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Border Czar Tries to Tamp Down Tensions in Minneapolis; Homan Says, ICE and CBP Working on a Drawdown Plan in Minneapolis; White House Border Czar Homan Calls for Hostile Rhetoric to Stop. Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired January 29, 2026 - 10:00   ET

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

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, breaking news, a new message to Minnesota.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM HOMAN, TRUMP BORDER CZAR: I am staying until the problem's gone. I didn't come to Minnesota for photo ops.

I came here to seek solutions, which a community's safety is paramount.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: We are live on the ground in Minneapolis with more from President Trump's border czar and his new plan of action.

Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Pamela Brown, Wolf Blitzer is off, and you are in The Situation Room.

And we begin with that breaking news. Overnight, more unrest in Minneapolis as President Trump dispatches his border czar there to take down the temperature. Just a short time ago, Tom Homan held the news conference to tamp down the nationwide anger over that fatal shooting of two protesters by federal agents.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOMAN: For decades, ICE and CBP have carried out their duties with integrity, professionalism and compassion. That remains the expectation under President Trump, and we will, I will hold our agents and officers to that standard.

I want to make it clear ICE and CBP officers are performing their duties in a challenging environment, under tremendous circumstances, but they're trying to do it with professionalism. If they don't, they'll be dealt with.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BROWN: Well, this morning, sources tell CNN that administration officials are considering new guidelines to de-escalate the tension, and Homan says his meetings with officials in Minnesota helped broker agreements that could lead to a reduction of federal forces in the state.

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HOMAN: Based on the discussions I've had with the governor and the A.G., we can start drawing down those resources as far as those looking for public safety cuts being released. And do it in the jail with much less people, with much less people. So, the draw down is going to happen based on these agreements, but the drawdown can happen even more if the hateful rhetoric can and the impediment interference will stop.

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BROWN: CNN's Sara Sidner is in Minneapolis. Sara, Homan is taking a markedly different tone here and a posture than what we've seen by previous leadership from the federal government in Minneapolis. What stands out to you the most?

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR AND SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. It could not be more different. A huge chasm in tone and tenor between the border czar, Tom Homan, and the commander who was on the ground and pushed out by President Trump, Greg Bovino.

What we heard from Tom Homan was pretty stark and pretty clear. He said that President Trump wants to fix this, and I am going to fix it. He says, we're not though surrendering the president's mission on immigration enforcement. It will continue, but the mission, as he put it, is going to improve.

So, you're hearing it admission here that things were not running the way in which he believed they should be and that there is going to be change. He said, no one is perfect, the president, I agree, quote, certain improvements should and could be made, and that is what I am doing here. We will conduct, he said, in that effort targeted enforcement. We're going to hit the streets. We'll know exactly who we are looking for, where we can find them and what their criminal history is. And, eventually, he admitted, I think we got away from it a little bit.

So, those are the lines that really stood out to me, as well as the fact that he is talking about a drawdown. He says, yes, there I said it. We are looking to draw down, but he said that there will be enforcement continuing here on the ground. He talked quite a bit about his officers and what they have been going through, trying to show them in a more human light. Meantime, the protesters are on the street are saying you are here because your officers, your agents killed two American citizens, both in different circumstances, one involving ICE and Renee Good, the other one involving Border Patrol and Alex Pretti, the latest to be killed in all of this. A third person was shot by federal agents in less than a month.

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And so, clearly, there is a move now and an admission that there has not been the right kind of action here the way that it has happened, but they are not going to stop it. They are just going to change it, pretty much go back to the way things would have happened before this enormous surge here in Minneapolis.

I want to go now to Shimon Prokupecz. He was inside of the room listening to all this and asking questions of the border czar. What did you learn, Shimon?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think the points you make, Sara, are so important. What's so sad in all of this, and, really, we cannot forget about the victims here, right, like you can't forget about Alex Pretti, you can't forget about Renee Good, you cannot forget about the people in the streets of Chicago, Illinois, California, Minneapolis, that have been living under this fear, the fear of a very aggressive interior operation, immigration operation, you know, perhaps unlike we have ever seen, where Border Patrol agents, uniformed law enforcement officials riding around the streets of this country, pulling over citizens, stopping citizens, asking them for identification, and it took the death of Alex Pretti for us to get here.

And that's what I wanted to ask. I wanted to ask Tom Homan, while, yes, it's great that this is being drawn down and you are hearing the concerns of the community, how did we get here? How is it that the decisions were made here that allowed for some of this aggressive behavior that many law enforcement officials across the country, leading law enforcement officials have said is unconstitutional? Here's my question to him.

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PROKUPECZ: It's Shimon Prokupecz from CNN. Mr. Homan, how did we get here in terms of, you had Greg Bovino, who was the face of this immigration operation, the mission, as you say, to having Border Patrol agents in the interior of this country stopping U.S. citizens, asking them for I.D., creating this fear in places like Chicago and now here? And then, finally, it took really the death of Alex Pretti for us to get here. How did that happen? Who made the decisions to allow this kind of operation to proceed in this way and to create such fear?

