immigration crackdown

MINNEAPOLIS — The immigration crackdown in Minnesota that led to mass detentions, protests and two deaths is coming to an end, border policy advisor Tom Homan said Thursday.

Democratic Gov. Tim Walz said Tuesday that he expected Operation Metro Surge, which started in December, to end in “days, not weeks and months,” based on his conversations with senior Trump administration officials.

“As a result of our efforts here, Minnesota is now less of a sanctuary state for criminals,” Homan said at a news conference.

“I have proposed and President Trump has concurred, that this surge operation conclude,” he continued.

Federal authorities say the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement sweeps focused on the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area have led to the arrest of more than 4,000 people. While the Trump administration has called those arrested “dangerous criminal illegal aliens,” many people with no criminal records, including children and U.S. citizens, have also been detained.

“The surge is leaving Minneapolis safer,” Homan said. “I’ll say it again, it’s less of a sanctuary state for criminals.”

Homan announced last week that 700 federal officers would leave Minnesota immediately, but that still left more than 2,000 on Minnesota’s streets. Homan said Thursday that the drawdown began this week and will continue next week. He said he plans to stay in Minnesota to oversee the drawdown.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said he had a “positive meeting” with Homan on Monday and discussed the potential for a further drawdown of federal officers.

Homan took over the Minnesota operation in late January after the second fatal shooting by federal immigration agents and amid growing political backlash and questions about how the operation was being run.

“We’re very much in a trust but verify mode,” Walz said, adding that he expected to hear more from the administration “in the next day or so” about the future of what he said has been an “occupation” and a “retribution campaign” against the state.

Walz said he had no reason not to believe Homan’s statement last week that 700 federal officers would leave Minnesota immediately, but the governor added that that still left 2,300 on Minnesota’s streets. Homan at the time cited an “increase in unprecedented collaboration” resulting in the need for fewer federal officers in Minnesota, including help from jails that hold deportable inmates.

Karnowski writes for the Associated Press.

MINNEAPOLIS — Immigration officers with guns drawn arrested activists who were trailing their vehicles on Tuesday in Minneapolis, a sign that tensions have not eased since the departure last week of a high-profile commander.

At least one person who had an anti-ICE message on their clothing was handcuffed while face down on the ground. An Associated Press photographer witnessed the arrests.

Federal agents in the Twin Cities lately have been conducting more targeted immigration arrests at homes and neighborhoods, rather than staging in parking lots. The convoys have been harder to find and less aggressive. Alerts in activist group chats have been more about sightings than immigration-related detainments.

Several cars followed officers through south Minneapolis after there were reports of them knocking at homes. Officers stopped their vehicles and ordered activists out of a car at gunpoint. Agents told reporters at the scene to stay back and threatened to use pepper spray.

There was no immediate response to a request for comment from the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

A federal judge last month put limits on how officers treat motorists who are following them but not obstructing their operations. Safely following agents “at an appropriate distance does not, by itself, create reasonable suspicion to justify a vehicle stop,” the judge said. An appeals court, however, set the order aside.

Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino, who was leading an immigration crackdown in Minneapolis and other big U.S. cities, left town last week, shortly after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, the second local killing of a U.S. citizen in January.

Trump administration border czar Tom Homan was dispatched to Minnesota instead. He warned that protesters could face consequences if they interfere with officers.

Grand jury seeks communications, records

Meanwhile, Tuesday was the deadline for Minneapolis to produce information for a federal grand jury. It’s part of a U.S. Justice Department request for records of any effort to stifle the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Officials have denounced it as a bullying tactic.

“We have done nothing wrong and have nothing to hide, but when the federal government weaponizes the criminal justice system against political opponents, it’s important to stand up and fight back,” said Ally Peters, spokesperson for Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat.

She said the city was complying, but she didn’t elaborate. Other state and local offices run by Democrats were given subpoenas, though it’s not known whether they had the same deadline. People familiar with the matter have told the AP that the subpoenas are related to an investigation into whether Minnesota officials obstructed enforcement through public statements.

No bond for man in Omar incident

Elsewhere, a man charged with squirting apple cider vinegar on Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar will remain in jail. U.S. Magistrate Judge David Schultz granted a federal prosecutor’s request to deny bond to Anthony Kazmierczak.

