The Brief

President Donald Trump has reshuffled the leadership of his immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota in the face of wide-spread anger over two fatal shootings of U.S. citizens by federal agents. Operation commander Gregory Bovino is out, and Trump is sending Border Czar Tom Homan to take over.

But it's not clear changes at the top can solve a more basic problem: the immigration agents flooding the Twin Cities are generally less experienced in urban policing and crowd control than other police.

"The skills that these federal immigration agents are bringing to these cities are a complete mismatch for what we actually need," says Irene Vega, an associate professor of sociology at UC Irvine. "That's not what their job has been, historically, and I just think it's a very dangerous situation."

Vega studied the attitudes of Customs and Border Protection officers regarding use of force, a project that involved interviewing more than 90 officers. The CBP appears to make up the largest contingent of the roughly 3,000 agents deployed to Minnesota.

"They saw themselves as very different," she says. "They would tell me that they were trained to hike in the desert. They often told me about arresting 10, 15 people who were very compliant."

She says the isolation of the border region influenced the officers' calculus about use of force. She recalls one officer who explained that in the desert, he doesn't have the option to duck into an alley for cover.

"And so he said, 'I'm going to have to do what I have to do,'" Vega says.

Over the years, CBP has come under pressure to rein in its officers' use of deadly force along the border. Incidents of officers shooting at people for throwing rocks came under special scrutiny, and an external review in 2013.

"Too many cases do not appear to meet the test of objective reasonableness with regard to the use of deadly force," the report found. "[I]n some cases agents put themselves in harm's way by remaining in close proximity to the rock throwers when moving out of range was a reasonable option."

The report recommended equipping CBP officers with less-lethal weapons such as pepper spray, a requirement that was added to the agency's handbook in 2014.

Now, in Minneapolis, CBP has come to rely heavily on sprays and other chemical irritants to push back protesters and observers. In some cases, such as the moments leading up to the fatal shooting on Saturday of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse, the use of pepper spray appeared to inflame confrontations.

"There's a duty of obligation that you have in policing, if you incapacitate someone," says Leon Taylor. He's a retired Baltimore police officer, who also served as a military peace keeper in the Balkans He and other former police have been discussing the scenes coming out of Minnesota.

"If [a pepper-sprayed person] stumbles out into traffic and gets run over and killed, that's on me. There's a duty of care."

He says the videos appear to show federal officers escalating conflicts, instead of defusing them.

"They live in a toxic environment of their own creation that has nothing to do with policing," Taylor says, and he blames the message from high-level officials – such as Vice President Vance – that they have "immunity."

"If they told these guys instead, before they turned them loose, that you have an absolute responsibility, instead of absolute immunity… it starts with the mindset about what you are doing," he says.

David "Kawika" Lau was a senior instructor at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers, which trains CBP and other federal agents. He says in the years after the external report on CBP use of force there was an increased emphasis on teaching de-escalation techniques – training he helped to shape.

"We teach them emotional intelligence, self-regulation, self-awareness. Because you can't bring calm to any situation if you yourself are not calm," Lau says.

But he cautions that those techniques are meant to defuse one-on-one confrontations. He's not sure how well CBP is prepared for the raucous crowds in the Twin Cities.

"They may have some training and expertise in urban operations," Lau says. "But that is not what that position [CBP officer] was designed to do. Therefore, that's not what the training is designed to produce."

Federal immigration agencies say they're being forced into an unfamiliar role. CBP commissioner Rodney Scott told Fox News over the weekend, "The primary training was to go out and arrest suspects, which is already dangerous. This entire environment, where the community is encouraged by local leaders to come out and actually prevent you from making a felony arrest, it's a new dynamic. We're trying to evolve to it."

Minnesota leaders have largely encouraged protesters to be peaceful; they have not explicitly called for people to prevent immigration arrests.

But federal officials say that's still the effect, as protesters tail immigration agents and try to warn people at risk of arrest. And these officers may now be more inclined to respond to such protesters as law-breakers: A recent Attorney General memo on "domestic terrorism" lists potential charges, including "impeding" federal officers, and "seditious conspiracy to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States."

Minnesota officials say the feds' approach to urban law enforcement has distracted them from their immigration enforcement mission. On Sunday, Governor Tim Walz said federal agents had neglected to take into custody a non-citizen with a serious criminal record as he was released from a jail outside the metro area.

"They're too busy up here, doing what they did yesterday [the Pretti shooting] to go pick up someone who actually should be removed from this country," he said.