HOMAN: Well, look, the Border Patrol -- the last four years under Joe Biden, we had an open border where 10, 12,000 people a day are coming across the border. Border Patrol got overwhelmed, which means we sent thousands of ICE agents down there to help deal with that humanitarian crisis to help secure the border. Now, we have millions of people released in this nation, many unvetted. Now, we got to find them.

Before the big, beautiful bill, we had a total just under 5,000 deportation officers to look for millions of people, many in public safety threats. So, yes, we needed Border Patrol to come and help on our mission now. And the reason for the massive deployment is because of the threats, because of the violence. Our officers need to be protected. If I'm on the operation, on arrest team, I'm going to the house, I got to be busy with that guy, the dangerous guy, and I can't keep looking on my shoulder what's happening outside the house. So, we brought extra resources in to provide that security.

And as I said, as we drilled down on these great agreements we got, and this great understanding we have means less, so we can draw down those resources. When the violence decreases, we can draw down those resources. But based on the discussions I've had with the governor and the A.G., we can start drawing down those resources as far as those looking for public safety threats being released, and do it in the jail with much less people, much less people. So, the drawdown is going to happen based on these agreements. But the drawdown can happen even more if the hateful writer can in and the impediment interference will stop.

So, Border Patrol, I was a Border Patrol agent, these men and women are patriots. God bless them. They're here to help us. And the drawdown will come soon depending on when this actually -- I see this in play, with the agreements to have a long-term policy to have a significant drawdown. So, you're going to see a drawdown.

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PROKUPECZ: But the point in all of this, Sara, of course, is that there needs to be some accountability for how all of this took place. And while of course you know, some of these agents and officers that were served into these communities were there to go along with ICE officers and as part of the enforcement removal operations, but then it sort of grew much bigger. And, of course, we saw what Greg Bovino and his teams were doing across the interior of this country.

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The only thing I want to make a point is that the enforcement removal operations and what ICE has been doing across this country for years now is normal operations, normal work. And whether you agree with it or don't agree with it, that's not the issue. I mean, they normally do this kind of work very quietly and it seems what Tom Homan is saying that they're hoping that they could go back to doing them that way again.

SIDNER: Yes. He talked a lot about going back to the way in which operations were done before. This surge clearly, ultimately a failure because of the chaos that had created here. And now you're seeing the administration say, all right, we need to fix this, and Tom Homan is here, he says, to do just that.

Shimon Prokupecz, thank you for your reporting there, being inside the room and asking a really important question and getting an important answer from Tom Homan.

And back to you in the studio. You know, this has been such an unprecedented situation here with 3,000 federal agents in a medium- sized city that only has about 600 police officers. And so it has just been a very chaotic mesh of things happening here with people in the city saying, I don't care how you do it, but we want these ICE agents from this surge and these Border Patrol agents from this surge out of here as quickly as possible. We'll see what Tom Homan does when he talks about what this drawdown will look like.

BROWN: Right, and how quickly that will happen. And, you know, about ten years ago, Sara, I actually went on a ride along with ICE with Tom Homan in Chicago. And it was targeted. There were around five agents that I went out with. They were basing it on intelligence. We started at 3:00 in the morning, in the dark of night. And they were going after people who were here illegally with criminal records. And it was very targeted in that way.

And so I've been there. I've seen that. Tom Homan is a veteran at ICE and at dealing with DHS at large. So, it will be interesting to see the changes. And also he talked about, Sara, the deals he's sort of working out there with the local state officials, like with the A.G., and working with them on these detainers at the county jail. What more can you tell us about that?

SIDNER: Yes. It's interesting to note that he said himself, look, the state has been cooperating with federal agents, with immigration agents all this time. That's not different. The state has been using those detainers. And, basically, that means someone is brought in under a criminal charge. And if they decide to let that person go before they do that, if they are in the country without documents, they then contact ICE, and then ice takes custody if that person is going to be released from prison, for example, or jail pending a trial or another investigation.

When it comes to what happens here in the city of Minneapolis, it should be noted that it is the county who has the jails and runs the jails. The sheriff's department generally runs the jails. And now you're hearing from Homan that there has been some agreement with the county that they will do the same, something the state has been doing for a very long time, which begs the question, why are they going after the president, in particular going after the mayor, who doesn't have anything to do with what the county is doing in that jail and that cooperation? And the mayor says, look, we have cooperated in the past with ICE, but this is untenable and ICE needs to get out. And he believes this is really about retribution against him and other officials who have spoken out against Trump's crackdown and against Donald Trump himself, not about safety here. Pam?

BROWN: All right. Sara Sidner doing great work there on the ground in Minneapolis, along with Shimon Prokupecz, thank you so much.

And still ahead here in the situation room. Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro joins us in The Situation Room after visiting the Texas Detention Facility and meeting with a five-year-old boy taken by ICE with his father.

