Homan on personnel changes in Minnesota

So as we indicated earlier, border czar Tom Homan is giving an update on ICE operations in Minnesota. He just announced that some 700 personnel are leaving the state immediately. Let's listen. --should. And they need to be able to perform their sworn duties without being harassed, impeded, or assaulted. I want everyone, anyone to report instances of alleged misconduct or wrongdoing. There's a way to report that. The Trump administration is taking violations of 18 USC 111, which is assaulting, impeding, interfering-- we're taking that seriously. If you violate the law, you will be federally prosecuted. In the past month, 158 people have been arrested for violation of 111. 85 cases have been already accepted for prosecutions. The rest remain pending. We've had nine indictments of those who raided the church. And additional cases are being worked. Additionally, I've been saying this for almost a year now. Hateful, extreme rhetoric against ICE personnel is completely unacceptable. Please stop. I said back in March of this year, that if the hateful rhetoric didn't stop, I was afraid there would be bloodshed. And there has been. President Trump and I, Sectretary Noem, none of us want to see any bloodshed. It is no doubt encouraging and inciting certain people to violate the law, wanting to harm and actually harm law enforcement, law enforcement and their families, is unacceptable. I want to say I appreciate the discussions I had with the governor, Mayor Frey, and the attorney general. We've had frank, honest discussions. We don't agree on everything, but we do agree on the need for public safety. And we do agree that ICE has a role to enforce the immigration laws of this country. I would implore the governor and the AG and the mayor and other political officials to urge in the most strong and urgent way to ask for calm in the community and to end the resistance, the impediment, the interference. Again, protest. But stop impeding. Stop interfering. Stop in violating the law, because we will arrest you. In closing, President Trump and I would like to thank the men and women of ICE, Border Patrol, and other federal agencies on the ground here for your dedication to the oath you swore to enforce the federal laws and promote public safety through the work you do. It hasn't been easy. I know the sacrifices you make. I know the sacrifices your families make. I know your families worry about you every day. I know you've been away from birthdays and anniversaries and holidays. I appreciate every one of you. I wore that green uniform. I love the United States Border Patrol. I was an ICE agent. I know the job you have. I know the tragedies you've seen. The president is with you. Again, I want to thank Governor Walz, Attorney General, and Mayor for the candid, insightful, productive discussions we had. Again, I'm not saying we agree on everything, but I think we all already accomplished great things in Minnesota. I am optimistic we will achieve even more in the coming days to make this city safer. I would also like to thank the numerous local law enforcement officials I was able to meet with the last nine days since I arrived here. I appreciate hearing from local law enforcement, their perspective on what's happening. I appreciate the desire to enhance communications between their agencies and our agencies. And that communication has been vastly improved. I truly appreciate your commitment to respond to federal law enforcement and the time and need. Every chief I talked to, every one of them promised to respond to any public safety issue when our officers are out doing their sworn duty, and people start crossing the line and they start impeding and interference. Every police chief has committed to doing their job and enforce public safety. We talked a lot of sheriffs throughout the nation. We have unprecedented cooperation. I've yet to talk to a sheriff that said no. There's still more sheriffs we are in discussions with and talking to, but I have not heard no. I think they want to do the right things for their communities, too. Lastly, I'd like to thank President Trump for his steadfast leadership and commitment to law enforcement, public safety, and prosperity. I've said this many times. I've worked with six presidents and 10 administrations. When it comes to public safety, border security, immigration enforcement, no one has done it better than President Trump. His success is unprecedented. Later on today, Secretary Noem is having a press conference on our southern border, the most secure border in the history of this nation because of the leadership of President Trump and the men and women over there wearing green uniform. Most secure border in the history of this country, which means less children are dying making that journey, less women and children are being sex trafficked, less fentanyl getting in this country to kill our young people, less known suspected terrorists being released in this country. The most secure border in a lifetime gives us the strongest national security we've seen. You can't have strong national security without strong border security. I wish I could be at that press conference, but the president has called me here. I just had a small part in it. Reason we have the most secure border is because of President Trump's leadership and the men and women wearing the green uniform, which I once wore. I just reported. I was down there with Commissioner Scott, CBP Commissioner Scott two weeks ago. We went through that border on boat, forward drive, and in the air. We toured the border in California, Texas, and Arizona, and I did not see one illegal alien. Think about that. The last nine months, no one's been released from that border, the most secure border in the history of this nation. So God bless the men and women of Border Patrol. God bless President Trump for his leadership. And God bless the United States of America. I'll take questions.

Right here. Go ahead.

