Tom Homan Announces Massive Drawdown of Feds in Minneapolis After Receiving ‘Unprecedented Cooperation’ From Local Officials

Trump border czar Tom Homan announced a significant drawdown of federal agents in Minneapolis during a Wednesday morning press conference after receiving “unprecedented cooperation” from local officials.

Homan was put in charge of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts in Minnesota after Renee Good and Alex Pretti were both shot and killed during altercations with ICE and Border Patrol personnel.

During a press conference last week, Homan struck a more optimistic tone about collaborating with local officials like Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D) and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D), and acknowledged that mistakes had been made.

On Wednesday, Homan announced that together, they had all “made significant progress” that he expected to “increase in the coming weeks.”

“We currently have an unprecedented number of counties communicating with us now and allowing ICE to take custody of illegal aliens before they hit the streets — unprecedented cooperation,” Homan said. “And I’ll say it again. This is efficient, it requires only one or two officers to assume custody of a criminal alien target rather than eight or 10 officers going into the community and arresting that public safety threat. This frees up more officers to arrest or remove criminal aliens. More officers taking custody of criminal aliens directly from the jails means less officers on the street doing criminal operations. This is smart law enforcement, not less law enforcement. It’s safer for the community, safer for officers, and safer for aliens. This coordination also makes it far more safe for the Twin Cities.”

He added:

I also want to reiterate and emphasize, we are not requiring jails to hold people past their normal release time for immigration purposes. We’re not asking anyone to be an immigration officer. We are not asking any state or local official to do immigration enforcement activity. They are not by merely notifying us before they release them. They don’t hold them one minute past they normally would. Given this increase in unprecedented collaboration, and as a result of the need for less law enforcement officers to do this work in a safer environment. I have announced, effective immediately, we will draw down 700 people affected today. 700 law enforcement personnel. During my press conference last week, I announced that moving forward, ICE will be conducting targeted immigration enforcement operations. Like ICE has traditionally done for decades, based on reasonable suspicion to question and detain. ICE will conduct these operations and transnational criminal organization investigations with a focus on national security and public safety. I want to be clear, just because you prioritize public safety threats don’t mean we forget about everybody else. We will continue to enforce the immigration laws in this country.

Watch above via Fox News.

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