Trump administration plans to take Homan’s Minneapolis immigration playbook nationwide

By Priscilla Alvarez, CNN

(CNN) — The Trump administration plans to double down on targeted immigration enforcement, taking Tom Homan’s playbook in Minneapolis and applying it to multiple cities nationwide, according to current and former Homeland Security officials.

It’s a marked departure from the highly visible and aggressive tactics employed by top Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino. That approach, documented in Hollywood-style social media videos and touted by senior Trump officials at the time, is being tabled, for now, following the scenes that unfolded in Minneapolis, including the shooting deaths of two American citizens.

“No more Bovino bullsh*t. That show is shut down,” a Homeland Security official told CNN.

The return to ICE’s typical immigration enforcement tactics, which include identifying targets ahead of time, instead of broad sweeps in areas trafficked by immigrants, comes amid waning public support for how the administration has been conducting immigration arrests.

The protests and images coming out of Minneapolis late last month prompted concerns from some Trump administration officials over the optics of the immigration crackdown. That included President Donald Trump, who privately expressed frustration that his immigration messaging was getting lost. The debate over federal immigration enforcement has also sparked a partial government shutdown affecting portions of DHS, as Democrats have pushed for ICE reforms in exchange for supporting funding for the department.

“Targeting public safety threats is nothing new. … Under Secretary Noem’s leadership, nearly 70% of ICE arrests are of illegal aliens charged or convicted of a crime in the U.S.,” a Homeland Security spokesperson said in a statement, citing more than 700,000 deportations under the Trump administration.

While the administration has said it is prioritizing people with serious criminal records, many of those detained over the last year do not fall in that category. DHS also issued a recent memo stating that immigration authorities should detain refugees who have not yet obtained a green card and detain them for additional screening.

Sources told CNN that late last year, agents had been more focused on developing targets rather than only relying on street encounters. But that changed with an unprecedented surge of thousands of federal agents to Minneapolis over a welfare-fraud scandal that ensnared the Somali community.

Two Americans — Renee Good and Alex Pretti — were shot and killed by federal agents. And two other officers are under investigation over their accounts about what unfolded in an operation where one of the officers shot a Venezuelan man in the leg.

Homan announced a federal drawdown in Minneapolis last week, citing agreements with local officials allowing additional cooperation.

Current and former Homeland Security officials stressed that the latest move toward a more targeted enforcement approach doesn’t mean that the crackdown is softening, as some cities may still see larger footprints of ICE agents. The turbocharged sweeps are less likely, though officials cautioned that plans are subject to change. The administration has also escalated efforts to expand immigration detention — an indicator of plans to continue ramped up arrests.

“What they were doing was hoping that high visibility enforcement operations would scare enough illegal aliens to increase self-deportation. I think that’s part of what they were thinking,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for limited immigration.

“What they didn’t take into account is that people, even though they still back deportation of illegal aliens, they want to see less of the militarized type of action,” he added.

After Trump dispatched Homan to Minneapolis, Bovino was sidelined and returned to his post as chief patrol agent of the El Centro sector. He’s since confirmed on X that he was recently at Mammoth Mountain, the California ski resort, saying in a reply to a user: “Katie, the powder was excellent, and some shredding did take place!! Mammoth is an excellent mountain and looking forward to going back!!!! In the meantime, on the lookout for illegal aliens!!”

Bovino’s bravado and heavy-handed arrest tactics in Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte, New Orleans and Minneapolis captured the administration’s aggressive approach to its mass deportation pledge — and penchant for public sparring with critics over controversial actions.

It also marked a pivot from the way enforcement responsibilities are generally divided between Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with the latter charged with interior immigration arrests.

Bovino’s enforcement style had been backed by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. The pivot to Homan’s approach is a rebuke of that style and reveals the ongoing tensions between different factions in the administration over how to tackle the president’s immigration agenda, officials said.

Homan has generally taken a more stringent approach to immigration enforcement, wanting to focus on public safety and national security threats, as well as so-called “collaterals,” meaning undocumented immigrants that may be in the vicinity of a targeted operation.

“ICE has been doing interior enforcement before Bovino got involved. They prefer to conduct their ops without the optics,” another Homeland Security official told CNN. “(Border Patrol) never wanted anything to do with these interior ops and will go back to focusing on the border.”

The change also means “there’s less characters in this play and less storylines,” a former Trump official told CNN. “That’s where they think they’ve set the course,” the official added, referring to the White House.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told CNN in a statement, “The President’s entire team is working together to implement his immigration enforcement agenda – which has always focused on prioritizing the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens. The successful deportations, dropping crime rates, and historically secure border prove that. As always, anyone in the country illegally is eligible to be deported.”

Homan acknowledged the issues on the ground in Minneapolis, including officer misconduct, almost immediately after arriving and since then.

In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union,” Homan said he increased the presence of internal affairs officers in Minnesota since arriving in the Twin Cities to address misconduct allegations among immigration enforcement officers.

“In any instance where there have been allegations of misconduct or working outside the policy, it has been referred to internal affairs,” he said.

Within the Trump administration, there has been infighting between factions who back Homan and those who back Noem. Homan and Noem have rarely spoken to each other in recent months, according to US officials.

Homan said Sunday he doesn’t agree with Noem “on everything,” but added that the pair regularly have discussions, and he described the administration’s efforts as “one team one fight.”

“We have discussions and different opinions. That’s what makes it a strong team. We bring different ideas to the table and then agree on a mission,” Homan said.

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