Minnesota shakeup shifts leadership not strategy, White House says, pushing back on ‘retreat’ claim

The White House is rejecting claims the Trump administration "backed down" on Minnesota’s immigration crackdown, insisting the mission hasn’t changed even as leadership on the ground has.

"Tom Homan is a patriot with decades of experience effectively protecting American communities and deporting criminal illegal aliens," White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told Fox News Digital.

"Any left-wing agitator or criminal illegal alien who thinks Tom’s presence is a victory for their cause is sadly mistaken," Jackson continued. "The Trump Administration will never waver in standing up for law and order and protecting the American people." 

A White House official who spoke to Fox News Digital said that any claims the Trump administration is "backing down" in the Gopher State are incorrect. 

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The administration "has not wavered" from its mission to arrest and deport illegal immigrants, according to the official, who said that President Donald Trump wants to prevent more violence and is looking to work with state and local leaders to remove public safety threats.

The official said Homan has successfully partnered with Democrats before — and those collaborations ended with "criminal illegal aliens" arrested and deported — arguing Minnesota should show demonstrators that rioting and attacking law enforcement won’t stop enforcement, as agitators are being arrested and charged.

Trump shook up federal immigration personnel Monday, replacing Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino with Homan in the high-stakes Minneapolis fraud and immigration crackdown following two fatal shootings and subsequent chaotic protests in the Twin Cities. 

The leadership switch is fueling a new political fight: whether the move discourages unrest or teaches activists nationwide that escalating pressure is the fastest way to push ICE out of their communities.

Trump said Monday he spoke with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz after Saturday’s fatal shooting of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by a Border Patrol agent — an incident that drew sharp Democratic condemnation and growing Republican calls for a deeper investigation. 

Trump said Walz was "very respectfully" open to deporting "any and all Criminals that they have in their possession." In the wake of the call, Bovino was set to leave the state as border czar Tom Homan took over on the ground in Minneapolis. 

Laura Ries, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, said the political takeaway for left-wing organizers after the federal shake-up is likely straightforward: push hard enough and federal officials will back off.

"That’s certainly how the left will interpret it, to keep up morale on their side and to keep their riots and obstruction going," Ries told Fox News Digital in a phone interview Tuesday when asked if the shake-up emboldens agitators. 

Ries said activists "are not going to stop," predicting Minnesota’s events will be used as a rallying cry elsewhere — noting the high-stakes midterm season is heating up. 

"Their organizers will point to Minnesota and say, ‘Look, we got Bovino kicked out… we’re getting (the) administration to back down.’"

Homan, however, is a force to be reckoned with, Ries said, while adding that agitators are likely underestimating Trump's no-nonsense border czar while celebrating some federal law enforcement exiting the state. 

"Socialists lie, so they will lie to their people on the ground," she said in summary of the situation in Minneapolis as agitators celebrate some law enforcement leaving the state. 

"Tom Homan, while he started in Border Patrol and INS back in the early 80s, he is more about ICE and interior enforcement," she said. "The left will cheer. They made Bovino their boogeyman for now, they'll find another, and so they will declare victory on that battle, but their war will continue." 

Former President Barack Obama worked with Homan and even awarded him the Presidential Rank Award for Distinguished Service for his leadership in managing Immigration and Custom Enforcement operations back in 2015, when he served as ICE's executive associate director of enforcement and removal operations. 

Trump added during an appearance on Fox News Tuesday that the shake-up is not a "pull back."

"I don't think it's a pullback. It's a little bit of a change," he said. "You know, Bovino is very good, but he's a pretty out there kind of a guy. And in some cases that's good, maybe it wasn't good here." 

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Republican Kentucky Rep. Andy Barr, who is running for the Senate, amplified the administration's law-and-order policies in a comment to Fox Digital, while simultaneously underscoring that the Biden administration ushered in an immigration crisis with lax policies that landed the Trump administration on the frontlines of correcting the rampant issue. 

"Democrats would rather shutdown DHS than shutdown the border and deport millions of illegals they let in under Joe Biden," Rep. Andy Barr said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "But our country is blessed because President Trump is Law and Order President. Democrats tried to Defund the Police in 2020 and this is just as dangerous and stupid. I’ll continue backing our law enforcement and the largest deportation operation in American history."

Walz’s office pointed Fox News Digital to an op-ed he published in The Wall Street Journal Monday when asked what he agreed to in his call with Trump and whether he would comply with the White House’s demands to turn over illegal immigrants in Minnesota.

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"Everyone wants to see our immigration laws enforced. That isn’t what is happening in Minnesota. In recent weeks, masked agents have abducted children. They have separated children from their parents," Walz wrote in the op-ed. "They have racially profiled off-duty police officers. They have aggressively pulled people over and demanded to see their papers. They have broken into the homes of elderly citizens without warrants to drag them outside in freezing temperatures."

Trump also spoke with Minnesota Mayor Jacob Frey Monday, who relayed after the call that the city "will continue to cooperate with state and federal law enforcement on real criminal investigations — but we will not participate in unconstitutional arrests of our neighbors or enforce federal immigration law."

Morgan Murphy, a national security expert and former Trump White House official who is running for U.S. Senate in Alabama, said Trump’s Minnesota shake-up reflects negotiation, not surrender.

"President Trump did what he does best and negotiated, bringing the mayor of Minneapolis and Governor Walz to the table," Murphy said. "If they agree to comply with ICE detainers, removing criminal aliens from the streets of Minnesota it will be the art of the deal with the situation being de-escalated and still arresting and deporting criminal aliens."

Murphy added that the episode could serve as a warning — but to Democrats, not activists.

"Though this may have seemed chaotic, it ultimately achieved the goal of getting blue states to bend the knee and follow federal laws on immigration," Murphy said. "Other Democrat governors and mayors should take note and stop releasing criminals into their communities when they shouldn’t even be in our country."

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Homan has publicly suggested that ICE could pull back from direct action in the community if local leaders allow federal agents access to jails to take custody of removable immigrants in a controlled setting, a proposal that effectively turns Minnesota into a test case for whether sanctuary-style resistance can be traded for cooperation on detainers.

Ries, however, questioned whether that kind of détente is sustainable with Minnesota’s Democratic leadership, saying she is "not optimistic" about long-term cooperation from Walz and Frey — who have been vocal critics of the administration since inauguration day. 

"I think he’s trying to make a deal for now with Walz and with Frey," Ries said, pointing to signs that local police have at times moved to enforce order during protests. "But that’s one night, so we’ll see how much that holds."