Suddenly, Nothing New Out Of Minnesota
Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino is expected to leave Minneapolis on Tuesday, a White House official and another Trump administration official familiar with the decision told NBC News.
. . . Bovino will be returning to the border in El Centro, California, a senior White House official and an administration official told NBC News. The officials said he is losing his "commander" title and will return to his previous job as Border Patrol sector chief in El Centro. He will not continue overseeing Border Patrol agents making immigration arrests in interior U.S. cities, they said.
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin wrote on X that Bovino "has NOT been relieved of his duties," calling Bovino "a key part of the President's team and a great American."
Whatever the outcome of Homan's meeting with Walz, the result of yesterday's calls with Walz and Frey is a plan:
The plan calls for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and other Democratic leaders to turn over all criminal undocumented immigrants that are currently incarcerated in their prisons and jails to federal authorities. Those with active warrants or known criminal histories would be immediately deported, Leavitt said.
The plan also calls for state and local law enforcement to agree to turn over all undocumented immigrants who are arrested by local police and for local police to assist federal law enforcement in apprehending and detaining undocumented immigrants who are wanted for crimes, especially violent ones, she added.
“If Gov. Walz and Mayor Frey implement these commonsense cooperative measures,” she said, Customs and Border Patrol will not be needed to support ICE agents in Minnesota.
Trump also said Monday that his border "czar," Tom Homan, would travel to Minnesota this week and would take over as the main point of contact on the ground, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
The precise substance of the subsequent meetings among Homan, Walz, and Mayor Frey is unclear, but media across the spectrum are having a hard time figuring this all out. I think Don Surber has a view of the situation that meets my surmise, Tim Walz is Caving in on Trump:
In his negotiations, President Trump always carries a big stick. Sometimes the stick is a squad of B-2s loaded with bunker busters. Other times, it is 150 aircraft and special forces carrying a discombobulator that will send your troops home in oversized shoe boxes.
This time, the presidential stick is the Insurrection Act of 1807, signed into law by Thomas Jefferson, the guy who wrote the Declaration of Independence.
I've repeatedly referred to a business-school analysis of Trump's negotiating style that stresses he prefers to negotiate with opponents who have no options. The Insurrection Act can be triggered when, among other things, domestic violence hinders law enforcement to the point that people are deprived of constitutional rights, and state authorities cannot or will not protect them. Surber goes on,
Presidents have used this power 30 times. According to Grok, no court has ever successfully blocked or enjoined a president’s invocation of the Insurrection Act before or during its use.
. . . Early this morning, Sarah Fields tweeted with video, “Minnesota State Patrol has now been activated. They could have done this the whole time, but it wasn’t until after the call between Walz and Trump, and the discovery of the Signal groups involving Minnesota government officials, that this happened.”
. . . DC Draino tweeted, “I find it very interesting that Tim Walz called President Trump to work with him on ICE less than 24 hours after all the 5,000+ donors to the anti-ICE domestic terror network were indexed and exposed by Data Republican.”
It's worth pointing out that the agents who shot Alex Pretti were with Customs and Border Protection, not ICE. Greg Bovino was the informal head of CBP and had nothing to do with ICE; in any case, he no longer has that position. Surber continues,
Oh and President Trump will pull out Customs and Border Protection agents from supporting ICE on the ground in Minnesota because Tim Walz agreed to cooperate with ICE.
This appears to be the informal agreement that was reached in Walz's call to Trump and Trump's call to Mayor Frey. Of his call with Trump, Frey said,
“I spoke with President Trump today and appreciated the conversation. I expressed how much Minneapolis has benefited from our immigrant communities and was clear that my main ask is that Operation Metro Surge needs to end[.]”
. . . “The president agreed the present situation can’t continue,” he added.
The mayor also wrote that some federal agents will begin leaving the Twin Cities on Tuesday and he “will continue pushing for the rest involved in this operation to go.” In another report,
Frey added that Minneapolis would cooperate with state and federal law enforcement on "real" criminal investigations, but drew the line at what he described as "unconstitutional arrests."
In other words, the outline of the deal appears to be that Minnesota state and municipal law enforcement will turn over illegal migrants with convictions or warrants to ICE. In return for this, it will not be necesssary for CBP to hunt them down, which had been forced on DHS due to Minnesota and Minneapolis sanctuary policies. As a result, CBP will be able to leave Minnesota, but ICE will remain, although their profile will be lower, since they will be collecting the illegals directly from jails, not off the streets.Homan is there to "coordinate" (read enforce) the deal and report directly to Trump. Surber thinks Walz is afraid of being fingered for organizing the riots, and he may have been given to understand that the FBI won't pursue this as long as the riots end now. But it's also possible that the Insurrection Act of 1807 is enough of an inducement to Keep Walz and Frey with the program; that Walz would activate both the National Guard and the State Patrol is a sign that he doesn't want to surrender control.
Trump gives Walz and Frey the latitude to claim they've gotten rid of CBP in Minnesota and thus "won", but under the deal, they appear to have agreed to turn over illegals directly from jail, so CBP is no longer needed, and nor is Bovino, who had been in charge.
So the bottom line is that Homan gets something he'd wanted since he's been border czar, that sanctuary policies that forced CBP to hunt down criminal illegals after release from jail end in Minnesota, because it sounds like Minnesota will now begin turning them over to ICE directly from jail. Walz and Frey get to claim a win by making CBP leave the state, but this is only because CBP is no longer needed there due to the agreement. Bovino leaves as well, but largely because CBP leaves. Walz and Frey end the riots in return for Trump not invoking the Insurrection Act, and the whole controversy dies down.
Never underestimate Trump. There's the remaining question of the Democrats threatending a shutdown over DHS funding, but with the main pressure point taken out of the picture, there may be a greater possibility to work this through as well.