“We simply cannot have protesters and people — whatever side of the aisle they’re on — running up to representatives who are conducting official business, and holding town halls, and assaulting them,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Bejar said Tuesday.

Defense attorney John Fossum said the vinegar posed a low risk to Omar. He said Kazmierczak’s health problems weren’t being properly addressed in jail and that his release would be appropriate.

Murphy, Raza and Karnowski write for the Associated Press. Raza reported from Sioux Falls, S.D. AP reporters Ed White in Detroit and Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.

Luis Martinez was on his way to work on a frigid Minneapolis morning when federal agents suddenly boxed him in, forcing the SUV he was driving to a dead stop in the middle of the street.

Masked agents rapped on the window, demanding Martinez produce his ID. Then one held his cellphone inches from Martinez’s face and scanned his features, capturing the shape of his eyes, the curves of his lips, the exact quadrants of his cheeks.

All the while, the agent kept asking: Are you a U.S. citizen?

The encounter in a Minneapolis suburb this week captures the tactics on display in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota, which it describes as the largest of its kind and one that has drawn national scrutiny after federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens this month.

Across Minnesota and other states where the Department of Homeland Security has surged personnel, officials say enforcement efforts are targeted and focused on serious offenders. But photographs, videos and internal documents paint a different picture, showing agents leaning heavily on biometric surveillance and vast, interconnected databases — highlighting how a sprawling digital surveillance apparatus has become central to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Civil liberties experts warn the expanding use of those systems risks sweeping up citizens and noncitizens alike, often with little transparency or meaningful oversight.

Over the past year, Homeland Security and other federal agencies have dramatically expanded their ability to collect, share and analyze people’s personal data, thanks to a web of agreements with local, state, federal and international agencies, plus contracts with technology companies and data brokers. The databases include immigration and travel records, facial images and information drawn from vehicle databases.

In Martinez’s case, the face scan didn’t find a match and it wasn’t until he produced his U.S. passport, which he said he carried for fear of such an encounter, that federal agents let him go.

“I had been telling people that here in Minnesota it’s like a paradise for everybody, all the cultures are free here,” he said. “But now people are running out of the state because of everything that is happening. It’s terrifying. It’s not safe anymore.”

Together with other government surveillance data and systems, federal authorities can now monitor American cities at a scale that would have been difficult to imagine just a few years ago, advocates say. Agents can identify people on the street through facial recognition, trace their movements through license-plate readers and, in some cases, use commercially available phone-location data to reconstruct daily routines and associations.

When asked by the Associated Press about its expanding use of surveillance tools, the Department of Homeland Security said it would not disclose law enforcement sensitive methods.

“Employing various forms of technology in support of investigations and law enforcement activities aids in the arrest of criminal gang members, child sex offenders, murderers, drug dealers, identity thieves and more, all while respecting civil liberties and privacy interests,” it said.

Dan Herman, a former Customs and Border Protection senior advisor in the Biden administration who now works at the Center for American Progress, said the government’s access to facial recognition, other personal data and surveillance systems poses a threat to people’s privacy rights and civil liberties without adequate checks.

“They have access to a tremendous amount of trade, travel, immigration and screening data. That’s a significant and valuable national security asset, but there’s a concern about the potential for abuse,” Herman said. “Everyone should be very concerned about the potential that this data could be weaponized for improper purposes.”

Facial recognition

On Wednesday, Homeland Security disclosed online that it has been using a facial recognition app, Mobile Fortify, that it said uses “trusted source photos” to compare scans of people’s faces that agents take to verify their identity. The app, which Customs and Border Protection said is made by the vendor NEC, uses facial comparison or fingerprint-matching systems.

The app was in operation for CBP and ICE before the immigration crackdown in the Los Angeles area in June, when website 404Media first reported its existence.

In interactions observed by reporters and videos posted online, federal agents are rarely seen asking for consent before holding their cellphones to people’s faces, and in some clips they continue scanning even after someone objects.

In two instances seen by an AP journalist near Columbia Heights, Minn., where immigration officials recently detained a 5-year-old boy and his father, masked agents held their phones a foot away from people’s faces to capture their biometric details.

The technology resembles facial recognition systems used at airports, but unlike airport screenings, where travelers are typically notified and can sometimes opt out, Martinez said he was given no choice.

