On January 26, Trump announced his intention to send border czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis after a phone call with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Trump had a phone call with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey as well, in which the mayor insisted that the chaos caused by federal agents was unsustainable. On the same day, United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commander of Operation At Large and de facto leader of Operation Metro Surge Gregory Bovino, as well as several other federal agents, were said to be departing Minneapolis by the following day. Bovino was also demoted from his role as Commander of Operation At Large.
On this same day, Bovino lost access to his official government social media accounts. While this led some to speculate that Bovino was terminated from his position, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin denied this claim. According to an anonymous DHS official, as well as two other sources who gave information to The Atlantic, Bovino will transfer to El Centro, California, where he will resume his duty of overseeing CBP operations in that city.
This comes after the murders of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, a nurse for the Department of Veterans Affairs, at the hands of federal agents. As a result of these murders, harsh treatment of largely peaceful Minneapolis protesters, and tactics utilized by federal agents against immigrants that have widely been perceived as cruel and excessive, American support for Trump’s immigration policy has collapsed according to recent polling. Ever concerned with his popularity, this development may have incentivized Trump to shake up his approach to the unrest in Minneapolis, and assume a more cooperative relationship with Walz and Frey. Furthermore, the DHS is internally divided over how the agency handled the murders of the two Americans.
While the crisis in Minnesota initially helped Trump distract the media from the Department of Justice’s failure to release all of the Epstein Files and his declining economy, he appears to have overplayed his hand by severely weakening the popularity of his immigration enforcement measures.
