By Maria Tsvetkova and Jonathan Allen
FORT SNELLING, Minnesota, Feb 4 (Reuters) – The Trump administration is immediately withdrawing some 700 federal immigration enforcement agents from Minnesota, although about 2,000 agents will remain on the ground, White House border czar Tom Homan announced on Wednesday.
In an unprecedented surge, U.S. President Donald Trump has deployed thousands of armed immigration enforcement agents in and around Minneapolis this year to detain and deport migrants, resulting in angry and sometimes violent confrontations with residents and street protests across the nation.
Homan said the deportation campaign was in the interest of public safety, and that he was partially drawing down the deployment because he was seeing “unprecedented” cooperation from Minnesota’s elected sheriffs who run county jails, although he did not give more details.
Grappling with one of the thorniest political crises of his tenure, Trump sent Homan to Minnesota in late January with a mission to temper the outrage seen in Minneapolis’ streets, which intensified after immigration agents twice fatally shot U.S. citizens.
The surge has been opposed and denounced since its earliest days in January by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and other Democrats, who have demanded the withdrawal of a federal deployment that was 20 times the normal number working on immigration enforcement in the state, outnumbering local police forces.
“Let me be clear, President Trump fully intends to achieve mass deportations during this administration, and immigration enforcement actions will continue every day throughout this country,” Homan said at a news conference. “President Trump made a promise. And we have not directed otherwise.”
The president’s aggressive deportation efforts, part of a nationwide campaign, have triggered protests, drawn criticism even from some of his fellow Republicans and stern rebukes from some federal judges asked to rule on the legality of migrants’ detentions, who say their orders are being defied.
DEATHS OF GOOD, PRETTI
The reduction announced on Wednesday still leaves in place an extraordinary number of immigration agents deployed, a figure Trump officials were calling unprecedented only a few weeks ago.
In early January, the Trump administration sent in around 2,000 federal agents to Minnesota, calling it Operation Metro Surge. It was described by Todd Lyons, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as the “largest immigration operation ever” on January 6, a day before Renee Good, a U.S. citizen, was fatally shot by an ICE officer in her car. As January continued, hundreds of more agents were deployed.
Homan said his goal was to return to the usual force of about 150 federal immigration agents in the state, but did not say when he thought that would be possible.
Trump and his senior officials have said that many migrants must be deported, blaming them, often in sweeping terms, for financial fraud and violent crimes.
Minnesota, which is governed by Democrats, has sued the Trump administration over the surge, which has sparked weeks of protests that only intensified after federal immigration agents in Minneapolis killed Good and Alex Pretti, another U.S. citizen.
Homan wants more jails in Minnesota to allow immigration agents to transfer custody of detained migrants. Some already do, although only seven sheriffs out of Minnesota’s 87 counties have signed formal cooperation agreements with ICE.
Others, including the main jail in Minneapolis run by the Hennepin County sheriff, do not cooperate. Minneapolis and some other cities prohibit their employees, including police, from asking people about their citizenship or cooperating with federal immigration enforcement, saying it threatens public safety if migrants who are victims of or witnesses to crime are afraid to come forward.
Homan, speaking at a federal field office outside Minneapolis, said he recently had useful conversations with Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, among other elected Democrats.
“While we had our differences, one thing was clear – we are all committed to public safety,” Homan said.
Homan, a former ICE agent, also accused protesters of “impeding” immigration agents, whom he lauded as patriots upholding the law, doing a difficult job while being unfairly vilified.
Outside the federal building where Homan was speaking, more than a dozen protesters rallied against ICE in temperatures well below freezing.
Duane Olberding, a 70-year-old psychotherapist from Kansas City, said he was happy to hear of any reduction at all.
“These 700 people, I’m glad that Minnesotan people were able to get rid of them,” he said, “but I’m guessing where they’re going next is Kansas City, which is my home, which I don’t like.”
Asked if he thought Operation Metro Surge had been a success, Homan replied that he thought it had improved public safety. “Was it a perfect operation? No,” Homan said.
(Reporting by Maria Tsvetkova in Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Jonathan Allen in New York; Additional reporting by Katharine Jackson, Joseph Ax and Rich McKay; Editing by Donna Bryson, Chizu Nomiyama and Mark Porter)
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