You said that you're getting unprecedented cooperation. Where is that coming from? Is it coming from the sheriffs? Have you signed agreements with them? Are Hennepin and Ramsey County part of that? And the 700 officers leaving Minnesota, are they Customs and Border Patrol or ICE or-- There's a mix, but that number is based on, number one, the cooperation. Again, rather than having whole teams out looking for criminal aliens just released, now we have one agent at that jail picking that person up. That, and the operation has been successful, and there are a number of arrests. So the target list is reducing. So with the efficiencies of the jails, with the efficiencies of the prison system working with us, and the target list decreasing, we had a whole team looking at what makes sense, without risking officer safety and the security teams. And that number is 700. Look, we want to get back to the original footprint, the Minnesota footprint of what ICE officers looked like before this operation, plus the additional hires through the Big, Beautiful Bill. A lot of these people, they've got agents here from LA, New York, and Portland. There's problems there, too. So we want to get people back to their home stations and enforce immigration laws in those areas. But the vast majority of sheriffs, there's only a few that we're still in consultation with. But this is unprecedented cooperation. So again, I want to thank the sheriffs, the governor, and the AG. I think we're in a lot better place than we've ever been in. We've never had this kind of cooperation at this level. And I'm not leaving until we get it all done. But I'm happy to say I'm extremely pleased with the leadership team and their outreach to the sheriffs, to the state, to the chiefs. I've talked to many of them. I didn't talk to all of them. But I plan on talking to every one of them before I leave and thanking them for their cooperation.

Are you getting cooperation from Hennepin and Ramsey?

No, no more callouts. Right here, go ahead.

Oh.

With everything that you've mentioned here right now, do you think this operation was a success here in Minnesota? Yeah. I think-- I just listed a bunch of people we took off the streets of Twin Cities. So I think it was very effective as far as public safety goes. Was it a perfect operation? No. No. And I just told you, we created one unified chain of command. Make sure everybody's on the same page. Make sure we're de-conflicting targets, and making sure we follow the rules. And I'm not saying anybody-- I don't think anybody purposely didn't do something they should have done. I'm saying that I brought a different set of eyes on this. I've done this for a long time. We made this operation more streamlined. And we established a unified chain of command. So everybody knows what everybody is doing. And not that it wasn't currently before, but we improved upon that. So in targeted enforcement operations, we go out there. There needs to be a plan, and want to make sure everybody has a plan. But I'm not going to sit here and point fingers at anybody that they failed. This was a great operation. We took a lot of public safety threats off the street.

Right. Right here.

Can I ask a quick, numerical just clarification and then get to my main question, please? So 700 leaving effective immediately. How many will that leave here once that group is out? Right around 2,000.

And what is the pre-operation footprint? Well, that's 150. 150? 150.

150 is normal. But we got to remember now that we got special agents on detail here doing the fraud investigation. They're not going anywhere. They're going to finish their job. I'm talking about immigration enforcement efforts.

Understood. So then my main question is just we've talked to people who say they're protesting not the arrests of people with criminal backgrounds, but things like fraud, ICE patrols, random citizenship checks of people of color and the detainment, but no charges of US citizens. So have you committed or will you commit to officers on the ground here ceasing those actions? What I have made clear, we're doing targeted enforcement operation. When we leave this building, we know who we're looking for, where we're most likely to find them, what their immigration record is, what their criminal record is. But as we continue to be forced into the communities, when we go to arrest that criminal target, if we find an illegal alien there, they're coming. We're not going to turn a blind eye to illegal immigration. That's why this partnership and this coordination is so important. We'd much rather work in the safety and security of jail. Look, I go to bed every night wondering if every one of our officers go home safely. I also am concerned that every person we're looking for is taken into custody safely. The best way to do that is to have a targeted enforcement operation, well-planned operation. That's the way we've done it for decades. So--

So should we expect to see no more of that? Pardon me?

Should we expect to see no more of those citizenship checks? I have directed targeted enforcement operations. And we'll hold our officers to the highest standards. These are professionals. Again, these-- I wish every one of you would put that gun on your hip, put that Kevlar vest on, go out there, and put up with what they put up with. Considering the hate, the rhetoric, the attacks, I think they performed remarkably, and I'm proud of them. We came here. President Trump sent me here. I didn't ask to come here. President Trump sent me here to help deescalate what was going on. We're not surrendering our mission. We're not walking away from our mission. We're just making this more effective and more smart. This is smart law enforcement. Smart law enforcement makes us safer.

Right here.

