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Border Czar: Minnesota Enforcement Surge is Ending; Investigators Reveal New Possible Leads in Nancy Guthrie Case; Commercial Dog Food Contains High Levels of Contaminants. Aired 2:30- 3p ET

Aired February 12, 2026 - 14:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[14:30:00]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: After months of protests, today a dramatic shift in strategy for immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis. Border Czar Tom Homan announcing the surge of officers there is now coming to an end.

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TOM HOMAN, BORDER CZAR: There were some issues here and we addressed those issues, but I'm not going to sit here and say anybody did anything wrong and that, you know, they were, you know, unprofessional. I'm going to say there's some issues here, we fixed those issues, we've had great success with this operation, and we're leaving Minnesota safer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Joining us now is the former acting ICE director under President Obama, John Sandweg. John, great to see you as always. How do you see the situation now after this drawdown in Minnesota?

Is it safer as the border czar says?

JOHN SANDWEG, FORMER ICE ACTING DIRECTOR UNDER PRESIDENT OBAMA: You know, Boris, it might be. There might there were some good arrests along the way, but I have to tell you when you ask yourself, was this worth it? It's hard to say this was worth it. If you think about the cost that this cost the United States, A, you had a diminishment in public confidence and trust in ICE as an organization. That's going to haunt it, you know, for years to come across the country.

A breakdown in the relationship with state and local law enforcement partners, the death of two U.S. citizens, countless assaults on ICE agents. When you add it all up and you look at it, this could have been done a different way. All the goals could have been accomplished if we had just stuck to that targeted, prioritized enforcement approach that ICE had utilized.

If we just sat down with our state and local partners, rather than engaging in this political rhetoric, none of this -- nothing about this surge was absolutely necessary to achieve the goals. And we all paid a pretty steep price for that chaos we saw in Minneapolis. SANCHEZ: It's notable that there was a stark difference once Bovino left, right? And Homan came in. How do you think Greg Bovino shaped the operations there?

Is it just a matter of who is leading the operation ultimately?

SANDWEG: Yes, no, clearly, Boris, there's some there's tension. I mean, it's hard for me. I've known Tom for a long time.

I watched all those press conferences. Clearly, there's frustration with the how, right? I think there are two questions is who are we going after?

Tom is on the same page there. We want to go after everybody. He wants to prioritize it.

The how is where the disagreements were. Listen, when you bring up, though, Boris, a couple of things quickly. You bring up a Border Patrol chief, and you put a Border Patrol chief in charge of an operation in an urban environment.

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The Border Patrol culture is different. They have more of a zero tolerance kind of approach where there is no prioritization. ICE traditionally relies on these targeted approaches where you go out, you prioritize the worst of the worst, and you go out and get them first.

Everything that Tom Homan has been saying. So there has been a clear divide between Tom's approach. I don't think he's been shy or frankly, I think thinly veiled criticism of how things were being done.

I've heard him say that we're going to do it smarter, right? He said we addressed issues today. We're doing things targeted.

But yes, believe it or not, a big difference there is who's in charge of this operation and which tactics we're going to utilize to effectuate these goals.

SANCHEZ: Homan from the beginning said that one of his immediate goals was to repair and work on the relationship between state and local leaders and the federal government. And in ending or winding down this operation, he said that Minnesota is now less of a sanctuary state for criminals. I wonder how you go about qualifying that.

What tells us that it actually is?

SANDWEG: It's hard to say, Boris, right? I mean, traditionally, the administration would define a sanctuary state as anybody who puts restriction on ICE access to jails. It's not clear whether or not ICE has full access to those jails.

What is clear, though, what I heard today was that a compromise has been made, that the state, that a lot of these county jails will try to give ICE a heads up before they release more serious criminal aliens. But Boris, I'll tell you, that is the kind of compromise that is worked out by ICE agents, by professional law enforcement in the field every day. The sanctuary city problem is nothing new.

It was something that we dealt with during my time at ICE and DHS. And traditionally, the way you handle it is the professional law enforcement, the senior ICE agents get together with the police chief. And while the politicians may argue about whether it's good policy or not, the law enforcement folks work together and make a deal.

Frankly, to give Tom a lot of credit here, he came in like a professional law enforcement. He sat down with his counterparts. He didn't publicly lambast them.

