ICE appears to shift gears in Minnesota amid mixed messaging from Trump

After days of protests, it appears the Trump administration's stance on Minnesota is softening. An expert weighs in with the latest from Washington.

MINNEAPOLIS -- U.S. border czar Tom Homan, newly installed as commander of President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis, planned to address the media on Thursday amid mixed messaging and an apparent shift in both tactics and focus of the deportation drive.

Following weeks of daily clashes between protesters and immigration agents, spiked by the fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens during such confrontations, senior Trump administration officials seemed to be recalibrating their approach.

A newly issued internal memo from a high-ranking Immigration and Customs Enforcement official directs federal officers to refrain from any unnecessary communication and engagement with “agitators” so as to avoid “inflaming the situation.”

The directive, reviewed by Reuters late on Wednesday, also orders ICE officers to only target immigrants who have records of criminal charges or convictions, a departure from earlier tactics that included randomly stopping people on the street to demand documented proof of legal U.S. residence or citizenship.

The substance of the memo seemed at odds with tough talk coming from Trump and some of his senior officials on Wednesday.

A day after sounding a conciliatory tone in his public remarks, the Republican president took to his Truth Social platform on Wednesday to warn that Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat, was “playing with fire” by continuing to insist that city authorities would play no role in enforcing federal immigration laws.

Rule of law?

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said federal agents had arrested 16 people on Wednesday in Minnesota for allegedly assaulting, resisting or impeding federal law enforcement.

“Nothing will stop us from continuing to make arrests and enforce the law,” Bondi wrote.

A federal judge in Minneapolis said on Wednesday that ICE was flouting the law by ignoring dozens of federal court orders during this month’s surge.

While cancelling a contempt-of-court hearing for acting ICE chief Todd Lyons - after the agency belatedly complied with an order to release a wrongly detained Ecuadorean man - U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz cited at least 96 federal court orders he said ICE has violated in 74 cases.

“This list should give pause to anyone - no matter his or her political beliefs - who cares about the rule of law,” Schiltz wrote in his ruling. “ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2025 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.”

It was not made clear what Homan planned to discuss at his press conference, two days after he held his first meetings with Frey and Minnesota’s Democratic governor, Tim Walz, who have denounced the ICE operation as “reckless” and demanded it be ended altogether.

Scene on the streets

The guidance contained in the internal ICE memo seemed to reflect a change playing out on the streets of Minneapolis.

Observers and activists closely tracking ICE actions told Reuters that immigration raids had slackened somewhat on Tuesday before ramping up again on Wednesday, though in a more narrowly tailored manner.

Trump himself said on Tuesday he was looking to “de-escalate a little bit,” and dispatched Homan to take over the operation from Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol official whose aggressive tactics drew widespread criticism and legal challenges.

Minnesota’s Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul have been in a state of upheaval since Trump ordered some 3,000 heavily armed ICE and Border Patrol agents to the area weeks ago to conduct a deportation drive dubbed Operation Metro Surge.

Tensions escalated after Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was shot dead behind the wheel of her car by an ICE agent on January 7, sparking demonstrations in the Twin Cities and in communities large and small across the country.

But public outrage deepened after Saturday’s fatal shooting of an intensive care nurse, Alex Pretti, also 37, during another encounter between immigration agents and activists who confronted them to record and protest ICE activity.

In both cases, Trump administration officials immediately defended the federal agents involved in the shootings, denouncing both Good and Pretti as “domestic terrorists” who they said were threatening to harm law enforcement.

Multiple video recordings of the two incidents that have since gone viral on the internet plainly contradict the notion that either Good or Pretti posed a danger to immigration officers or others.

While some administration officials immediately accused Pretti of planning to “massacre” officers, citing the handgun he was carrying, video verified by Reuters showed Pretti held only a phone in his hand when Border Patrol agents pushed him to the ground. Video also showed that an agent found Pretti’s gun near his waist and removed it seconds before another agent shot Pretti in the back while he was being restrained.

Pretti had a permit to legally carry a firearm.

Reporting by Brad Brooks in Minneapolis; Writing and additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Maria Alejandra Cardona, Kristina Cooke, Ted Hesson, Andrew Goudsward, Jana Winter, Andrew Hay, Jonathan Allen and Michael Perry, Reuters