Trump administration redoubles immigration enforcement strategy as cracks emerge in the president’s coalition
By Betsy Klein, Alayna Treene, Priscilla Alvarez, Kristen Holmes, CNN
(CNN) — President Donald Trump and his top lieutenants are doubling down on their hardline immigration policies and rhetoric following the shooting of a US citizen by a federal officer in Minneapolis — even as the incident has revealed cracks in the president’s coalition.
A phalanx of top Trump administration officials fanned out across Sunday morning news shows and social media to publicly defend the officer’s actions and the administration’s heavy-handed immigration enforcement tactics, all shifting blame to Democratic state and local officials. They say Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey are not doing enough to support federal law enforcement and are ratcheting up tensions.
“Democrat run Sanctuary Cities and States are REFUSING to cooperate with ICE, and they are actually encouraging Leftwing Agitators to unlawfully obstruct their operations to arrest the Worst of the Worst People!” Trump wrote Sunday in a pair of lengthy social media posts, calling out Walz and Frey by name.
While Trump has both publicly and privately defended the Border Patrol agent who fatally shot 37-year-old Alex Pretti, there has also been concern at the White House that his immigration messaging is getting lost amid the chaotic scenes in Minnesota, sources familiar with the conversations this weekend said.
Trump declined to say Sunday whether he supported the federal agent who fatally shot Pretti.
Asked twice in a five-minute interview with The Wall Street Journal whether the agent had done the right thing, Trump “didn’t directly answer,” the reporter wrote.
“We’re looking, we’re reviewing everything and will come out with a determination,” Trump told The Journal.
The president also indicated that his administration could eventually pull federal law enforcement officers out of Minnesota.
“At some point we will leave. We’ve done, they’ve done a phenomenal job,” he said, declining to provide a timeline.
‘What is the endgame?’
Some Republicans began to question publicly whether it was worth it for ICE to maintain such a heavy presence in a state where they’re not wanted by local leaders.
“If I were Trump, I would almost think about, ‘OK, if the mayor and the governor are going to put our Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in harm’s way and there’s a chance of losing more innocent lives or whatever, then maybe go to another city and let the people of Minneapolis decide,’” James Comer, a Kentucky congressman and chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo.” Comer went on to criticize state and local leadership.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, expressed concerns about Trump’s goals.
“Americans are asking themselves: ‘What is the endgame? What is the solution?’ We believe in federalism and state rights. And nobody likes feds coming into their states. And so what’s the goal right now? Is it to deport every single non-US citizen? I don’t think that’s what Americans want,” Stitt told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”
Pressed by Bash on whether federal agents needed to pull out of Minnesota, Stitt said, “I think that the president has to answer that question. He is a dealmaker and he’s getting bad advice right now.”
Mounting concerns at DHS
Meanwhile at the Department of Homeland Security, there’s feeling among multiple officials that Secretary Kristi Noem is hurting the department — and putting all federal law enforcement further at risk of reputational harm. Noem has been among the officials publicly blaming Pretti, even as her department is leading the investigation into the incident.
“He came to that scene and impeded a law enforcement operation, which is against federal law. It’s a felony. When he did that, interacting with those agents, when they tried to get him to disengage, he became aggressive and resisted them,” she said on Fox News’ “The Sunday Briefing.”
But video analyzed by CNN so far does not capture any violent actions by protesters, who blow whistles and yell at federal agents — nor does it show Pretti acting violently or holding the handgun that a federal officer removed from his waistband seconds before he was killed. Minneapolis officials have said he was a registered gun owner.
DHS officials expressed frustration and concern Sunday morning as they shared videos among themselves of the shooting, officials told CNN. Some felt that Noem was doing them a disservice and placing federal law enforcement at further risk of harming their reputations.
“The department needs a law enforcement leader, not a sycophant,” one Homeland Security official told CNN.
Some US Border Patrol agents on the ground in Minneapolis are also no longer convinced their mission is productive enough to justify the risk of tenuous situations, according to a former senior Border Patrol official.
No change to posture
Trump, for his part, spent hours Saturday in the Oval Office, according to a White House official, where he was briefed on the situation and the resulting unrest. But despite the anger on the ground, Trump officials say the administration has no plans to change its posture and that federal immigration agents will remain in Minnesota.
“We’re not changing our posture on a policy front, whether or not local leaders want to cooperate with us,” a senior White House official told CNN. “It is our view that is the Democrats turning up the rhetoric.”
That defiance is bolstered by plans to send additional federal resources to Minneapolis to provide support.
“I know all of my federal agencies are coming in right now to support and back up Homeland Security,” Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News on Saturday, saying the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the FBI “are doing what they can to keep citizens safe if Walz won’t do it.”
