Trump sends border czar to Minneapolis as Alex Pretti’s sister speaks out

The Trump administration deployed border czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis on Tuesday, the day after a lengthy meeting at the White House in which the president expressed frustration with the situation in Minnesota since Alex Pretti was fatally shot by Border Patrol.

President Donald Trump said Monday he would send Homan to replace Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, who has been the face of the operation in Minneapolis and previous ones in Los Angeles and Chicago.

Pretti’s sister issued a statement memorializing her brother and condemning “disgusting lies” she said had been told about him since his death on Saturday. Video footage of Pretti’s killing has raised questions about Department of Homeland Security officials’ immediate account of the incident.

The day Pretti was shot, Bovino suggested he had wanted to “massacre” officers. A Washington Post analysis of the incident’s footage found that agents secured a handgun from Pretti before he was shot multiple times. Local authorities said he was carrying the weapon lawfully.

The White House in the last 24 hours has adopted a more measured tone in its response to the shooting. Trump showed his dissatisfaction with the situation in Minnesota during an extended meeting with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem late on Monday, according to a personal familiar with the meeting who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private conversation.

Homan is set to meet with local officials in Minneapolis when he arrives there Tuesday.

Pretti’s sister, Micayla Pretti, in the statement shared by an Associated Press reporter late Monday, described her grief as “a pain no words can fully capture” and expressed a sense of exasperation. “When does this end? How many more innocent lives must be lost before we say enough?” she wrote. It was not immediately clear what falsehoods she was referring to.

Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, was the third person to be shot by federal immigration authorities in Minneapolis this month, and the second to be killed.

In a remarkable filing late Monday, Minnesota’s chief federal judge demanded that Todd M. Lyons, the acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, personally appear in court on Friday to explain what he said were repeated failures to comply with court orders amid ICE’s enforcement efforts in the state.

The order threatened possible contempt proceedings against Lyons and sets up another potential showdown between federal judges and Trump officials.

It was not clear Tuesday how Lyons would respond or whether Justice Department attorneys would seek to block the order in court.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) said late Monday, after speaking to Trump, that some federal troops would begin leaving the area on Tuesday. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) said separately that Trump had agreed in a phone call Monday “to look into reducing the number of federal agents” in the state. DHS did not immediately respond to an early Tuesday request for comment. Both Frey and Trump said Homan would speak with the mayor Tuesday.

First lady Melania Trump called for unity in Minneapolis in a Fox & Friends interview Tuesday morning, saying: “I know that my husband, the president, had a great call yesterday with the governor and the mayor. And they are working together to make it peaceful and without riots. I’m against the violence. So please, if you protest, protest in peace. We need to unify in these times.”

“Nobody in the White House, including President Trump, wants to see people getting hurt or killed in America’s streets,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday. “It is President Trump’s hope and wish and demand for the resistance and chaos to end today.”