The "border czar" begins the de-escalation in Minnesota with the reduction of anti-immigration agents

WashingtonDonald Trump's "border czar," Thomas Homan, whom the president sent to Minnesota to de-escalate tensions after the killing of two citizens by immigration agents, announced Thursday that he will reduce the number of federal agents on the ground. Currently, there are about 3,000 federal agents deployed in the Democratic state, after the Department of Homeland Security decided to send an additional 1,000 agents to reinforce Operation Metro Surge following the death of Renee Nicole Good. "We can do better," he said Thursday at a press conference in Minneapolis, adding that he will now prioritize "targeted" arrests. "We have made significant progress, significant coordination and cooperation, and you will see enormous changes happening here in this city," said the border czar, who described his meetings yesterday with Democratic Governor Tim Walz and the mayor of Minneapolis as "productive." Homan has been pushing for ICE agents to have greater access to Minnesota prisons so they can detain undocumented immigrants. "More agents in the jail means fewer agents on the street," he said. Despite the change in strategy, the rhetoric remains the same. Homan has still accused protesters and residents of fueling the conflict in Minneapolis and said that "the hostile rhetoric and dangerous, hateful threats" against immigration enforcement officers "must stop." According to Homan, this rhetoric has led to an increase in attacks against immigration agents and has forced the administration to send additional resources to Minnesota. However, the two people killed during the ICE deployment in the city were not federal agents, but citizens. Be that as it may, the Trump administration's anti-immigration police have left behind images of aggressive arrests with abusive practices that have circulated in recent days on social media and in the American press, sparking outrage in many sectors of the country.

An internal memo recently issued by a senior official at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) orders federal agents to refrain from any unnecessary communication or interaction with "agitators" to avoid "escalating the situation."

The directive, reviewed by Reuters Late Wednesday, it also instructed ICE agents to only act against immigrants with a history of criminal charges or convictions, a change from previous tactics that included randomly stopping people on the street to demand documentary evidence of legal residence or citizenship in the United States.