White House Border Czar Tom Homan speaks on FOX News on the North Lawn of the White House on February 6, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Andrew Harnik | Getty Images
Trump administration border czar Tom Homan will head to Minnesota to manage U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s on-the-ground operations there in the wake of Alex Pretti’s killing by federal agents in Minneapolis, President Donald Trump and the White House said Monday.
“Tom is tough but fair, and will report directly to me,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a separate social media post that Homan will coordinate with officials leading ongoing investigations into fraud schemes in Minnesota.
Trump’s post said Homan has not previously been involved in Minnesota, where thousands of federal agents have been deployed in recent weeks to carry out the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation agenda.
Two U.S. citizens have been fatally shot in Minneapolis in less than a month in altercations with federal agents. The killings have stoked massive protests, heated denunciations of ICE from Democrats and pleas for de-escalation from business leaders.
Trump’s decision to give Homan control in Minnesota comes as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other administration officials face mounting criticism, including from gun rights groups and some conservatives, over their leadership and rhetoric in Minneapolis.
Fox News reported Sunday that some senior officials involved in immigration enforcement have “grown increasingly uneasy & frustrated [with] some of the claims & narratives DHS pushed” following the latest shooting.
Axios reported last month that Noem and Homan have a tense and acrimonious working relationship. Trump has praised both officials.
Noem, in a statement on X, said Trump’s decision to tap Homan for Minnesota is “good news for peace, safety, and accountability in Minneapolis.”
“I have worked closely with Tom over the last year and he has been a major asset to our team— his experience and insight will help us in our wide-scale fraud investigations, which have robbed Americans, and will help us to remove even more public safety threats and violent criminal illegal aliens off the of streets of Minneapolis,” Noem said.
“We continue to call on the leadership in Minnesota to allow for state and local partnership in our public safety mission,” she said.
The president’s switch-up also comes as his polling numbers on immigration, and his overall approval rating, have declined, according to recent surveys from The New York Times and Siena University and others.
In another Truth Social post later Monday morning, Trump said Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz called him and asked to work together in the state.
“It was a very good call, and we, actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength,” Trump wrote. “I told Governor Walz that I would have Tom Homan call him, and that what we are looking for are any and all Criminals that they have in their possession.”
“The Governor, very respectfully, understood that, and I will be speaking to him in the near future. He was happy that Tom Homan was going to Minnesota, and so am I!” Trump added.
The positive words for Walz mark a jarring shift in tone from the Trump administration, which has regularly castigated the Democratic governor and even accused him of helping stoke the social strife in Minneapolis that led to the shootings.
The government has reportedly subpoenaed Walz and other Minnesota Democrats as part of an investigation into possible obstruction of federal law enforcement operations in the state.
Walz’s office called the conversation “productive,” saying in a statement that the governor “made the case that we need impartial investigations of the Minneapolis shootings involving federal agents.”
DHS, rather than the FBI, will conduct the investigation into the shooting of Pretti by the department’s own officials, MS NOW reported Sunday, citing officials.
Trump agreed to talk to DHS about “ensuring the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is able to conduct an independent investigation, as would ordinarily be the case,” according to Walz’s office.
“The President also agreed to look into reducing the number of federal agents in Minnesota and working with the state in a more coordinated fashion on immigration enforcement regarding violent criminals,” the statement said.
Tensions in Minnesota have boiled over after the two killings by federal agents in Minneapolis.
Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was fatally shot by ICE agent Jonathan Ross on Jan. 7 as she began to drive her SUV after another agent ordered her out of the car.
On Saturday, Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse in Minneapolis, was shot and killed by federal officers.
Both killings occurred in daylight in front of witnesses and were caught on video from multiple angles, massively ratcheting up the already-intense scrutiny over immigration agents’ tactics and training.
In both cases, numerous Trump administration officials rushed to defend the agents’ actions as justified, while making claims about the incidents that later analyses found were contradicted by the available video evidence.
Protesters hold a vigil for Alex Pretti, the man fatally shot by federal immigration enforcement the previous day in Minneapolis, United States, on January 25, 2026.
Arthur Maiorella | Anadolu | Getty Images
On the same day that Pretti was killed, DHS claimed that he approached U.S. Border Patrol officers with a handgun and, after they attempted to disarm him, “violently resisted.”
Noem echoed that statement. Later, Greg Bovino, Border Patrol commander at large, claimed Pretti may have been intending to “massacre law enforcement.”
But videos show Pretti holding up a phone as the confrontation begins. And the clips also appear to show one officer removing a weapon from Pretti’s person prior to any shots being fired.
Pretti was believed to be a lawful gun owner with a permit to carry his weapon, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said at a news conference.
Trump, asked by The Wall Street Journal on Sunday if he believed shooting Pretti was the right thing to do, did not directly answer.
“We’re looking, we’re reviewing everything and will come out with a determination,” Trump told the newspaper.