Plus, searching for alleged voter fraud in Georgia, the director of National Intelligence was on hand as the FBI sees 2020 election records. You're in The Situation Room.

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BROWN: And back to our top story this morning, a notable shift in tone by President Trump's border czar, Tom Homan. He was speaking to Minneapolis this morning after two U.S. citizens were shot and killed by federal agents just this past month.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOMAN: I don't want to see anybody die, even the people we're looking for. I don't want to see anybody die. And despite what people think of Tom Homan, I say a prayer every night that everybody goes home safe. This isn't good. What I think my conversations last two and a half days are leading us to a safer community.

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BROWN: I want to bring in CNN Law Enforcement Contributor Steve Moore. He is a retired FBI supervisory special agent. Good morning to you.

So, we heard a lot --

STEVE MOORE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CONTRIBUTOR: Good morning. How are you?

BROWN: -- from the president's border czar -- are I'm doing great -- from Tom Homan, who was dispatched there just in the last few days. And you heard him specifically emphasizing these targeted operations several times. Let's take a listen.

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HOMAN: Target enforcement operations, the way we've always done it, I think we got away from a little bit and we're going -- we want to make sure we do target enforcement operations. And, look, and I'll say it again, you know, we are not surrendering our mission at all.

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We're just doing it smarter.

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BROWN: So, as you look back over these past few weeks in Minneapolis and then you hear what Tom Homan had to say today in this news conference in the wake of the two deaths of U.S. citizens, what is your biggest takeaway?

MOORE: Well, I was kind of led to believe that we were doing targeted operations exclusively. So, apparently, they had gotten away from that. I think that was one of my big takeaways. The other one was the decision, they say, to avoid ICE agents becoming involved with agitators. And, again, I don't think that was ever their intent, but it was allowed to happen. And I think that's a large part of why we are where we are.

BROWN: Homan also acknowledged this operation of Minnesota has not been perfect. Let's listen to what he said on that.

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HOMAN: I do not want to hear that everything's been done here has been perfect. Nothing's ever perfect and anything can be improved on. And what we've been working on is making this operation safer, more efficient, by the book. The mission is going to improve because of the changes we're making internally.

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BROWN: So, Homan is saying that they're making this operation more efficient by the book. What does that look like to you? What would you like to see?

MOORE: You know, it's hard to say what he means by that. But, you know, in the targeted enforcement, and with Sara, or I believe one of your other people on the last segment said, they used to do this at like 3:00 in the morning, get up and go.

BROWN: Yes, that was me. I said that.

MOORE: Okay.

BROWN: Because I went with them. I went with them on that operation one day in Chicago on the targeted operations.

MOORE: Yes. And as you saw, you didn't see the sun out when you did that. In all of my years on FBI, SWAT, I don't think of a planned operation that started while the sun was out. And the reason is you want to get your job done, you want to have minimum interference and you want to go home. You don't want to stay out there and continue to just be a target. And I was a little bit confused as to why they were doing targeted operations all day.

And you know, the other thing, it's sometimes hard to get warrants for nighttime operations, but as you could see on your ride-along, it paid some dividends.

BROWN: Right. And just to be clear, when I did the ride-along with them, it did extend into the day as well. It was several hours. But in Minnesota, I mean, it's gone well beyond targeted operations that I experienced when I was with them. I mean, you're seeing -- you just saw these, you know, sweeps of agents from all these different agencies, including ICE and CBP, which is highly unusual to see. And now Homan says there's going to be this drawdown. What kind of a difference do you think that's going to make?

MOORE: You know, I think a lot of the agents came in to be kind of a buffer zone or crowd control for the agents who were doing their operations. And, you know, sweeps do not seem to be the wisest thing in the world when you're dealing with aggressive agitators in crowds. It causes more problems than it solves.

So, I think, you know, drawing down and getting to -- back to their basic thing -- I mean, people have been working with ICE. I mean, look, how long ago was your ride-along? It was several years ago.

BROWN: Ten years ago.

MOORE: Ten years ago. And this hasn't become a problem until recently with new tactics. What they have to do is go back to the tactics that worked.

BROWN: All right. Steve Moore, thanks for coming on and sharing your analysis. We appreciate it.

And coming up here in The Situation Room, we're going to speak to Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro after he visited a five-year-old boy and his father in a Texas ICE facility just yesterday. You might remember this little boy, Liam. We told you about him last week. That's coming up.

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BROWN: And new this morning, President Trump's border czar acknowledged that, quote, certain improvements could and should be made to the administration's immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota. Stories from the crackdown have captured the country's attention and the killings of two American citizens.

And, of course, you may remember this, this photo of five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos. He was taken away from his family's Minneapolis driveway after federal agents apprehended his father, Adrian. DHS, says Adrian is here illegally from Ecuador while the attorney insists he followed all the protocols for legally seeking asylum in the U.S. Liam and Adrian were flown to the ICE detention facility for families in Dilley, Texas.

Joining us now to discuss is Texas Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro. He actually just met with Liam and his father yesterday when he visited that facility.

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