According to a lawsuit filed against the department by the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago this month, Homeland Security has used Mobile Fortify in the field more than 100,000 times. The Department of Homeland Security told AP that Mobile Fortify supports “accurate identity and immigration-status verification during enforcement operations. It operates with a deliberately high-matching threshold,” and uses only some immigration data.

Without federal guidelines for the use of facial recognition tools, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights warned in a September 2024 report their deployment raises concerns about accuracy, oversight, transparency, discrimination and access to justice.

Body-camera footage

Last year, the Trump administration scaled back a program to give Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials body cameras, but administration officials said some agents tied to the fatal shooting of Minneapolis ICU nurse Alex Pretti were wearing them and that footage is now being reviewed.

Gregory Bovino, who was the administration’s top Border Patrol official charged with the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis until Monday, began wearing a bodycam in response to a judge’s order late last year.

Body-camera video could help clarify events surrounding federal agents’ killing of Pretti, who was filming immigration agents with his cellphone when they shot him in the back.

Administration officials shifted their tone after independent video footage emerged raising serious questions about some Trump officials’ accusations that Pretti intended to harm agents.

Emerging technologies

Homeland Security and affiliated agencies are piloting and deploying more than 100 artificial intelligence systems, including some used in law enforcement activities, according to the department’s disclosure Wednesday.

Congress last year authorized U.S. Customs and Border Protection to get more than $2.7 billion to build out border surveillance systems and add in AI and other emerging technologies.

In recent weeks, Homeland Security requested more information from private industry on how technology companies and data providers can support their investigations and help identify people.

Meanwhile, longtime government contractor Palantir was paid $30 million to extend a contract to build a system designed to locate people flagged for deportation. On Wednesday, the Trump administration disclosed it’s using Palantir’s AI models to sift through immigration enforcement tips submitted to its tip line.

Homeland Security has also been exploring partnerships with license-plate reader companies like Flock Safety to expand their tracking capabilities.

Rachel Levinson-Waldman, who directs the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program, said more funding for government surveillance tools changes the landscape.

“We are developing these technologies for immigrant enforcement,” she said. “Are we also going to expand it or wield it against U.S. citizens who are engaging in entirely lawful or protest activity?”

Burke and Tau write for the Associated Press. AP freelance photojournalist Adam Gray contributed to this report from Minneapolis.

Bruce Springsteen released a new protest song Wednesday condemning “King Trump” and the violence perpetrated by his “federal thugs” — referring to immigration officers — in Minnesota.

“I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis,” Springsteen wrote on his social media platforms, sharing his new song, “Streets of Minneapolis.” “It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.”

Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was shot multiple times and killed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer during an immigration raid on Jan. 7. Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse at a VA hospital who had protested President Trump’s immigration crackdown and Good’s killing, was shot and killed by ICE agents on Jan. 24.

Both Minnesotans are memorialized by name in Springsteen’s new rock song, which describes the immigration crackdowns and the protests by those who live there. His scathing lyrics also denounce Trump advisor Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for their statements following the killings, which were contradicted by eyewitness accounts and video.

“Their claim was self-defense, sir / Just don’t believe your eyes,” Springsteen sings with his familiar rasp. “It’s our blood and bones / And these whistles and phones / Against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies.”

Both Miller and Noem justified the shootings in the immediate aftermath. Miller called Pretti “a would-be assassin,” and Noem accused Good of committing “an act of domestic terrorism.” Videos later surfaced contradicting their statements.

Springsteen, who has long been an outspoken critic of President Trump, also calls out immigration officials for their racism and for claiming “they’re here to uphold the law” yet “trample on our rights” in his new song.

In a statement to the New York Times, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said that “the Trump administration is focused on encouraging state and local Democrats to work with federal law enforcement officers on removing dangerous criminal illegal aliens from their communities — not random songs with irrelevant opinions and inaccurate information.”

Multiple celebrities, including Olivia Rodrigo, Pedro Pascal, Billie Eilish and Hannah Einbinder, have also spoken out against ICE and the immigration crackdowns in Minneapolis.

MINNEAPOLIS — U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar said Thursday she is running for governor of Minnesota, promising to take on President Trump while unifying a state that has endured a series of challenges even before the federal government’s immigration crackdown.

