Mayor: Agents Will Start Leaving Minneapolis Tuesday

Sources say Greg Bovino will be among them
Posted Jan 26, 2026 7:10 PM CST
Mayor: Agents Will Start Leaving Minneapolis Tuesday
People visit a makeshift memorial for 37-year-old Alex Pretti, who was fatally shot by a US Border Patrol officer over the weekend, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026, in Minneapolis.   (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey says that he spoke to President Trump on Monday and that the president agreed the current situation in the city cannot continue. "Some federal agents will begin leaving the area tomorrow, and I will continue pushing for the rest involved in this operation to go," the mayor said in a statement. Sources tell outlets including the AP and the New York Times that Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol commander whose aggressive tactics have been condemned by local officials, is among those who will be leaving. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he had a "very good" conversation with the mayor, adding, "Lots of progress is being made!"

Trump said Frey would meet Tuesday with Tom Homan, the "border czar" the president is sending to Minnesota to oversee ICE operations. Earlier Monday, Trump said he had a "very good" call with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. In a post on X, Walz said he told Trump that "we need impartial investigations of the Minneapolis shootings involving federal agents, and that we need to reduce the number of federal agents in Minnesota." Walz told MPR News that during the call, Trump pledged to "do things differently."

  • "Whether it was morality or bad optics and poll numbers, whatever has happened here there's a definite change of tone," Walz said. "There's definitely a more collaborative tone." The governor said videos of Alex Pretti being killed by a Border Patrol officer on Saturday in Minneapolis, along with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's false claims about the shooting, "finally maybe broke the fever."

Walz told MPR News that his message to Homan would be: "Get these folks out of here now. Go back to targeted enforcement and coordinate with us. We're willing to work with you on a task force." On X, Walz said he explained to Trump "that his staff doesn't have their facts straight about Minnesota."

  • In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece published Monday, Walz accused the administration of staging an "organized campaign of brutality" built on bad data. He said the factual basis for the surge is "flat-out wrong," noting that the state Department of Corrections notifies ICE whenever a person in its custody isn't a US citizen and offers to transfer people directly to federal custody.
  • "I don't think President Trump knew that we honored detainers from folks leaving prison," Walz told MPR News. "I truly don't believe, and I think once he heard that from me, he's like 'Well that's helpful.'"

  • "Earlier this month, the administration published what it claimed was a list of people who have been arrested as part of this ICE sweep, asserting that this list represents 'the worst of the worst' criminals, and implying that we have been protecting them from capture," Walz wrote in the Journal. But Minnesota Public Radio, he wrote, found the claim to be "completely false," with most of the people on the list transferred to ICE custody after serving time in Minnesota prisons. All of the transfers happened before the ICE surge, Walz wrote—in some cases, years earlier.
  • "Minnesota is a state that believes in the rule of law and in the dignity of all people," Walz wrote. "This assault on our communities is not necessary to enforce our immigration laws. We don't have to choose between open borders and whatever the hell this is."

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