US border czar Tom Homan on Wednesday announced the removal of 700 immigration enforcement personnel from Minnesota after weeks of operations and the fatal shooting of two protesters that sparked widespread outrage.
Homan said the move would take effect "immediately," citing increased cooperation with local authorities, without specifying whether the officers would be taken out of the city of Minneapolis or elsewhere in the Midwestern state.
Explaining the decision, Homan said there are now "more officers taking custody of criminal aliens directly from the jails" rather than detaining them on the streets -- efforts that require significantly fewer personnel.
But he said the drawdown will still leave some 2,000 officers in the state, up from about 150 before the launch of the sweeping immigration operations.
Homan stressed he will not be leaving Minneapolis -- which has become a major flashpoint in President Donald Trump's overall immigration crackdown -- "until we get it all done."
Federal agents shot and killed unarmed Renee Good, a 37-year-old Minneapolis woman, as she attempted to drive away from an ICE enforcement operation last month, triggering protests and criticism from civil rights groups and local officials.
Another Minneapolis resident, intensive care nurse Alex Pretti, also 37, was beaten and shot dead by federal agents in a separate incident.
Both victims were US citizens. The killings drew international attention and condemnation over the government's egregiously false accounts of what happened, intensifying public concern about the conduct and oversight of federal immigration operations.
Following the outcry over the shootings, President Donald Trump withdrew combative Customs and Border Protection commander Gregory Bovino and replaced him with Homan, who pledged to draw down the operation, with conditions.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
