The Trump administration will withdraw 700 immigration agents from Minnesota who had been part of “Operation Metro Surge”, the crackdown in Minneapolis that has led to the deaths of two US citizens and inspired nationwide protests.
The administration’s ‘border tsar’, Tom Homan, said on Wednesday that the removals will begin immediately and include agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol.
He said 2,000 agents would remain, but added that he aimed to cut the federal immigration presence in the city to its level before the operation started in December.
The government is also working to ensure all officers in Minnesota have body-worn cameras, he said.
Homan added that the US government has made providing body-worn cameras to all officers in Minneapolis a priority, but is also planning to deploy the equipment to agents across the country.
During a news conference on Wedneday, he called the Minneapolis operation a success, despite numerous court challenges and the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who were fatally shot by federal agents.
Homan noted it wasn’t a perfect operation and said it has become “more streamlined” with an “established, unified chain of command”.
“It’s not that it wasn’t good before, but we improved upon it,” he said.
Federal immigration agents have been arresting and detaining “bad people”, Homan said, including 14 charged with homicide and 139 with assault, as well as 87 sex offenders and 28 gang members. The BBC has not independently verified those totals.
Homan took control of the operation at the end of January, and had said he would draw down agents depending on how much state and local officials cooperated with federal ones.
He told the news conference he was cutting the federal presence by roughly a third after the US government received “unprecedented” cooperation.
BBC