He worked out a compromise that works, you know, allows us to get the most serious criminals, but allows the state to also maintain the integrity of their jails or, you know, avoid some of the chilling effects that cooperation with ICE can have. So I will tell you, at the end of the day, I think we ended up in a good place, Boris. The question is, why did we pay that big price to get there?

SANCHEZ: John Sandweg, thank you so much for sharing your perspective.

SANDWEG: My pleasure.

SANCHEZ: Of course.

This just into CNN. Law enforcement says they found new evidence connected to the abduction of Nancy Guthrie, including gloves. We have details right after this.

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: We have some new developments in the Nancy Guthrie investigation. We are learning that at least one of the leads in the Guthrie case involves a white van. This is according to law enforcement officials who have knowledge of the case.

Those same officials, though, caution, this is one of many unconfirmed tips and authorities are still working their way through all of those tips. But this update is coming as residents in the area are also looking at the request of law enforcement through their doorbell camera videos. They're looking for two specific dates and time periods.

One is three weeks before Nancy Guthrie disappeared. One is the day before she went missing.

Joining us now to talk more about this is Jeffrey Halstead. He's the former chief of the Fort Worth police department and a spokesman for Genesis, an emergency management and law enforcement organization. Jeffrey, thanks for being with us.

First off, let's talk a little bit about this van, because I think that is something that people can definitely zero in on. Talk about that and also the difficulty of the fact that this is unconfirmed. And so you don't necessarily want people only focusing on this one thing. JEFFREY HALSTEAD, FORMER FORT WORTH POLICE CHIEF: Yes, that's true. They're going to have specific avenues of leads that are going to generate this type of intelligence that benefits the investigators and all of the supporting law enforcement agencies. With that said, even though it's unconfirmed, it is a strong lead, and it gives a good public tip of looking out the vehicle, the specific make and or model.

When they go back in time, it looks like they're getting a really good narrowing of exactly what was happening at what time and what they need to look for. So this is great progress.

KEILAR: Now, talk to us a little bit about this video request of neighbors. They are relying on neighbors to look at their home surveillance footage, anything that includes cars, traffic, people or pedestrians and anything they feel may be out of the ordinary. Is that the right way to do this, to be relying on the neighbors rather than grabbing that video themselves and going through it?

HALSTEAD: I think this is going to be a personnel staffing issue, meaning if you had to go to every single residence within a one to two mile radius, you still have enough personnel. If you consider the volume of calls coming in, tips, leads, surveillance and potential exclusion of persons of interest, it would be much better for people that have their own passwords, accessibility to the video, to flag law enforcement, let them know if they found something that is suspicious. But this is common and this is the right thing to do to get these neighbors involved and having them help law enforcement.

KEILAR: Where do you see this investigation right now as you know, they have found glove evidence potentially, right? They're not for sure that that is the glove they are looking for. They have this tip unconfirmed about a van.

They have these very good images of someone from Nancy Guthrie's front porch and that could just be so instrumental. Where do you see this investigation right now with all of that in mind?

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HALSTEAD: Well, you're right. The FBI has done a great job of getting what is very challenging data, and evidentiary videos and pictures. That doorbell camera and those images and those videos are going to be instrumental. getting what is very challenging data, and evidentiary videos and pictures.

Now you add to this, even though it's unconfirmed, the possibility to have a vehicle and or a description of a vehicle is very, very powerful. When you add the other residents, going through their videos and pictures and images, you're probably getting within hours, if not just a few more days of extremely valuable leads that's going to get a person of interest, possible suspect and maybe some closure for this family.

KEILAR: Yes, and at this point, right, $50,000 reward, I believe. There must be a lot of people who are looking at that money. If they have any inkling of what's happened here and they're thinking about what information they might share to benefit from that. How concerned should the perpetrator or perpetrators be at this point in time that they really have being found kind of breathing down their neck?

HALSTEAD: I imagine these suspects are watching round the clock coverage intently and it's something to note and I'm not revealing any secrets. Many times the strategic release of evidentiary videos, pictures or images or possible vehicles, someone may be on surveillance right now with a potential lead or a person of interest and then we do these strategic releases so we can see the behavioral changes of a person of interest. If it turns more suspicious and elevates our concern, we might have a hot lead right there.

But the reward, Arizona has outstanding anonymous reward that have been around for decades. So that is a very, very powerful instrument to get the public talking, especially people within the criminal system.