Realistically, how much work is there left to do here? And with this unprecedented cooperation, how long could this take, best case scenario, in your eyes, to get the job done? Look, I said it. We want to get out. We want to get back to the normal operational footprint here. But that depends on the people out there putting up illegal roadblocks. That depends on people that want to intimidate and interfere and put hands on ICE officers. Tone down the rhetoric. Stop violating the law and impeding or interfering with us, and the drawdown will be quicker. I still got more discussions to have with some local law enforcement officers, looking for their cooperation. The more cooperation we get, the less rhetoric and hate we see. And the less attacks means we can draw down even more quicker. So a lot of this has to do with assistance from the community. We want to get these men and women home. They got a job to do at home. And I think we've come a long ways. I'm actually-- yesterday afternoon, I was sitting with my chief of staff. I'm actually amazed at the cooperation and agreements we already talked about and the willingness to work with us. We're doing better than ever thought we would. Seriously. And I'm excited about getting back to the business of enforcing immigration law without this-- without arresting people for 111, for interference and impeding. We just want to do what we've done for 30 years, 40-- I've done this for 40 years. We want to get back to doing the job. And that's what we're planning on doing. And I want to keep this-- because I keep hearing it and hearing it and hearing it. We're not surrendering the president's mission on a mass deportation operation. If you're in the country illegally, if we find you, we'll deport you. But this is about targeted enforcement operation, and that's what we're going to be doing.

Last question. Go ahead.

You've been talking about these filter blockades. People, just regular people, protesters are checking IDs. They're running people's plates, and they're not letting people who they think are ICE agents through. But we've seen Minneapolis Police Department roll by and ask these protesters, are they doing OK? And they let these things stay up for extended periods of time. What do you make of MPD's lack of action on this matter? When I was away to where the roadblocks [INAUDIBLE], I called the chief of police, and he went and disbanded them after I got off the phone with him. He has promised to take enforcement actions. It's illegal. You can't do that. And again, a message to those folks-- what are you doing? Do you really think you can stop ICE and CBP from doing their job? It's a joke. Only people you're hurting is your own community, who wants to go and get groceries, pick up the dry cleaning, or go to work, whatever. You're just hindering them. Stop. Stop.

All right.

I just want a quick clarification on the body cameras.

[INAUDIBLE], guys. Thank you.

Just a clarification--

Could you just talk about the targeted list? How big is that list?

All right. You've been listening to the border czar for President Trump, Tom Homan, who, as we all know now, was sent to Minneapolis, Minnesota, to take control of operations there in that state after the shootings of two American citizens over the last-- Fatal shootings, yeah. --couple of weeks, the fatal shootings of two American citizens, Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti. The border czar there saying that border agents and ICE officials are going to be engaged in targeted operations. Wasn't exactly clear what that would look like. But that's some 700 members of both the CBP and ICE have been removed or have rotated out of Minneapolis, as he takes control. He was also asked by our Omar Villafranca, I think, an important question about whether or not over the course of the time that ICE has been operating in Minneapolis and before he got there, if this was a perfect operation. If it was a success. A success. Yes. And he believed that it was. He said, oh, I'm going to list through again the number of people that we've been able to remove from the streets. But he also pointed out that, no, it was not perfect--

Yeah, he used--

--but that he wasn't going to point fingers.

He used the word, it's been "effective." And he mentioned a lot of security threats have been taken off the street. And he also called it a great operation. But like you said, Vlad, he said it was not perfect. He also talked about how they're centralizing the chain of command. It looks like the org chart is getting skinnier there on the ground in Minneapolis, because he wants to make sure that all agents are on the same page, and it's not as chaotic.

I thought that was really interesting. And the reason I found it so is this morning, this very morning, there was a front page article in The Wall Street Journalabout Stephen Miller. And the story leads with the aftermath of the shooting of Alex Pretti, where before anything had been done, before any investigation had begun, when he was contacted by ICE, Stephen Miller, he immediately came up with the narrative that Alex Pretti was a terrorist, to use that language that he used. And I think that's what Homan is talking about. There was Kristi Noem. There's Stephen Miller. There was Mr. Homan. And now I think the president realized that it had gotten out of control. You needed one person, one person that he could rely on, that he believes-- the president-- is solid. Remember, he said in that interview, before Tom Homan arrived there, that Tom is tough, but he's fair. Those are the president's words. And I think you're seeing that now when he describes that there's a unified chain of command, which means, to my understanding, that he is the guy in charge. Ultimately, the buck stops with him.

Let's bring in CBS News national security contributor Sam Vinograd, who has experience in this space. Sam, what stood out to you from Mr. Homan's speech? Well, certainly, Mr. Homan's comments that ICE will be returning to targeted enforcement operations, that is a shift from what they have been doing over the last several months. Typically, ICE engages in putting together actual targeting packages for specific individuals prior to making an arrest. In Minneapolis and other places around the country, instead, they've been doing more at-large sweeps in civilian neighborhoods, which has led to a host of problems. And in addition, Adriana, Tom Homan focused extensively on cooperation with state and local law enforcement. As a decades-long veteran in the space, he knows how important that is. Those relationships have soured. State and local law enforcement has not been supportive of ICE's approach. And that means that ICE has been missing out on localized information, localized engagement with the community, and more. So trying to restore those partnerships will be tough, but it is critical.