Klobuchar’s decision gives Democrats a high-profile candidate and proven statewide winner as their party tries to hold on to the office occupied by Gov. Tim Walz. The 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee, Walz abandoned his campaign for a third term this month amid criticism over mismanagement of taxpayer funding for child-care programs.

“Minnesota, we’ve been through a lot,” Klobuchar said in a video announcement. “These times call for leaders who can stand up and not be rubber stamps of this administration — but who are also willing to find common ground and fix things in our state.”

Klobuchar cited Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota, federal officers killing two Minnesotans, the assassination of a state legislative leader and a school shooting that killed multiple children — all within the last year. She avoided direct mention of ongoing fraud investigations into the child-care programs that Trump has made a political cudgel.

“I believe we must stand up for what’s right and fix what’s wrong,” Klobuchar said.

Klobuchar becomes the fourth sitting senator to announce plans to run for governor in 2026. The other races are in Alabama, Colorado and Tennessee.

Multiple Minnesota Republicans are campaigning in what could become a marquee contest among 36 governorships on the ballot in November. Among them are MyPillow founder and Chief Executive Mike Lindell, a 2020 election denier who is close to Trump; state House Speaker Lisa Demuth; Dr. Scott Jensen, a former state senator who was the party’s 2022 gubernatorial candidate; and state Rep. Kristin Robbins.

Immigration and fraud will be at issue

The Minnesota contest is likely to test Trump and his fellow Republicans’ uncompromising law-and-order approach and mass deportation program against Democrats’ criticisms of his administration’s tactics.

Federal agents have detained children and adults who are U.S. citizens, entered homes without warrants and engaged protesters in violent exchanges. Renee Good was shot three times and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in early January. On Saturday, federal officers fatally shot intensive care unit nurse Alex Pretti during an encounter.

Many Democrats on Capitol Hill, in turn, have voted against spending bills that fund Trump’s Department of Homeland Security. A standoff over the funding could lead to a partial government shutdown.

Trump and other Republicans also will try to saddle Klobuchar — or any other Democrat — with questions about the federal investigation into Minnesota’s child-care programs and its Somali community. Trump also has made repeated assertions of widespread fraud in state government, and his administration is conducting multiple investigations of state officials, including Walz. The Democrat has maintained that Walz’s administration has investigated, reduced and prosecuted fraud.

Demuth was quick to release a new video and a webpage that illustrate what’s likely to be another main line of her campaign: that Klobuchar cannot be trusted to end the fraud in public programs or curb the growth of government. “Minnesotans only need to look at her record to know that she simply cannot deliver the change that our state needs, and would be nothing more than a third term of Tim Walz,” Demuth said in a statement.

Klobuchar has won across Minnesota

Now in her fourth Senate term, Klobuchar is a former local prosecutor and onetime presidential candidate who positions herself as a moderate and has demonstrated the ability to win across Minnesota.

She won her 2024 reelection bid by nearly 16 percentage points and received 135,000 more votes than Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. Harris outpaced Trump by fewer than 5 percentage points.

Klobuchar gained attention during Trump’s first term for her questioning of his judicial nominees, including now-Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. At his acrimonious confirmation hearings, she asked Kavanaugh, who had been accused of sexual assault as a teenager, whether he ever had so much to drink that he didn’t remember what happened. Kavanaugh retorted, “Have you?”

The senator, who had talked publicly of her father’s alcoholism, continued her questioning. Kavanaugh, who was confirmed by a single vote, later apologized to Klobuchar. Kavanaugh has denied that the alleged assault occurred.

After Trump’s first presidency, Klobuchar was among the most outspoken lawmakers during bipartisan congressional inquiries of the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol during certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. As Senate Rules Committee chair, she pressed Capitol Police, administration officials and others for details of what authorities knew beforehand and how rioters breached the Capitol.

“It’s our duty to have immediate responses to what happened,” she said after helping write a report focused not on Trump’s role but on better security protocols for the seat of Congress.

2020 presidential bid

Klobuchar sought the presidential nomination in 2020, running as a moderate in the same political lane as Biden. She launched her campaign standing outside in a Minnesota snowstorm to promote her “grit” and Midwestern sensibilities that have anchored her political identity.

