WASHINGTON, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Donald Trump is sending his border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota later on Monday, the U.S. president said after an outcry over the second fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen by immigration agents over the weekend in Minneapolis.
"Tom is tough but fair, and will report directly to me," he wrote in a social media post. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt separately on X said Homan would manage Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in the state.
On Sunday, Trump
told the Wall Street Journal that his administration was reviewing the latest shooting and signaled a willingness to eventually withdraw immigration enforcement officials from the Minneapolis area.
"At some point we will leave. We've done, they've done a phenomenal job," Trump told the Journal in an interview, without offering any detailed timeline.
U.S. immigration agents shot and killed 37-year-old Alex Pretti on Saturday. The Department of Homeland Security characterized the incident as an attack, but bystander videos verified and reviewed by Reuters showed Pretti holding a phone in his hand, not a gun, as he tries to help other protesters who had been pushed to the ground by agents.
On January 7, federal immigration agent fatally shot U.S. citizen Renee Good after approaching her in her parked vehicle. Trump officials said she was trying to ram the agent with the vehicle but other observers said bystander video suggests she was attempting to steer away from the officer who shot her.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey; additional reporting by Katharine Jackson; Editing by Doina Chiacu and David Ljunggren)
