President Donald Trump's border adviser Tom Homan kicked off his assumption of responsibility for the crackdown in Minnesota with a press conference on Thursday. He tried at times to sound conciliatory, saying, "I have staff from CBP and from ICE working on a draw down plan," but in other ways doubled down on the Trump administration's operations, vowing that "we are not surrendering" and "I'm staying until the problem is gone."
His speech was largely greeted positively by the pro-Trump ecosystem — but not by those who have spent the last several weeks alarmed by the brutality of federal agents against immigrants and protesters. It also triggered extra speculation about what may have been going on behind the scenes in the Trump administration as they scrambled to contain public backlash.
"The talk of deescalation was always fake news; the admin intends to continue to make Minneapolis an example, even with a minor change in leadership," wrote American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick on X. "There are still thousands of DHS officers deployed there."
"Tom Homan just said Trump 'called me Monday morning and asked me to deploy here.' That lends credence to the idea that Trump got the idea from Fox and acted on it," wrote CNN's Aaron Blake.
Anna Giaritelli of the conservative Washington Examiner focused on Homan's remark that, "You can't fix problems if you don't have, don't have discussions. I didn't come to Minnesota for photo ops or headlines. I came ... to seek solutions and that's what we're going to do," speculating that it might have been "a subtle dig at [DHS Secretary] Kristi Noem?"
"Tom Homan and company cannot be taken seriously when they are occupying a state that has exponentially less of an illegal immigration problem than states like Florida and Texas," wrote former Canadian football star Troy Westwood. "If you were trying to eradicate a problem you would be focused on where the problem is most prevalent."
"Tom Homan is far worse than Bovino," wrote YouTube commentator Lana Quest. "Just watch. He spoke for 40 minutes and never apologized to the families of the victims. Why… Because he is all in. F-- Homan and f-- this ungodly administration. F-- MAGA too."