President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, vowed not to surrender in his first public remarks since taking over immigration operations in Minnesota, making clear the operation is open-ended. Critics are urging the Department of Homeland Security to leave the state after federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens.

“We are not surrendering our mission at all,” Homan told reporters Thursday morning. “We’re just doing it smarter.”

“I wanna be clear,” Homan stressed. “We are not surrendering the president’s mission in immigration enforcement. Let’s make that clear.”

Insisting that he has “made a lot of progress” since arriving in Minneapolis on Monday, Homan told reporters, “I’m staying until the problem is gone.”

Attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council responded, saying: “There isn’t a ‘problem’ that needs to be solved with the mass deployment of thousands of federal officers to Minneapolis to round up immigrants in the city. When nearly everyone who lives there is telling them to go away, claiming ‘this is for your own good’ rings hollow.”

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Homan did acknowledge, “I’m not here because…the federal government has carried this mission out perfectly,” but he did not mention Renee Good or Alex Pretti, the two Americans shot and killed by federal agents.

He said that federal officials are working on a “drawdown plan,” but did not state whether, when, or how many federal agents would be removed from or remain in Minnesota.

“The talk of deescalation was always fake news,” Reichlin-Melnick added. He charged that the Trump administration “intends to continue to make Minneapolis an example, even with a minor change in leadership. There are still thousands of DHS officers deployed there.”

“At the news conference,” The New York Times reported, Homan “dodged a question regarding how many federal immigration agents are still in Minnesota.”

“There’ve been some rotations,” he said.

“The withdrawal of law enforcement resources here is dependent upon cooperation,” Homan added, according to The Times. “As we see that cooperation happen, then the redeployment will happen.”

The Times noted that despite Homan’s remarks, “there has been little sign of major changes on the ground. Federal immigration agents appeared to press on with their aggressive operations on Wednesday, and the Trump administration’s lawyers defended their actions, describing the surge of federal agents there as a legitimate exercise of its power.”

“I’m staying until the problem is gone.”

President Trump’s border czar Tom Homan speaks at a press conference in Minneapolis.

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— ABC News (@ABC) January 29, 2026

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President Donald Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents may be poised to target the Ohio city where Trump, then a candidate in 2024, falsely insisted that Haitian immigrants were eating the pets of residents.

Local officials are bracing for a 30-day ICE surge, The New Republic reported.

“Springfield City School District Superintendent Bob Hill said that local officials had discussed the likelihood that federal immigration authorities could descend on the city sometime after Temporary Protected Status for Haitian immigrants expires on February 3,” TNR noted, citing a report from the Springfield News-Sun.

Superintendent Hill suggested there was no evidence that immigration enforcement would take place on school property.

Republican Ohio Governor Mike DeWine led a meeting last week in which he “discussed that a federal immigration enforcement initiative may begin sometime after the TPS deadline,” the News-Sun reported.

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Details are fluid, DeWine spokesperson Dan Tierney noted, and he “said there has not been ‘formal communication’ of actions by ICE or any immigration authority.”

“We are dealing with hypotheticals right now. It would be very imprudent to give people guidance on a fluid situation based upon hypotheticals,” Tierney said.

Pam Shay, director of federal programs at Springfield City Schools said that about 20 percent of the district’s 1,400 students do not have documents indicating citizenship.

The News-Sun also reported that immigrants granted Temporary Protected Status “will no longer have status unless they sought and received another form of protection, like asylum.”

In 2024, Trump infamously declared, “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs.”

“The people that came in, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” candidate Trump said at a presidential debate.

The claim had already been debunked, including by city officials, as ABC News reported at the time.

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President Donald Trump said that Americans would see a de-escalation in Minnesota, and a “more relaxed” approach on the ground in Minneapolis after federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in under three weeks. But Attorney General Pam Bondi’s messaging on Wednesday pointed in a different direction.

In a social media post Wednesday afternoon, the attorney general wrote:

“MINNESOTA ARRESTS — I am on the ground in Minneapolis today. Federal agents have arrested 16 Minnesota rioters for allegedly assaulting federal law enforcement — people who have been resisting and impeding our federal law enforcement agents.”

“We expect more arrests to come,” she added, appearing to suggest the arrests would target Americans who are protesting, rather than undocumented immigrants accused of crimes.

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“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: NOTHING will stop President Trump and this Department of Justice from enforcing the law.”

Bondi then posted the names of the people who were arrested, and, in many cases, photos of them standing next to federal officers, who had their backs to the camera. It was unclear why they were identified as “rioters.”

Critics slammed the attorney general.

“They’re not arresting the people responsible for the murders of Renée Nicole Good or Alex Pretti,” wrote author and activist Lev Parnas. “No — they’re arresting Minnesota citizens and using them as props for a headline. Enough is enough. We need accountability. We need justice. And we are not backing down.”

“No deal on ICE,” political commentator Keith Olbermann wrote to U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI). “Bondi is boasting that they’re rounding up protestors there now.”

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“It will be interesting to see if these actually hold up in court — DOJ track record under Bondi has not been good,” noted The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg.

CNN’s Aaron Blake appeared to concur, writing, “the Trump admin has repeatedly accused people of assaulting law enforcement — but then either not actually brought charges or seen the cases crumble.”

“There ain’t no walk back,” declared The Bulwark’s Bill Kristol, appearing to invoke the president’s call for de-escalation.”They’re still all in on mass deportation and mass intimidation.”

“Could we see some video of the ‘assaults’ you allege?” asked U.S. Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY). “Nobody believes you or your partisan DOJ — which is focused on protestors not ICE murderers.”

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