Trump’s border czar says administration will immediately withdraw 700 immigration enforcement officers from Minnesota – live | Trump administration
Homan says administration is removing 700 immigration enforcement agents
Speaking to reporters today, Tom Homan said the Trump administration would remove 700 immigration enforcement agents.. He said this was due to increased coordination between county jails and federal officials.
“This frees up more agents to arrest or deport criminal aliens, more agents dealing with criminal aliens directly from prisons, means fewer agents on the street conducting criminal operations,” Homan said.
Notably, Homan did not confirm which sheriffs agreed to this increased coordination with federal immigration law enforcement.
As a reminder, the Minnesota Department of Corrections (DOC) already facilitates transfers of people who have served criminal sentences in state prisons, when federal agents are present to arrest them. But the DOC doesn’t manage county jails — where most immigrant encounters occur — and many sheriffs across the state choose not to work with ICE.
In Minneapolis, for example, Hennepin County does not notify federal immigration authorities when undocumented immigrants are booked or arrested, and it is prohibited under state law from honoring requests to detain a person after their release time so that immigration officials can take them into custody — known as ICE detainers.
Homan, however, said he was “not requiring that prisons hold people beyond their normal length of release for immigration purposes” while speaking to reporters today.
Key events
Jeremy Barr
The Washington Post laid off hundreds of employees on Wednesday, in what its former editor-in-chief said was “among the darkest days” in the paper’s history. Around a third of employees were affected.
Post staffers have been worried for weeks about rumors of budget cuts, which the publication has neither confirmed nor denied. “It’s a real bloodbath,” said one employee, not authorized to speak publicly.
During the meeting, editor-in-chief Matt Murray told employees that the Post was undergoing a “strategic reset” to better position the publication for the future, according to several employees on the call.
“Today, The Washington Post is taking a number of steps across the company to secure our future,” he said., according to an audio recording of the meeting.
Over the past week, Post employees have urged owner Jeff Bezos to stop — or at least mitigate — planned budget cuts, signing letters and sending personalized messages on social media that conveyed the importance of the journalism the Post produces.
But Bezos remained silent and did not respond to a series of letters sent by contributors representing the paper’s foreign, local and White House reporting teams.
On Monday, however, he was there in person to warmly welcome Pete Hegseth, the U.S. secretary of defense, during a visit to another of the companies he owns, his spaceflight startup Blue Origin in Florida.
Read Jeremy’s full report here:
Trump touts ‘extremely good’ relationship with Xi Jinping after ‘excellent’ phone call
Donald Trump praised his “extremely good” relations with China’s Xi Jinping, after an “excellent” phone call today.
“This was a long and in-depth call, during which many important topics were discussed,” Trump wrote in an article on Truth Social, before discussing several topics ranging from trade to his upcoming trip to China in April.
Trump also noted that the two discussed “increasing the soybean count to 20 million tons for the current season,” after China significantly reduced its purchases of that crop last year.
“The relationship with China, and my personal relationship with President Xi, is extremely good, and we both realize how important it is that it continues that way. I believe many positive results will be achieved over the next three years of my presidency,” Trump added.
Like my colleague Pjotr Sauer reports, Ukrainian and Russian negotiators have launched a second round of US-led peace talks in Abu Dhabi, aiming to end Ukraine’s nearly four-year-old war.
The two-day trilateral talks that begin Wednesday come after Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of exploiting last week’s U.S.-backed energy truce to stockpile weapons before launching a record number of ballistic missile attacks on Ukraine on Tuesday.
“Taking advantage of the coldest days of winter to terrorize the population is more important for Russia than resorting to diplomacy,” Zelensky wrote after the attacks, urging Western governments to denounce the strikes.
Donald Trump said later Tuesday that Vladimir Putin had “kept his word” on the ceasefire, adding that the pause in Russian attacks was only supposed to last until Sunday.
Steve, the American special envoy Witkoff And Jared KushnerTrump’s son-in-law, traveled to Abu Dhabi for the negotiations.
Regarding the protests, Homan noted that 158 people were arrested for “assaulting, obstructing or interfering” with immigration officials in Minnesota.
Homan said he had “frank and honest discussions” with the state’s governor. Tim Walz; The mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey; and the State Attorney General, Keith Ellisonwhile specifying that they “do not agree on everything”.
He urged them to “ask for calm in the community and end the resistance, the obstacles, the interference” from federal law enforcement.
As I noted earlier, Homan was deployed to Minneapolis by Donald Trump to replace a top Border Patrol official. Gregory Bovino. Backlash over Bovino’s handling of the Twin Cities’ immigration crackdown has spread across the country — with hundreds of protests in response to police officers’ use of deadly force.
Today, Homan attempted to dampen any speculation about his buyout. “I brought a different perspective to this subject. I’ve been doing this for a long time,” he said. “I’m not going to point the finger at anyone for their failure, because it was a tremendous operation. We took out a lot of public safety threats on the street.”
Homan added: “President Trump sent me here to help with de-escalation. We’re not straying from our mission… This is smart law enforcement. Smart law enforcement makes us safer.”
In another note from today’s news conference in Minneapolis, Homan said all Minnesota Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents will integrate with the ICE team on the ground to form “a unified chain of command.”
Remember that ICE and CBP are separate agencies that report to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Experts note that CBP officers have a different mission, particularly when carrying out their domestic immigration enforcement duties. They carry out, by definition, less targeted operations which are normally focused on profiling people who have crossed borders illegally. However, ICE generally focuses on specific people in a particular area.
Homan reiterated his threat that while people with criminal convictions are the target of the operation, any undocumented immigrant could be apprehended. “Just because you prioritize public safety threats doesn’t mean we’re forgetting everyone.” he said.
Homan says about 2,000 immigration agents remain in Minnesota
Tom Homan said that “around 2000” immigration agents remain in Minnesota following today’s most recent withdrawal announcement.
He added that the number of officers before the operation was between 100 and 150.
Homan expanded on his request regarding county jails. Namely, requiring local authorities to notify Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when an undocumented immigrant who has been stopped and arrested is released from jail. Homan said that would mean “the need to reduce the number of law enforcement officers to do this work in a safer environment”.
However, legal experts and immigrant rights advocates told the Guardian that if counties cooperate with ICE, it could erode trust between police and immigrant communities and lead to fewer people reporting crimes.
Homan says administration is removing 700 immigration enforcement agents
Speaking to reporters today, Tom Homan said the Trump administration would remove 700 immigration enforcement agents.. He said this was due to increased coordination between county jails and federal officials.
“This frees up more agents to arrest or deport criminal aliens, more agents dealing with criminal aliens directly from prisons, means fewer agents on the street conducting criminal operations,” Homan said.
Notably, Homan did not confirm which sheriffs agreed to this increased coordination with federal immigration law enforcement.
As a reminder, the Minnesota Department of Corrections (DOC) already facilitates transfers of people who have served criminal sentences in state prisons, when federal agents are present to arrest them. But the DOC doesn’t manage county jails — where most immigrant encounters occur — and many sheriffs across the state choose not to work with ICE.
In Minneapolis, for example, Hennepin County does not notify federal immigration authorities when undocumented immigrants are booked or arrested, and it is prohibited under state law from honoring requests to detain a person after their release time so that immigration agents can take them into custody — known as ICE detainers.
Homan, however, said he was “not requiring that prisons hold people beyond their normal length of release for immigration purposes” while speaking to reporters today.