White House messaging
One of the key lines of attack the White House is coalescing around is that federal immigration operations in other states are not being met with the type of protests and public discord that agents are facing in Minneapolis, arguing that it’s local leaders who are fueling the turmoil.
“We deport 10 times the number of illegal aliens out of Texas than we do out of Minneapolis. Why do we hear nothing out of Texas about any of the same problems that we have in Minneapolis? I’ll tell you why. Because in Texas, we have the cooperation and support of local law enforcement so that we can do these operations safely,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Another senior White House official pointed to Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser and Memphis, Tennessee, Mayor Paul Young as examples of Democrats who worked more successfully with the Trump administration and federal law enforcement.
“Their cities are safer and there was no chaos or craziness because they cooperated and allowed law enforcement to do their jobs,” the official said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Americans ultimately voted for immigration enforcement, posting Sunday that Trump “will never back down on his core promise to deport violent illegal criminals from American communities — a promise that nearly 80 million Americans voted for.”
Trump wants to see the protests in Minnesota calm and is hopeful the focus will shift back to the number of deportations and arrests that his administration is making. But in addition to Stitt and Comer, other allies are questioning Trump’s strategy in Minneapolis.
“The administration has to rein in the officials on television discussing the shooting. The number of magazines and the fact that people are armed at protests are irrelevant to the current conversation,” said Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” host Lawrence Jones. His comments came moments after a Minneapolis news conference in which US Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Greg Bovino cast Pretti and Renee Good, the other US citizen killed by federal officers in Minneapolis, as “suspects” who made choices that led to consequences.
The Trump administration is also fielding significant pushback from the National Rifle Association, long a reliable amplifier.
US Attorney Bill Essayli, a Trump appointee in the Central District of California, wrote on social media hours after the shooting, “If you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you. Don’t do it!”
That prompted a rare rebuke against Republicans from the NRA, which called Essayli’s sentiment “dangerous and wrong.”
“Responsible public voices should be awaiting a full investigation, not making generalizations and demonizing law-abiding citizens,” the NRA said on social media.
Asked for comment and whether the White House stood by Essayli, a White House official pointed CNN to comments from Bovino.
“We respect Second Amendment rights, but those rights don’t count when you riot and assault, delay, obstruct and impede law enforcement officers. … The decision-making process for that individual doesn’t seem to be very good,” he told Bash.
But that rhetoric is at odds with Trump’s embrace of Kyle Rittenhouse, who was acquitted in 2021 on all charges after fatally shooting two people and wounding a third during protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 2020.
Trump invited Rittenhouse his Mar-a-Lago estate after his acquittal, calling him a “nice young man.”
Government funding in the balance
There is also a rising threat that the incident will thwart efforts to fund the government ahead of a key deadline.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Saturday that Democrats will block a government spending bill — dramatically increasing the chances of a partial government shutdown if a resolution isn’t reached before midnight Friday.
“Democrats sought common sense reforms in the Department of Homeland Security spending bill, but because of Republicans’ refusal to stand up to President Trump, the DHS bill is woefully inadequate to rein in the abuses of ICE. I will vote no,” Schumer posted on X.
“Senate Democrats will not provide the votes to proceed to the appropriations bill if the DHS funding bill is included,” he added.
A potential off-ramp?
The Trump administration originally used allegations of fraud involving state social services programs to justify increased federal law enforcement actions in Minnesota.
Going off those allegations, the administration has presented the possibility of an off-ramp to Walz. Bondi sent the Minnesota governor a letter Saturday urging him to repeal so-called sanctuary policies and to share Medicaid, food assistance and voter data with the federal government to “bring an end to the chaos in Minnesota.”
“Allowing the federal government to efficiently investigate fraud will save Minnesota taxpayers’ money and ensure that Minnesota’s welfare funds are being used to help those in need, not enrich fraudsters,” she wrote.
The letter drew an immediate rebuke from the Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin, who derided it as an attempt at extortion that would help “undermine local elections and build a national database for Trump’s political revenge and retribution.”
Meanwhile in Washington
While White House officials have stressed the president’s focus on the issue over the past 24 hours, Trump’s attention has appeared at times to be elsewhere.
On Saturday evening, the president hosted a private screening of the first lady’s new documentary, “Melania,” in the East Room. Guests dined on popcorn in custom boxes emblazoned with the first lady’s likeness and listened to a band perform a waltz composed for the film’s score.
And on a snowy Sunday morning, the White House issued a press lid, meaning Trump was not expected to appear publicly. Instead, he lashed out at a top historic preservation group suing over his ballroom project, launching a 448-word social media post lambasting the lawsuit from behind closed doors.
CNN’s Veronica Stracqualursi, Aleena Fayaz and Kit Maher contributed to this report.
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