As a candidate, Klobuchar faced stories of disgruntled Senate staffers who described her as a difficult boss but also distinguished herself on crowded debate stages as a determined pragmatist. She outlasted several better-funded candidates and ran ahead of Biden in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. But Biden, then a former vice president, trounced her and others in the South Carolina primaries, prompting her to drop out and join others in closing ranks behind him.

After Biden’s victory, Klobuchar would have been well positioned for a Cabinet post, perhaps even attorney general. But the Senate’s 50-50 split made it untenable for Biden to create any opening for Republicans to regain control of the chamber.

Klobuchar announced in 2021 that she had been treated for breast cancer and in 2024 announced that she was cancer-free but undergoing another round of radiation.

Barrow and Karnowski write for the Associated Press. Barrow reported from Atlanta. AP writer Maya Sweedler in Washington contributed to this report.

A third round of “No Kings” protests is coming this spring, with organizers saying they are planning their largest demonstrations yet across the United States to oppose what they describe as authoritarianism under President Trump.

Previous rallies have drawn millions of people, and organizers said they expect even greater numbers on March 28 in the wake of Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, where violent clashes have led to the death of two people.

“We expect this to be the largest protest in American history,” Ezra Levin, co-executive director of the nonprofit Indivisible, told The Associated Press ahead of Wednesday’s announcement. He predicted that as many as 9 million people will turn out.

“No Kings” protests, which are organized by a constellation of groups around the country, have been a focal point for outrage over Trump’s attempts to consolidate and expand his power.

“This is in large part a response to a combination of the heinous attacks on our democracy and communities coming from the regime, and a sense that nobody’s coming to save us,” Levin said.

Last year, Trump said he felt attendees were “not representative of the people of our country,” and he insisted that “I’m not a king.”

‘No Kings’ shifts focus after Minneapolis deaths

The latest round of protests had been in the works before the crackdown in Minneapolis. However, the killing of two people by federal agents in recent weeks has refocused plans.

Levin said they want to show “support for Minnesota and immigrant communities all over” and oppose “the secret police force that is murdering Americans and infringing on their basic constitutional rights.”

“And what we know is, the only way to defend those rights is to exercise them, and you do that in nonviolent but forceful ways, and that’s what I expect to see in ‘No Kings’ three,” Levin said.

Trump has broadly defended his aggressive deportation campaign and blamed local officials for refusing to cooperate. However, he’s more recently signaled a shift in response to bipartisan concern over the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday.

Previous ‘No Kings’ protests have drawn millions across the U.S.

In June, the first “No Kings” rallies were organized in nearly 2,000 locations nationwide, including cities, towns and community spaces. Those protests followed unrest over federal immigration raids and Trump’s deployment of the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles, where tensions escalated with protesters blocking a freeway and setting vehicles on fire.

They were organized also in large part to protest a military parade in the nation’s capital that marked the Army’s 250th anniversary and coincided with Trump’s birthday. “No Kings” organizers at the time called the parade a “coronation” that was symbolic of what they characterized as Trump’s growing authoritarian overreach.

In response, some conservative politicians condemned the protests as “Hate America” rallies.

During a second round of protests in October, organizers said demonstrations were held in about 2,700 cities and towns across the country. At the time, Levin pointed to Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown, his unprecedented promises to use federal power to influence midterm elections, restrictions on press freedom and retribution against political opponents, steps he said cumulatively represented a direct threat to constitutionally protected rights.

On social media, both Trump and the official White House account mocked the protests, posting computer-generated images of the president wearing a crown.

The big protest days are headline-grabbing moments, but Levin said groups like his are determined to keep up steady trainings and intermediate-level organizing in hopes of growing sustainable resistance to the Trump administration’s actions.

“This isn’t about Democrats versus Republicans. This is about do we have a democracy at all, and what are we going to tell our kids and our grandkids about what we did in this moment?” Levin said. “I think that demands the kind of persistent engagement. ”

Kinnard writes for the Associated Press.

ORLANDO, Fla. — President Trump’s crackdown on immigration contributed to a year-to-year drop in the nation’s growth rate as the U.S. population reached nealry 342 million people in 2025, according to population estimates released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The 0.5% growth rate for 2025 was a sharp drop from 2024’s almost 1% growth rate, which was the highest since 2001 and was fueled by immigration. The 2024 estimates put the U.S. population at 340 million people.

