Border czar Tom Homan meets Gov. Tim Walz as Trump seeks to calm Minneapolis ICE crackdown

Dave Goldiner, New York Daily News on Jan 27, 2026

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President Donald Trump’s newly appointed head of the ICE crackdown in Minnesota met with Democratic Gov. Tim Walz on Tuesday as the White House sought to lower the political temperature following the killing of American citizen Alex Pretti by immigration agents last Saturday.

Border czar Tom Homan held what all parties called a productive meeting with Walz after Trump tapped him to effectively replace Greg Bovino as the face of the Minneapolis operation.

“Tom Homan is in MInnesota. He’s meeting with the governor,” Trump said. “So that’s going very well.”

Walz and Homan “agreed on the need for an ongoing dialogue and will continue working toward those goals,” Walz’s office said in a statement.

Homan, who was also expected to meet later Tuesday with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, took the reins a day after Trump dumped Bovino and effectively sidelined Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

The border czar, a longtime federal immigration official, is expected to bring a somewhat less aggressive and confrontational approach to the Minneapolis operation, which involves an estimated 3,000 federal personnel.

The shift in tone and personnel shakeup amounts to an effort by Trump’s team to engineer a retreat from the politically damaging crackdown, which was supposed to be a targeted effort to nab undocumented criminals but has repeatedly led to violent clashes with protesters and residents.

Pretti, 37, an intensive care unit nurse at a VA hospital, was shot and killed in a hail of an estimated 10 bullets Saturday as he appeared to come to the aid of a woman ICE agents had pushed to the ground as they both filmed the agents’ actions.

A bipartisan parade of lawmakers, including some staunch supporters of Trump, have demanded an independent investigation of the Pretti killing. Videos of the shooting raise serious questions about the actions of the ICE agents who shot him.

Pretti is the second U.S. citizen to die at the hands of ICE agents this month in Minneapolis after another agent shot dead unarmed motorist Renee Nicole Good on Jan. 7 as she tried to drive away from them.

Noem and other federal officials have so far defied calls for independent investigations and have said the agents acted properly, effectively prejudging the results of any probes.

But Trump insisted Tuesday he wants an “honorable and honest investigation” of the Pretti killing.

The president also called Walz and Frey himself Monday after weeks of hurling insults and accusing the Democratic officials of inciting resistance to the crackdown.

Bovino, who was expected to return to his former post on the southern border, had already become a lightning rod for criticism of the crackdown as he led operations in Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte and then Minneapolis.

He enraged critics and even some Republican allies by blaming Pretti for his death and defending the officers who killed him, claims that are contradicted by videos.

The Minneapolis crisis has spilled over to Washington, D.C. where Democratic senators have vowed to scuttle a package of spending bills that includes funding for the Department of Homeland Security, unless the White House agrees to wide-ranging reforms of ICE.

That could trigger a government shutdown starting this weekend.

Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, says Democrats would support passage of five other spending bills to keep the government open while they negotiate potential reforms to ICE as part of the DHS spending package.

So far, Republican congressional leaders are rejecting that proposal, setting up a standoff that both sides say likely needs Trump’s direct involvement to resolve.