On Tuesday, February 10, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said he expects the Trump administration’s large-scale immigration operation in Minneapolis to conclude within the next few days. He said he spoke that morning with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and the previous day with Tom Homan, the White House’s border policy chief. Walz stressed that he operates on a “trust—but verify” principle, but said his expectation is that this is a matter of days, not weeks or months of “this occupation.”
Protests against the presence of federal immigration agencies in Minneapolis erupted last month after federal officers fatally shot two U.S. citizens—Rene Good and Alex Pretti. After each of these incidents, Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called on officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol to leave the city.
После гибели Претти президент Трамп направил в штат Хомана и отстранил от координации операций командующего Пограничным патрулем по особым поручениям Грега Бовино, ранее курировавшего аналогичные действия в Лос-Анджелесе, Чикаго и Шарлотте в Северной Каролине.
On Tuesday, Walz repeatedly described the presence of federal forces in Minnesota as an “occupation” and characterized it as a “campaign of retribution” by Trump. He also said he expects federal authorities to cooperate in investigations into the deaths of Good and Pretti. Earlier, federal investigative bodies, including the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, initially obstructed the involvement of local and state investigators in those inquiries.
Last week, Homan said that 700 Border Patrol agents and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers would be withdrawn from Minnesota, while about 2,000 federal immigration officers would remain in the state. “We are not abandoning the president’s mission to carry out a large-scale deportation operation. If we find you and you are in the country illegally, we will deport you,” he said at the time.
Trump campaigned on a promise to crack down on illegal immigration, and his administration says it is primarily targeting undocumented migrants with violent criminal records. However, according to a new NBC News poll, 60 percent of respondents either “strongly” or “somewhat” disapprove of how the president is handling border security and immigration during his second term.