel told the Examiner he and Pretti were in a choir program together, and that the two were friends during elementary and middle school. 

“I think he was standing up for what was right and just, and I’m saddened and angered by what happened and how it happened,” Vanden Heuvel said. 

Vanden Heuvel said when he learned about the shooting, not knowing who the victim was, the word he had been using to describe it was tragic. His old assistant choir director had reached out to let him know Pretti had been killed. 

“And tragic became devastating, not that this happening in America or in Minnesota didn’t already make it close to home,” Vanden Heuvel said. “I mean, I think we’ve been feeling it hit closer and closer to home.”

The Examiner previously reported on a march against ICE in downtown Green Bay almost a year ago, in the weeks that followed President Donald Trump’s inauguration. 

Castillo told the Examiner this is different from last year’s event.

“It was just the random activist that approached us and said, ‘Would you like to set up some sort of event that shows that immigrants are just people too?’” Castillo said. “…This is much different, and because people are angry… they’re just mad that a man was assassinated, extra-judicially murdered.” 

Jennifer Gonzalez, communications coordinator for the Green Bay Police Department, said that “today’s demonstration, like others held in our community, was calm and peaceful, with no significant incidents.”

Protests also occurred elsewhere in Wisconsin, including in Milwaukee, Madison, Oshkosh and Superior.

State Rep. Amaad Rivera-Wagner (D-Green Bay) said in a statement that “it is not surprising that Alex was a nurse with roots in Green Bay, a place where we believe in taking care of each other and respecting human dignity.”

“We must come together to demand accountability, because hate cannot win,” Rivera-Wagner said. 

In a statement Saturday, Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich said “another American citizen is dead as the result of the federal government’s occupation of an American city, and the victim, Alex Pretti, was a graduate of a Green Bay high school.” 

“Without knowing all the facts of the case, we can say with certainty that a full, transparent, and independent investigation must be conducted,” Genrich said. “I mourn his tragic death with his friends and family, and join the chorus of Americans who are rightfully demanding the federal government change course and enforce immigration law in keeping with local, state and federal laws and the U.S. Constitution.”