Immigration increased by 1.3 million people last year, compared with 2024’s increase of 2.8 million people. The census report did not distinguish between legal and illegal immigration.

In the past 125 years, the lowest growth rate was in 2021, during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, when the U.S. population grew by just 0.16%, or 522,000 people, and immigration increased by just 376,000 people because of travel restrictions into the U.S. Before that, the lowest growth rate was just under 0.5% in 1919 at the height of the Spanish flu.

Tuesday’s data release comes as researchers have been trying to determine the effects of the second Trump administration’s immigration crackdown after the Republican president returned to the White House in January 2025. Trump made the surge of migrants at the southern border a central issue in his winning 2024 presidential campaign.

The numbers made public Tuesday reflect change from July 2024 to July 2025, covering the end of President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration and the first half of Trump’s first year back in office.

The figures capture a period that reflects the beginning of enforcement surges in Los Angeles and Portland, Ore., but do not capture the impact on immigration after the Trump administration’s crackdowns began in Chicago; New Orleans; Memphis, Tenn.; and Minneapolis, Minn..

The 2025 numbers were a jarring divergence from 2024, when net international migration accounted for 84% of the nation’s 3.3 million-person increase from the year before. The jump in immigration two years ago was partly because of a new method of counting that added people who were admitted for humanitarian reasons.

“They do reflect recent trends we have seen in out-migration, where the numbers of people coming in is down and the numbers going out is up,” Eric Jensen, a senior research scientist at the Census Bureau, said last week.

Unlike the once-a-decade census, which determines how many congressional seats and Electoral College votes each state gets, as well as the distribution of $2.8 trillion in annual government funding, the population estimates are calculated from government records and internal Census Bureau data.

The release of the 2025 population estimates was delayed by the federal government shutdown last fall and comes at a challenging time for the Census Bureau and other U.S. statistical agencies. The bureau, which is the largest statistical agency in the U.S., lost about 15% of its workforce last year due to buyouts and layoffs that were part of cost-cutting efforts by the White House and its Department of Government Efficiency.

Other recent actions by the Trump administration, such as the firing of Erika McEntarfer as Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner, have raised concerns about political meddling at U.S. statistical agencies. But Brookings demographer William Frey said the bureau’s staffers appear to have been “doing this work as usual without interference.”

“So I have no reason to doubt the numbers that come out,” Frey said.

Schneider writes for the Associated Press.

As federal immigration tactics face mounting legal and political scrutiny after a U.S. Border Patrol agent fatally shot a Minneapolis man over the weekend, Donald Trump announced Monday he was dispatching his border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota.

Until now, Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino has overseen the federal government’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota. But as the Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security faces widespread criticism for its aggressive tactics since it launched Operation Metro Surge in December, Trump signaled Monday that he could be shifting strategy as he deploys Homan to the region.

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

Trump’s deployment of Homan comes as a federal judge hears arguments Monday on whether to temporarily halt the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement in Minnesota. Meanwhile, Democratic senators plan to oppose a funding bill for DHS, raising the possibility of a partial government shutdown, and a small but growing number of Republicans have joined Democratic calls for a thorough investigation into the killing of Alex Pretti

The Department of Homeland Security said Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse, approached federal officers on the street Saturday morning with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun and “violently resisted” when officers tried to disarm him. But cellphone videos recorded by eye witnesses contradict that account.

According to videos taken on the scene, Pretti was holding a phone, not a handgun, when he stepped in front of a federal agent who was targeting a woman with pepper spray. Federal agents pulled him to the ground and shot him.

Pretti is the second U.S. citizen in Minneapolis to be killed by immigration officers this month. On Jan. 7, Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother, was shot in the head by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem raised criticism this weekend when she said that her agency would lead the investigation into Pretti’s killing.

After federal officials denied Minnesota state investigators access to the shooting scene in South Minneapolis, local and state officials in Minnesota accused DHS of mishandling evidence. Late Saturday, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension asked a federal court to block Homeland Security and Justice Department officials from destroying or concealing evidence.

It is not immediately clear how Bovino’s role could change as Homan arrives in Minneapolis.

Noem, who has backed Bovino’s aggressive tactics, said Monday it was “good news” that Homan was going to Minneapolis.

