Trump Deploys Tom Homan To MN As ICE Operations Face Violent Chaos
President Donald Trump announced on Monday that he is sending Border Czar Tom Homan to Minnesota following the Jan. 24 fatal shooting of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by a U.S. Border Patrol agent, an incident that has sparked renewed protests in a state already facing heightened tensions over recent law-enforcement shootings.
Trump said that Homan will “directly report to me” and help run the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Trump says that the Justice Department and Congress are also looking into Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.
“I am sending Tom Homan to Minnesota tonight. He has not been involved in that area, but knows and likes many of the people there. Tom is tough but fair, and will report directly to me,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
“Separately, a major investigation is going on with respect to the massive 20 Billion Dollar, Plus, Welfare Fraud that has taken place in Minnesota, and is at least partially responsible for the violent organized protests going on in the streets,” he continued.
“Additionally, the DOJ and Congress are looking at ‘Congresswoman’ Illhan Omar, who left Somalia with NOTHING, and is now reportedly worth more than 44 Million Dollars. Time will tell all,” he added.
Homan’s deployment comes at a time when there is a lot of unrest in the Twin Cities because of ICE’s deployment. Federal agents have killed two people this month who were protesting against ICE: Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti.
There is a new investigation into Pretti’s death over the weekend.
“Tom Homan will be managing ICE operations on the ground in Minnesota and coordinating with others on the ongoing fraud investigations,” Leavitt told Fox News.
The Trump administration says that organized protesters are getting in the way of ICE operations, which are going after illegal aliens who are criminals.
Federal officials say that violent protests in Minneapolis stopped one immigration arrest last week. An ICE agent lost part of his finger when a protester bit it off.
During a press conference on Sunday, U.S. Border Patrol Commander at Large Greg Bovino said that Border Patrol and ICE agents had to stop a planned operation because crowds got in the way, attacked officers, and made the situation chaotic.
He said that because of this, the suspect got away from the police. He said that the choices made by politicians, activists, and people who stood up to police were the only things that caused this.
“This individual is still roaming the streets today,” Bovino said. “This individual walks the streets today because of those choices made by politicians and those, perhaps, weaker-minded constituents that chose to follow directions of those politicians. Sad state of affairs.”
Minnesota political leaders are vowing to hold federal officials accountable following the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti.
Gov. Walz and other Minnesotans have vowed that the state “will have the last word” on the fatal shooting that they see as the result of the Trump administration’s controversial deployment of agents who are there to do immigration enforcement operations, all of which have been resisted by the governor and other Democrats.
“I have a strong statement here for our federal government,” Walz said. “Minnesota’s justice system will have the last word on this. It must have the last word.”
Minnesota National Guard members were deployed on Saturday at the governor’s request to secure the site of the shooting and the Whipple Federal Building, which is a known staging area for immigration authorities and has become a hotspot for protesters, according to the statement.
Pretti, a U.S. citizen and intensive care unit nurse for the VA, was killed during an encounter with federal immigration officers in Minneapolis.
Federal authorities said Pretti was armed with a handgun and claimed he intended to use it against law enforcement. Officials said a struggle occurred before an agent fired.
The incident follows the recent fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good, 37, who was killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer earlier this month.
Top DHS Special Agent And His Wife Found Dead
A Department of Homeland Security special agent and his wife were found dead in their New Jersey home in what appears to be a murder-suicide, prosecutors said.
Police in Sayreville responded to the couple’s home on Glynn Court around 8 p.m. July 3 and found Kelly Latauro, 46, dead inside the residence, the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office said.
Her husband, 52-year-old Christopher Latauro, was discovered dead in the backyard.
Both appear to have been shot.
Authorities said Christopher is believed to be the shooter and the case is being investigated as a murder-suicide.
Police told residents to keep away from Glynn Court, from Deerfield Road to Scarlet Drive, briefly because of police activity.
The area was reopened about 40 minutes later, but police remained on scene.
According to NJ101.5, citing DHS records from 2019 and 2020, Christopher was a special agent for the Department of Homeland Security.
Authorities have not said what may have sparked the violence.
Kelly’s sister-in-law Robyn Perlman-Spencer confirmed her death in a Facebook post on July 7, remembering her in a heartbreaking tribute.
“As many of you may now know, my beautiful sister in law Kelly Iatauro was senselessly and suddenly taken from us on Friday. Kelly was a bright light- kind, thoughtful, hysterical, inappropriate, and just one of the most amazing people I’ve ever known. She left a lasting impression on anyone that was lucky enough to know her,” Robyn wrote in part.
Sayreville police confirmed officers responded to the Glynn Court residence on July 3 and found both people dead of gunshot wounds.
The incident is being treated as a murder-suicide, and Christopher is suspected to be the shooter, the spokesperson said.
The Department of Homeland Security and Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office did not immediately respond to additional requests for comment on the case.
What began as a heavy police response to a deadly scene left two people dead and the quiet Middlesex County neighborhood stunned.
Investigators are still trying to piece together what happened inside the home leading up to the gunfire.
Separately, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin made headlines last week with an election-related announcement.
Mullin on Friday said officials who don’t cooperate with the administration’s election security efforts may be slapped with fines — and potentially prison time.
“If the election officials, once we gave them the information they need to secure their elections — and they chose not to — then those individuals can also be held accountable by fines, by penalties, and even, depending on how far it goes, prison time,” Mullin said during a press conference at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
Mullin also promised DHS would work to “speed up our security enhancements” for states.
He vowed to hold up federal election security grants until state officials took steps the administration demanded, including running their voter registration lists through a system that checks for non-citizen voters on the rolls.
Mullin made his comments after President Donald Trump’s primetime address on election security Thursday night, when he repeated already known concerns about the security of voting systems, alleged Chinese efforts to get into voter rolls, and aired old gripes about the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden.
In his remarks on Friday, the DHS secretary focused on DHS’s work with states to secure election systems and scrub voter registration rolls for fraud and concerns about noncitizen voting.
The Justice Department also sent letters this month threatening prosecution to election officials across the country if they don’t remove noncitizens from their voter rolls.
On Friday, Mullin seemed to suggest that the agency was able to estimate the numbers using the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and said 23 states are already working with DHS to analyze voter rolls.
And he criticized the legal challenges that are hindering the administration’s efforts: Last month, a judge blocked the Trump administration from creating a database of information about Americans, including Social Security numbers and citizenship status.
