Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said after meetings with White House border czar Tom Homan on Tuesday that they’d conveyed one key message: The immigration enforcement surge there needs to end.
The meetings were the first since President Donald Trump dispatched Homan to Minneapolis to take over “Operation Metro Surge” from Gregory Bovino. The Border Patrol official left the city after intense backlash to his handling of federal agents’ fatal shooting of Alex Pretti last week.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that a reduction in federal agents would come if local police assisted in detaining migrants who have committed crimes. She also called for the state’s leaders to end “sanctuary” policies.
Neither Frey nor Walz suggested such a policy change was coming.
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Frey described the meeting with Homan and Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara as productive in a statement afterward, but said Minneapolis would not enforce federal immigration laws.
“I reiterated that my main ask is for Operation Metro Surge to end as quickly as possible,” Frey wrote in a statement on X. “Public safety works best when it’s built on community trust, not tactics that create fear or division. I shared with Mr. Homan the serious negative impacts this operation has had on Minneapolis and surrounding communities, as well as the strain it has placed on our local police officers.”
Walz’s office struck a similar tone to Frey’s in a statement after the governor’s meeting with Homan.
“Governor Walz met with Tom Homan this morning and reiterated Minnesota’s priorities: impartial investigations into the Minneapolis shootings involving federal agents, a swift, significant reduction in the number of federal forces in Minnesota, and an end to the campaign of retribution against Minnesota,” his office said.
The Minnesota Department of Public Safety will be the primary liaison to Homan, according to the governor’s office.
Trump told reporters Tuesday afternoon he heard Homan’s efforts to connect with Walz and Frey had been going well. Following a call with Trump on Monday, Frey said some of the thousands of federal agents sent to the city would leave.
Multiple legal battles are playing out over the deportation surge in Minneapolis, including a lawsuit from the state to end the operation and another to stop the Trump administration from destroying or altering evidence in Pretti’s killing, which local law enforcement say they were blocked from accessing.
Last week, the Department of Justice issued subpoenas for Walz, Frey and three other Democratic Minnesota officials, accusing them of interfering with the administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown.
Minnesotans who have come out to protest Pretti’s death say they’ve had to change their daily lives to protect their community because they can’t rely on any officials to protect them.
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