Minnesota asks courts to curtail immigration blitz after 2 shootings, as Trump sends his border czar

Breaking shoot down see videos appearing to present Alex Pretti’s fateful shooting

President Donald Trump said on social media on Monday that he is sending border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota, two days after a second U.S. Citizen was shot and killed by officers working for the federal government in its immigration operations in the state.

Trump posted on social media that Homan will report directly to him.

The president's statement comes after Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino led contentious news conferences over the weekend about the fatal shooting on Saturday of Alex Pretti.

Both officials defended the actions of Border Patrol agents almost immediately, instead of waiting for an investigation to play out.

Videos of the scene reviewed by The Associated Press appear to contradict statements by the Trump administration that the shots were fired "defensively" against Pretti as he "approached" them with a gun. While Pretti was armed, he was licensed to carry a concealed weapon, and may have been properly following state laws on carrying weapons.

Pretti appears to be seen with only a phone in his hand in the videos of the moments before his killing.

It's not clear what Homan's responsibilities will be. He's been criticized by Democrats in Congress for his outspoken defence of Trump's hardline immigration policies and deportation efforts, and for taking $50,000 US in cash last year in an undercover FBI operation, an incident the Trump administration has said was not a criminal matter.

He was acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Trump's first term. Before returning to the federal government in this term, Homan was a consultant for a company that invests in private prisons.

Trump, in an interview published with the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, signalled a willingness to eventually withdraw immigration enforcement ⁠officials from the Minneapolis ‍area, the paper reported.

"At some ​point we will leave. We've done, they've done a phenomenal job," Trump told the ⁠Journal but did not offer a time frame for when agents might ‍depart.

In two lengthy social media posts, the Republican president said that Democrats had encouraged people to obstruct law enforcement operations. He also called on officials in Minnesota to work with immigration officers and "turn over" people who were in the U.S. Illegally.

Meanwhile, a federal judge will hear arguments on Monday on whether she should at least temporarily halt the immigration crackdown in Minnesota.

The state of Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul sued the Department of Homeland Security earlier this month, five days after Renee Good was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs officer on Jan. 7.

Since the original court filing, the state and cities have substantially added to their original request in an effort to restore the order that existed before the Trump administration launched Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota on Dec. 1.

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The lawsuit asks U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez to order a reduction in the number of federal law enforcement officers and agents in Minnesota back to the level before the surge and to limit the scope of the enforcement operation.

Justice Department attorneys have called the lawsuit "legally frivolous" and said "Minnesota wants a veto over federal law enforcement." They asked the judge to reject the request or to at least stay her order pending an anticipated appeal.

Attorneys general from 19 states plus the District of Columbia, led by California, filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Minnesota.

"If left unchecked, the federal government will no doubt be emboldened to continue its unlawful conduct in Minnesota and to repeat it elsewhere," the attorneys general wrote.

It is unclear when the judge might rule.

Menendez ruled in a separate case on Jan. 16 that federal officers in Minnesota can't detain or tear gas peaceful protesters who aren't obstructing authorities, including people who follow and observe agents.

An appeals court temporarily suspended that ruling three days before Saturday's shooting. But the plaintiffs in that case, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, asked the appeals court late on Saturday for an emergency order lifting the stay in light of Pretti's killing.

The Justice Department argued in a reply filed on Sunday that the stay should remain in place, calling the injunction unworkable and overly broad.

In yet another case, a different federal judge, Eric Tostrud, issued an order late Saturday blocking the Trump administration from "destroying or altering evidence" related to the Pretti shooting.

A hearing in that case is scheduled for Monday afternoon in federal court in St. Paul, Minn.

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Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has said the move was necessary after the Justice Department in D.C. declined to further investigate the Good shooting. The department later said it was investigating Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey over whether they were impeding federal immigration efforts.

The unrest, largely in Minneapolis-St. Paul, could have political ramifications that affect Americans outside of the state. Democratic anger over the tactics of the immigration blitz have led many of the party's senators to oppose a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security, a stand that increases the prospect of a partial government shutdown by the end of the week.

Six of the 12 annual spending bills for the current budget year have been signed into law by the president. Six more are awaiting action in the Senate, and if senators fail to act by midnight Friday, funding for Homeland Security and the other agencies covered under the six bills will lapse.

Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada accused Noem of attempting to "mislead the American public" and said she "must be impeached and removed from office immediately."

Impeachment proceedings are highly unlikely in the Republican-controlled Congress, though several Republicans have called for a deeper investigation into federal immigration tactics in Minnesota.

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