The Trump administration will immediately remove 700 federal law enforcement officers from Minnesota, border czar Tom Homan said Wednesday, leaving about 2,000 officers in the state.
Homan announced the withdrawal at a morning news conference, saying federal agencies are communicating with multiple counties, allowing them to operate more efficiently.
“This is smart law enforcement, not less law enforcement,” Homan said.
State officials previously said that 3,000 federal officers had been deployed to Minnesota, an amount that dwarfed local law enforcement’s numbers.
Homan said the number of federal officers remaining in the state as part of Operation Metro Surge stands at approximately 2,000 with Wednesday’s partial withdrawal.
Homan was deployed to Minnesota as part of a de-escalation effort amid the national outrage over the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers. He said from the outset that federal officers will conduct targeted enforcement operations, a shift from the more aggressive approach favored by Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, who had led immigration enforcement operations in the field until last week.
Homan said Wednesday that his goal “is to achieve a complete drawdown and end this surge as soon as we can.” But he appeared to place the responsibility for that on Minnesotans.
“We want to get out. We want to get back to the normal operational footprint here,” Homan said. “But that depends on the people out there putting up illegal roadblocks. That depends on people that want to intimidate and interfere and put hands on ICE officers. Tone down the rhetoric. Stop violating the law and impeding and interfering with us, and they’ll draw down quicker.”
State and local officials called the withdrawal of some officers progress, along with the decision this week to equip all Department of Homeland Security officers with cameras, but they said it still was not nearly enough.
“Operation Metro Surge is not making Minnesota safer,” Gov. Tim Walz said, calling for “a faster and larger drawdown of forces, state-led investigations into the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, and an end to this campaign of retribution.”
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey similarly repeated his demand for an end to the operation entirely.
“The drawdown and body-worn cameras are a step in the right direction, but 2,000 ICE officers still here is not de-escalation,” Frey said. “My message to the White House has been consistent — Operation Metro Surge has been catastrophic for our businesses and residents. It needs to end immediately.”
Homan’s announcement Wednesday had been expected. In an interview with the Daily Mail on Tuesday, Vice President JD Vance denied that a drawdown of federal officers’ presence in Minnesota amounted to a retreat from immigration enforcement.
“We’re not surrendering. We’re not moving back on anything. We’re just trying to actually encourage cooperation so that we get a little bit less chaos,” Vance said.
President Donald Trump had made halting attempts to defuse tensions after Pretti’s death, but that fragile detente appeared to fall apart quickly, especially after video emerged of an encounter Pretti had with federal officers 13 days before his death.
The enduring backlash over federal law enforcement’s conduct in Minnesota has forced the Trump administration to make some concessions. But DHS officers have continued making violent arrests of immigrants and activists, and the federal government continues to target protesters and observers documenting these operations.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.