Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino is expected to leave Minneapolis on Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the matter, as the Trump administration reshuffles leadership of its immigration enforcement operation and scales back the federal presence after a second fatal shooting by federal officers.
President Donald Trump said he was placing his border czar, Tom Homan, in charge of the mission, with Homan reporting directly to the White House, after Bovino drew condemnation for claiming the man who was killed, Alex Pretti, had been planning to “massacre” law enforcement officers, a characterisation that authorities had not substantiated.
Saturday's fatal shooting of Pretti, an ICU nurse, by Border Patrol agents ignited political backlash and raised fresh questions about how the operation was being run.
Read moreVideos of fatal Alex Pretti shooting in Minneapolis contradict government statements
Bovino’s leadership of highly visible federal crackdowns, including operations that sparked mass demonstrations in Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte and Minneapolis, has drawn fierce criticism from local officials, civil rights advocates and congressional Democrats.
A person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that Bovino is among the federal agents leaving Minneapolis.
Who Is Gregory Bovino? The official behind Trump’s aggressive border enforcement
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The departure accompanies a softer tone from Trump on the Minnesota crackdown, including the president's touting of productive conversations with the governor and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.
The mayor said he asked Trump in a phone call to end the immigration enforcement surge, and Trump agreed that the present situation cannot continue. Frey said he would keep pushing for others involved in Operation Metro Surge to go and planned to meet Homan on Tuesday.
Trump and Democratic Governor Tim Walz spoke in a phone call and later offered comments that were a marked change from the critical statements they had exchanged in the past.
“We, actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength,” the president wrote in a social media post.
Walz, in a statement, said the call was “productive" and that impartial investigations into the shootings were needed. Trump said his administration was looking for “any and all” criminals the state has in their custody. Walz said the state Department of Corrections honours federal requests for people in its custody.
Read moreObama, Clinton urge Americans to ‘stand up’ after second Minneapolis shooting
Meanwhile, attorneys for the administration, the state and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul appeared Monday before US District Judge Katherine Menendez, who is considering whether to grant requests to temporarily halt the immigration operation.
She said the case was a priority, but in an order later Monday, she told the federal government’s attorneys to file an additional brief addressing, among other things, the assertion by the state and cities that the purpose of Operation Metro Surge is to punish them for their sanctuary laws and policies.
Lawyers for the state and the Twin Cities argued the situation on the street is so dire that it requires the court to halt the federal government’s enforcement actions.
“If this is not stopped right here, right now, I don’t think anybody who is seriously looking at this problem can have much faith in how our republic is going to go in the future,” Minnesota Assistant Attorney General Brian Carter said.
The judge questioned the government’s motivation behind the crackdown and expressed scepticism about a letter Attorney General Pam Bondi recently sent to Walz asking the state to give the federal government access to voter rolls, to turn over state Medicaid and food assistance records, and to repeal sanctuary policies.
“I mean, is there no limit to what the executive can do under the guise of enforcing immigration law?” Menendez asked. She noted that the federal requests are the subject of litigation.
At one point, while discussing the prospect of federal officers entering residences without a warrant, the judge expressed reluctance to decide issues not yet raised in a lawsuit before her.
The state of Minnesota and the cities sued the Department of Homeland Security earlier this month, five days after Renee Good was shot by an Immigration and Customs officer. Pretti's shooting added urgency to the case.
Read moreWhat we know about Alex Pretti, the man shot dead by federal agents in Minneapolis
News of Bovino's departure didn't stop dozens of protesters from gathering outside a hotel where they believed Bovino was staying. They blew whistles, banged pots and one person blasted a trombone. Police watched and kept them away from the hotel entrance.
In court Monday, an attorney for the administration said about 2,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were on the ground, along with at least 1,000 Border Patrol officers.
The lawsuit asks the judge to order a reduction in the number of federal law enforcement officers and agents in Minnesota back to the level before the surge and to limit the scope of the enforcement operation.
The case has implications for other states that have been or could become targets of ramped-up federal immigration enforcement operations. Attorneys general from 19 states, plus the District of Columbia, led by California, filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Minnesota.
In yet another case, a different federal judge, Eric Tostrud, took under advisement a request from the Justice Department to lift an order he issued late Saturday blocking the Trump administration from “destroying or altering evidence” related to Saturday’s shooting.
Attorneys for the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension told the judge they can’t trust the federal government to preserve the evidence, citing the lack of cooperation the state is getting from federal authorities after they said they were blocked from the scene.
But the federal government’s attorneys argued that the temporary restraining order should be dissolved because its investigators are already following proper preservation procedures, and they’d object to “micromanaging” from the court what evidence the state can examine while the federal investigation is ongoing.
(FRANCE 24 with AP)
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