Homan Nukes ‘ICE Retreat’ Narrative With 700-Agent Drawdown Announcement

White House Border Czar Tom Homan – the man President Trump has tasked with deescalating things in Minneapolis – held a press conference Wednesday morning and announced an immediate "drawdown" in the number of federal law enforcement personnel deployed to the sanctuary city.

According to Homan, 700 agents will be leaving Minneapolis "effective immediately." The move, he said, is far from being a "surrender" by the Trump administration on deportation efforts, but is instead the result of "unprecedented cooperation" between federal agencies and local officials. Specifically, Homan pointed to the increasingly open dialogues with the offices of Mayor Jacob Frey (D), Governor Tim Walz (D), and the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD).

Tom Homan: "I have announced effective immediately, we will draw down 700 people effective today. 700 law enforcement personnel." pic.twitter.com/Vbylc3iIBd
— CSPAN (@cspan) February 4, 2026

The reason so many agents – which will be a mix of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) personnel – can now be deployed to other areas is apparently solely down to the cooperation coming from local officials. “More officers taking custody of criminal aliens directly from the jails, means less officers on the street doing criminal operations,” Homan said. “This is smart law enforcement, not less law enforcement.”

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In other words, because local law enforcement will now alert the feds when they have an illegal in custody, only one agent will be needed to go the jail and detain that person. Previously, local police were releasing the illegals back into the community, which then required full squads of federal officers to deploy in order to apprehend the suspect and fight off the anti-ICE radicals trying to impede the arrest.

Homan made sure to point out that federal agents remaining on the ground in Minneapolis will be chiefly targeting illegals with criminal records, but that doesn't mean those without records can breathe easy. "If you are in the country illegally, if we find you, we'll deport you," he said.

.@RealTomHoman in Minnesota: "I keep hearing it and hearing it and hearing it — we are NOT surrendering the President's mission on a mass deportation operation. If you are in the country illegally, if we find you, we'll deport you." pic.twitter.com/zG2sfFgUsz
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 4, 2026

Homan also had a message for the hard-left anti-ICE agitators putting up makeshift roadblocks around the city and stopping traffic to check IDs and license plate numbers: knock it off.

.@RealTomHoman on the lunatics creating roadblocks in Minneapolis: "A message to those folks: What are you doing? You really think you're going to stop ICE and CBP from doing their job? It's a joke. The only people you're hurting is your own community." pic.twitter.com/vpFvyYeaYl
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 4, 2026

With the removal of the 700 personnel from ICE and CBP, around 2,300 federal agents will remain in Minneapolis as part of Operation Metro Surge. Homan said the goal is to return to the original deportation "footprint" in the city, which requires roughly 150 agents to remain on the ground. The key to that happening is the continuing cooperation from city and state officials.

“My goal is, with the support of President Trump, to achieve a complete drawdown and end the surge as soon as we can,” Homan said. “A complete drawdown is going to depend on continued cooperation from state and local law enforcement and the decrease of the violence, the rhetoric and the attacks” against federal law enforcement officers.

Editor’s Note: Democrat politicians and their radical supporters will do everything they can to interfere with and threaten ICE agents enforcing our immigration laws.

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