"It's their job to do immigration and customs enforcement. It's law enforcement's job to do law enforcement in Minnesota," Walz said. 

On Monday, as the political backlash against the federal presence in Minnesota grew, Walz had what he called a "productive call" with President Trump. He said the president told him he would consider reducing the number of federal officers in Minnesota.
Copyright 2026 NPR

This story was originally published by Boyle Heights Beat on Jan. 27, 2026.

East Los Angeles pastor Carlos Rincon stood outside a Minneapolis church on Friday, in below-zero temperatures, livestreaming what he was witnessing on the ground in the face of violence by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the region.

In a matter of weeks, he said, “an army of people” at Dios Habla Hoy Church in Minneapolis managed to distribute food packages to thousands of families — including green card holders and U.S. citizens — who were too afraid to leave their homes for food and worship.

“The persecution in Minneapolis is terrible, more cruel than what’s happened in Los Angeles,” the pastor said in his video. Federal agents “are going against anyone,” Rincon, who pastors the Assemblies of God church Centro de Vida Victoriosa in East L.A., told Boyle Heights Beat.

Rincon, who has attended vigils and protests against immigration raids in LA, was in Minneapolis for three days. He witnessed clergy getting arrested at the Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport in an anti-ICE protest. He marched with tens of thousands of Minnesotans amid the state’s general strike against ICE.

Since Rincon’s visit, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said some federal agents will begin to leave Tuesday amid outrage over the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good by federal immigration agents.

In Minneapolis, Rincon was struck by the number of white Americans showing up in defense of immigrants. He recalled elderly American women “battling the snow” as they kept watch for agents. He also saw as many as 500 or more people sorting food inside the church for distribution.

Rincon spent time with Dios Habla Hoy pastor Sergio Amezcua, who has denounced ICE as “acting like narco cartels back in Mexico.” Amezcua’s church set up a system — involving volunteers of all religious and ethnic backgrounds — to deliver food to thousands of families in the area.

“I got citizens, permanent residents, they avoid coming to church. … We preach to the world religious freedom and Minnesota people cannot go to church,” Amezcua said in a video on the nonprofit news site Mother Jones.

“And if they come to church, there’s ICE agents outside of churches waiting for them,” he said. “It’s really evil what’s going on.”

The Rev. Carlos Rincon spent three days in Minneapolis.

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Courtesy of Rincon

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A board member of the Latino Christian and National Network, Rincon said he went to Minneapolis to gauge the needs of Latino churches in the area. He said Dios Habla Hoy Church had to implement added security measures before letting anyone inside the church.

“I’m impressed by the city, people of Minneapolis, how selflessly they serve,” Rincon said. “They’re willing to risk their own lives.”

Rincon, who is part of the LA-based Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, wants more religious Latino leaders to denounce ICE violence.

His denomination, the fast-growing Assemblies of God, is made up of about 180,000 adherents in its Southern California network, many of whom are immigrants. Rincon said a fellow LA pastor is currently at risk of deportation. It’s a conservative denomination, he said, “that has been captivated by the Republican Party.”

“Although we are targets, the evangelical Pentecostal churches, they’re not speaking on this issue,” said Rincon, who is Mexican American. “I’m trying to change that.”

“I’m taking a risk because I wasn’t born in this country. I’m a naturalized American, but I believe in what I do,” he added.

In LA, Rincon and his largely immigrant church, which he has led for nearly 40 years, have helped provide funds to immigrant families in need during the raids. While not all congregants agree on everything, “they see me as their spiritual leader,” he said.

Rincon returned to LA on Saturday, just in time to attend a downtown interfaith vigil outside of the federal building, where he addressed clergy and others.

“I come in love with the beloved community of Minneapolis,” he said in Spanish. “They are rising up. They are fighting. “Thank you, Lord, for Minneapolis, because they have opened their doors and protected the vulnerable.”

“They are saving lives when others have built walls,” Rincon continued.

We're in for another mild day with partly to mostly cloudy skies. The National Weather Service forecasts that come Thursday, temperatures will rise more and the Santa Ana winds will return.

Coastal communities in the L.A. area will see highs mostly around 70 degrees today. Meanwhile, the Orange County coast will stay cooler with high temperatures around 62 degrees.

More inland, the valleys and the Inland Empire will see highs from 69 to 75 degrees, up to 76 degrees in Coachella Valley. In the Antelope Valley, highs will be mostly in the low 60s.