The Trump administration is shaking up the leadership of its immigration crackdown in Minneapolis by pulling its director of on-the-ground enforcement, according to two US officials, as federal agents face growing criticism for their heavy-handed tactics in the city.
The expected departure of Gregory Bovino follows outrage over the killing of Alex Pretti, who was shot and killed by federal agents at a protest against the administration’s immigration crackdown over the weekend. President Donald Trump said on Monday that he was sending Tom Homan, his border czar, to oversee Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Minnesota. Trump said Homan would report directly to him.
Trump also met with Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, and Corey Lewandowski, her top aide, in the Oval Office for more than two hours on Monday evening, according to two people briefed on the meeting.
Judge calls ICE head
In a remarkable display of frustration, the chief federal judge in Minnesota ordered the head of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to appear in court on Friday to explain why he should not be held in contempt for violating court orders arising from the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown in the state.
In a brief ruling issued late on Monday, the judge, Patrick J. Schiltz, of Federal District Court in Minnesota, said he recognised that ordering ICE’s acting director, Todd Lyons, to personally defend himself in court was “an extraordinary step”. But Judge Schiltz, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, said it was necessary because “the extent of ICE’s violation of court orders is likewise extraordinary”.
US govt sued
Family members of two men killed in a US missile strike against a suspected drug boat near Venezuela filed a wrongful death lawsuit on Tuesday, alleging the pair were murdered in a “manifestly unlawful” military campaign targeting civilian vessels.
Civil rights lawyers filed the lawsuit in Boston’s federal court, marking the first court challenge to one of the 36 US missile strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean authorised by Trump’s administration that have killed more than 120 people since September.