Immigration Enforcement

After the Immigration and Custom Enforcement goons executed an unarmed man in the streets of Minnesota the Trump administration did a full court press to claim the man was a terrorist, had intended to kill officers and had been illegally carrying a weapon.

Vice President Vance, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, Trump policy leader for immigration Stephen Miller, FBI chief Kash Patel, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and others all made false claims about the case.

Their words were an attack on constitutional rights under the 1st, 2nd and 4th amendment.

Multiple videos of the incident were out in the public and everyone was able to see that what really had happened were crimes committed by multiple ICE agents. Every newspaper and channel which discussed the video called out the lies by the Trump administration.

The false narrative coming from the White House turned out be a huge own-goal. It has become a complete unnecessary public relation disaster for the Trump administration.

It was why I asked Why Is Trump Causing His Own Downfall?

Republican representatives started to oppose the ICE operation. The National Rifle Association, and other pro-Trump gun lobbies, protested against the administration’s position:

“The FBI director needs to brush off that thing called the Constitution, because he clearly hasn’t read it,” National Association for Gun Rights President Dudley Brown told POLITICO. “I know of no more crucial place to carry a firearm for self defense than a protest.”

FBI Director Kash Patel said Sunday on Fox News that “You cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple. You don’t have a right to break the law.” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said Saturday that she didn’t “know of any peaceful protester that shows up with a gun and ammunition rather than a sign.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that “any gun owner knows” that carrying a gun raises “the assumption of risk and the risk of force being used against you,” during interactions with law enforcement.

Gun-rights groups rushed to push back on an administration that was breaking with conservative orthodoxy on the right to bear arms in public places.

Seasoned Homeland Security officers vented their frustration.

Alex Pretti, the victim of the ICE assault, was killed on Saturday. It took until noon of Monday for Trump to acknowledge the mess and to attempt to chicken out.

The FT headlines: Donald Trump signals shift on immigration crackdown as ICE backlash intensifies (archived):

Donald Trump has signalled a shift in his administration’s immigration crackdown as the US president seeks to quell the growing furore over the killing of a man by federal agents in Minnesota at the weekend.

The president on Monday said he was deploying border tsar Tom Homan to Minnesota, in a move that was widely seen as a rebuke of homeland security secretary Kristi Noem, who has overseen Trump’s aggressive campaign to detain and deport immigrants.

Trump also dialled down his rhetoric about Democratic leaders in Minnesota, saying in a social media post that he had spoken to Tim Walz, the state’s Democratic governor, in a “very good call”.

“We, actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength,” Trump wrote. He has previously described Walz as “grossly incompetent” and a “stupid, low-IQ governor”.

Trump later posted that he had a “very good telephone conversation” with Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey, adding: “Lots of progress is being made!”

Wannabe-Nazi Greg Bovino, the leader of the ICE operation in Minnesota, was pulled from the city. But the damage is done:

When he took office in Jan. 2025, immigration was the president’s strongest issue. He was actually in positive territory — around +8 net approval — on handling immigration. Voters signaled in the 2024 election that they wanted tougher border enforcement — and at first, they trusted him to deliver it. Trump promised deportations for criminals and no new border crossings, and that’s what voters expected to get.

But now, a year later, that advantage has completely evaporated. My aggregate now shows Trump at -10 on immigration — a collapse of roughly 18 points from his peak. And on deportations specifically (which other aggregators, puzzlingly, do not break out as a separate issue), Trump is at -12.
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Trump has changed the images people attach to the word “immigration” in their heads. When “immigration” doesn’t mean “pictures of migrants under an overpass in south Texas” but “ICE officer killing a woman in her car and calling her a ‘fucking bitch’” or “regular guy being shot 10 times in the back after being tackled to the ground and disarmed”, that’s going to change how people view the issue.

Susie Wiles, Trump’s 2024 campaign manager who became his White House chief of staff, was said to run a tight ship as she coordinates messaging and action. She has evidently failed Trump on this issues. Now the knifes are out within the administration. Heads must and will roll over this:

President Donald Trump’s senior leadership team is blaming Kristi Noem for their nightmare in Minneapolis after they say her incompetence as Homeland Security secretary paved the way for Saturday’s shooting of yet another U.S. citizen.
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[W]ell-placed DHS sources told the Daily Beast that both the president’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, 68, and his immigration policy lead, Stephen Miller, 40, have fully turned against Noem and her chief adviser and rumored lover, Corey Lewandowski, 52.

According to two senior officials, Miller is furious that Bovino, 55, and his hardcore “turn and burn” tactics were chosen to become the focal point of the nationwide blitz.

To me it seems that Noem is simply incompetent. Stephen Miller though is the highest up radical on immigration and the real root cause of the mess. One wonders how long it will take to Trump to finally fire him.

Trump is now losing voters on the major issue that had lifted him to the presidency. It is astonishing that this could happen without much, if any, noticeable opposition to him.

I find it somewhat reassuring that the incompetence of his administration exceeds its maliciousness. If Trump and his associates were competent actors the U.S. would by now be in for real hurt.

Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.