“I have worked closely with Tom over the last year and he has been a major asset to our team,” Noem wrote on X. Homan’s “experience and insight,” she said, would “help us to remove even more public safety threats and violent criminal illegal aliens” off Minneapolis streets.

But some Democrats in Minnesota oppose sending Homan to Minnesota. Minneapolis City Council member Soren Stevenson said the move would only aggravate tension.

“They are losing the battle in people’s minds,” Stevenson told CNN, noting that people could see video evidence contradict federal accounts of border patrol agents’ actions.

“They’re losing this narrative battle, and so he’s sending in his top guard,” Stevenson added. “And really, it’s escalating, because we just want to be left alone. The chaos in our community is coming from ICE. It’s coming from this invasion that we’re under … and it’s got to stop.”

In a short interview with The Wall Street Journal Sunday, Trump criticized Pretti for carrying a gun during protest activity.

“I don’t like any shooting. I don’t like it,” Trump said. “But I don’t like it when somebody goes into a protest and he’s got a very powerful, fully loaded gun with two magazines loaded up with bullets also. That doesn’t play good either.”

The President declined to comment on whether the agent who shot Pretti had done the right thing. “We’re looking,” Trump said when pressed. “We’re reviewing everything and will come out with a determination.”

Democratic officials, including Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, have called on federal immigration officers to leave Minneapolis. On Sunday, Trump suggested they could withdraw, but he did not give a timeline.

“At some point we will leave,” the president said. “They’ve done a phenomenal job.”

MINNEAPOLIS — A federal judge will hear arguments Monday on whether she should at least temporarily halt the immigration crackdown in Minnesota that has led to the fatal shootings of two people by government officers.

The state of Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul sued the Department of Homeland Security earlier this month, five days after Renee Good was shot by an Immigration and Customs officer. The shooting of Alex Pretti by a Border Patrol officer on Saturday has only added urgency to the case.

On Monday, President Trump said he is sending border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota. The president’s statement comes after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, who had become the public face of the administration’s crackdown, answered questions at news conferences over the weekend about Pretti’s shooting. Trump posted on social media that Homan will report directly to him.

Since the original court filing, the state and cities have substantially added to their original request in an effort to restore the order that existed before the Trump administration launched Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota on Dec. 1.

Democratic Minnesota Atty. Gen. Keith Ellison said he plans to attend.

The lawsuit asks U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez to order a reduction in the number of federal law enforcement officers and agents in Minnesota back to the level before the surge and to limit the scope of the enforcement operation.

Justice Department attorneys have called the lawsuit “legally frivolous” and said “Minnesota wants a veto over federal law enforcement.” They asked the judge to reject the request or to at least stay her order pending an anticipated appeal.

Ellison said during a news conference Sunday that the lawsuit is needed because of “the unprecedented nature of this surge. It is a novel abuse of the Constitution that we’re looking at right now. No one can remember a time when we’ve seen something like this.”

It is unclear when the judge might rule.

The case has implications for other states that have been or could become targets of ramped-up federal immigration enforcement operations. Attorneys general from 19 states plus the District of Columbia, led by California, filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Minnesota.

“If left unchecked, the federal government will no doubt be emboldened to continue its unlawful conduct in Minnesota and to repeat it elsewhere,” the attorneys general wrote.

Menendez ruled in a separate case on Jan. 16 that federal officers in Minnesota can’t detain or tear gas peaceful protesters who aren’t obstructing authorities, including people who follow and observe agents.

An appeals court temporarily suspended that ruling three days before Saturday’s shooting. But the plaintiffs in that case, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, asked the appeals court late Saturday for an emergency order lifting the stay in light of Pretti’s killing. The Justice Department argued in a reply filed Sunday that the stay should remain in place, calling the injunction unworkable and overly broad.

In yet another case, a different federal judge, Eric Tostrud, issued an order late Saturday blocking the Trump administration from “destroying or altering evidence” related to Saturday’s shooting. Ellison and Hennepin County Atty. Mary Moriarty asked for the order to try to preserve evidence collected by federal officials that state authorities have not yet been able to inspect. A hearing in that case is scheduled for Monday afternoon in federal court in St. Paul.

“The fact that anyone would ever think that an agent of the federal government might even think about doing such a thing was completely unforeseeable only a few weeks ago,” Ellison told reporters. “But now, this is what we have to do.”

Karnowski writes for the Associated Press.