Sam, also talk to us a bit about how centralizing the chain of command looks like, what that looks like on the ground.

Well, it's not just on the ground, Adriana. I think it's the person on the ground, as well as the person back in DC that's making the policy calls, the operational calls, and what specifically ICE and CBP officers that are assisting with law enforcement should be doing. Having one person both in DC and one person on the ground, who is deciding what posture ICE should be taking-- should they be doing these at-large sweeps? Should they instead be putting together carefully crafted targeting packages prior to making arrests? Should they be prioritizing high-risk individuals or just looking for any individual who is here illegally? Just having one person in charge making those decisions can have more streamlined communications, can have more effective operations, and can mitigate the risk of unintended consequences. I think Tom Homan is a good person to do that. He has so much experience in this space and is credible when it comes to decision-making and communications on these matters.

So Sam, to your understanding then-- and I keep honing back to what Homan said about unified chain of command, which you just described-- is part of what we saw earlier, or last month, because there was a very fragmented chain of command? You had Kristi Noem. You had, again, front page of The Wall Street Journal talks about Stephen Miller and how ICE officials were reaching out to him in the wake of those killings for a narrative, and that he was providing it without seemingly having checked with anybody, including the president of the United States. And that is what led to this sort of fragmented operation, where we saw children, like little Liam Ramos, five years old, taken into custody, and others who were stopped simply because they had an accent or because they were filming ICE agents.

Well, I think it's not just about a unified chain of command. It's an empowered chain of command. What I mean by that is you can have one person on the ground, whether it's Tom Homan or someone else, who is ostensibly in charge. The question is, who is actually calling the shots? And who is actually making the decisions and implementing the decisions about communications posture, about operations, about how and whether to charge individuals that are engaged in First Amendment-protected activity that launches into other things? So not just unified chain of command, but who is actually calling the shots? Is it someone in the West Wing of the White House, other than the president? Or is it the person on the ground who is engaging with state and local officials and who has the operational experience? And so I'm glad to hear that there's a unified chain of command. I think the jury's out on how empowered that command will be. And we hope that it will be, of course.

Sam, as we discussed that this is going to be more of a targeted operation there, Tom Homan said by the time these agents leave this building, they know who they're going after. They know where they're going to be. You mentioned that there's going to be more targeted packages. What does that mean exactly?

Well, sorry to use jargon, but what I mean is, typically, before an arrest is made, officers and agents know specifically who they're going out for. They've thought carefully about how to make the arrest in a manner that mitigates unintended consequences. And they very carefully engage in that operation, that arrest operation, often with the cooperation of state and local law enforcement. So they have a profile of the individual. They have an operational plan. And they often do it in coordination with state and local law enforcement. That is different than going into a densely-populated civilian area and really just doing patrols and looking for people that look like, according to the officers or agents, they may be here illegally. That's a big difference.

And we know that local police officers, when they haven't been on duty, have even been approached by ICE agents and asked--

Right. That's a good point. --to prove their citizenship. I mean-- That raises an interesting question, too, Sam, which is, how-- there wasn't anything really said in this press conference about how federal officials will be interacting with local police. And we've seen that. And it seems so rare to me, Sam. Just, have you ever experienced something like this where you see federal agents, federal law enforcement, not looping in local law enforcement, not working with them to ensure public safety? It seems everybody, from the chief of police to other sheriffs and police chiefs across Minnesota, have spoken to the press about how they're being kept in the dark about almost everything that's happening. Vlad, there are a lot of cases where the, quote unquote, "feds" engage in an operation without telling state and local law enforcement for a variety of reasons, including operational security. But in my experience, when it comes to immigration enforcement, that cooperation with state and locals is really critical. And that's why federal officials, including the Department of Homeland Security, actually have people whose job it is just to coordinate with state and local officials. Because those state and locals, again, they have their own information. They have their own intelligence. They have their own relationships in the community. So when you're about to go and make an arrest, the state and locals know the environment so much better than federal officials ever will. So I think it's really important that Tom Homan focused on the restoration of those relationships. But I have to tell you, that's going to take time and a lot of dedicated effort.

All right, Sam, thank you so much for your insights.

Always brilliant insight and analysis from Sam. Thank you very much, Sam. We'll-- Thanks. --talk to you soon.