KEILAR: Yes, it's a very good point. Jeffrey Halstead, thank you so much for your insights.

Still ahead, a warning for all dog owners, new research claims there could be dangerous compounds in your pup's food. We're talking about all of that with the vet next.

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SANCHEZ: Not going to lie, this story has me a little bit worried. There's a new report suggesting that commercial dog food could be dangerous for your pup's health.

KEILAR: Yes, a non-profit called the Clean Label Project examined samples of popular dog foods and found alarming levels of heavy metals, plastic contaminants and cancer-causing compounds. Dry dog food contained the highest levels while fresh and frozen foods had the lowest. The investigation didn't release names or specific brands or products -- which would have been nice, right?

But let's talk about this with board certified veterinary surgeon, Dr. Courtney Campbell. Dr. Campbell, this is so alarming. Talk to us about how bad this could be and what we do with this information considering we don't know the brands here.

DR. COURTNEY CAMPBELL, BOARD CERTIFIED VETERINARY SURGEON: Yes, you don't know the brands. First and foremost, thank you so much for having me on. This is a key topic that I think obviously ignites passions, not only my personal passions, but all across the globe, all across the nation, because pet parents or dog owners, they know that they're species different family members.

The single most important thing they can do is what they put in the bowl. So this particular study identified that certain dry foods can contain higher levels of lead, mercury and other plastic associated compounds. And yes, that is scary.

And so what I think this is a signal, this is a canary in the coal mine that essentially says we need greater transparency. We need to investigate more, and we need to essentially uncover anything that we can find in that dry food that could be concerning.

SANCHEZ: In the meantime, doctor, what options do dog owners have?

CAMPBELL: Now, what's interesting about this particular study is that they found lower levels of those compounds in fresh foods and wet foods. But I always ask people to pause right there because you're technically not comparing apples to apples or apples to oranges rather. What we found is that these fresh foods or wet foods, they have a higher amount of water.

And therefore if you're comparing gram for gram, then essentially, you're not seeing these high levels. Now, even with that, even despite comparing gram for gram, we still in those particular brands found higher levels of those potentially harmful compounds. But here's what I would tell pet parents and dog owners and dog lovers all around.

Number one, don't panic. We can't necessarily make the leap yet that these harmful products end up causing or are correlated to higher levels of cancer or illness. But number two, we can always check to see if there are recalls with the FDA or with the ABMA.

Number three, talk to your vet just like you would talk to your pediatrician or your doctor about your pet. And number four, if fresh foods is an option for you, then I would certainly consider. And the last thing I will say is this, is that, let me be really clear, dry foods or kibble foods have helped enrich the human animal bond and have helped families enjoy dogs and their company for so many decades.

And so certainly I don't want to vilify kibble, but what I will say is this is an alarm. This is a signal that we just need to pay attention and be a little bit more transparent about what's in the food.

KEILAR: Does there need to be a change in the industry?

CAMPBELL: I absolutely think that overall, we need to know what's in the ingredients, right? Because I, on behalf of pets every day, as a surgeon, as a veterinarian, I hear every day just how passionate pet owners are and pet parents are about what they put in the food bowl every day.

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And so if we have greater transparency, greater research, greater attention being paid to these ingredients, that's going to be key.

Let me make a very simple comparison. Even in baby food, in certain apple sauces, we saw alarm signals that said, hey listen, there's been some recalls with baby food and some of these baby pouches, food pouches. And I feel like the pet food industry is going through, I don't necessarily want to say similar growing pains, but at least a similar level of awareness, a similar level of transparency, and a similar level of research.

In my opinion, I look at this as a good thing that it was caught, a good thing that it was revealed, a good thing that we are going to pay a lot more attention versus, you know, not knowing. I think that is potentially much more harmful than at least having the knowledge on the table.

SANCHEZ: Yes, good, reasoned thought process there to not go into alarm and also not go the other direction and give the dog whatever it wants. Harley my dog would eat just nothing but cheese.

KEILAR: That's not an option.

SANCHEZ: Yes. Dr. Courtney Campbell appreciate the expertise. Thanks for joining us.

CAMPBELL: Thank you so much. Chicken and rice is delicious, but there's more balanced diets out there. Thanks so much, guys.

SANCHEZ: He does love cheese.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts after a quick break.

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