Axios is reporting tonight that “the big picture” is that “Trump wants a peace-with-honor withdrawal from Minnesota that doesn't look like his immigration surge was a loss driven by botched law enforcement efforts under Bovino, and plummeting poll numbers.” “Botched law enforcement efforts” is apparently a more delicate way of saying the murder of two American citizens in Minneapolis and countless assaults and constitutional rights violations committed against other people. The agent who flashed his naked butt out of a hotel window at a crowd of protestors before flipping them the bird has drawn little attention, perhaps because it seems so tawdry and unimportant against the backdrop of violence ICE has brought to the city. But it’s a worthwhile reminder that “Operation Metro Surge” was not conducted with the professionalism that taxpayers, who pay agents’ salaries, benefits, and expenses, are entitled to expect from them.
There is already buzz that if Greg Bovino’s exile isn’t enough to quell the protests, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem could be the next sacrificial lamb. Anyone who works for this president would do well to remember there is no such thing as loyalty; it’s all just transactional benefit. Ask Jeff Sessions. Or Rex Tillerson, John Bolton, John Kelly, and others too numerous to list. If they think Trump will protect them when it no longer benefits him, they are sorely mistaken.
The Judiciary is beginning to play hardball with the administration over its repeated failures to comply with court orders. Tuesday morning, Judge Patrick Schlitz, the chief federal judge for the District of Minnesota, ordered the acting Director of ICE, Todd Lyons, to appear in court on Friday—not on Zoom but in person. It happened in a case called Juan, T.R. v Noem. And it’s easy to see what provoked the Judge:
That’s pretty basic and easy for the government to comply with. But the court was notified by Juan’s lawyer on January 23 that his client was still in custody and hadn’t had a hearing to determine whether a bond could be set so he could be released. The government was in clear violation of the Judge’s order. And it wasn’t the first time. Judge Schlitz wrote, “This is one of dozens of court orders with which respondents have failed to comply in recent weeks. The practical consequence of respondents’ failure to comply has almost always been significant hardship to aliens (many of whom have lawfully lived and worked in the United States for years and done absolutely nothing wrong).” The order is only three pages long, but it’s an extraordinary criticism of the government: “This Court has been extremely patient with respondents, even though respondents decided to send thousands of agents to Minnesota to detain aliens without making any provision for dealing with the hundreds of habeas petitions and other lawsuits that were sure to result. Respondents have continually assured the Court that they recognize their obligation to comply with Court orders, and that they have taken steps to ensure that those orders will be honored going forward. Unfortunately, though, the violations continue. The Court’s patience is at an end.” The Judge makes it clear in a footnote that when he is talking about the “respondents,” he is talking about Noem and her employees, not the lawyers in the local U.S. Attorney’s Office. He writes, “The Court expresses its appreciation to attorney Ana Voss and her colleagues, who have struggled mightily to ensure that respondents comply with court orders despite the fact that respondents have failed to provide them with adequate resources.” Although undoubtedly intended to keep them from facing any bar complaints, there is no telling how it will be received in Washington. But the Judge’s order was all it took. Apparently, there was no difficulty involved in handling Juan’s situation. Several hours later, DHS released the Ecuadorian man, who came to the U.S. as a teen, from custody. Everyone in the executive branch, from the President, who is constitutionally obligated to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, to attorneys and agency staff who take an oath to uphold the Constitution know that means following court orders. If there was a problem in this case or others, the government could have gone back to the court for additional time. They didn’t. And this case shows they didn’t need it, that releasing Juan was just a snap of the fingers. The Trump administration ignores court orders willfully. It’s time for the courts to address that. This case was a start. Now, there is a road map for getting ICE to comply with court orders. Tell the boss, “I’ll see you in court,” if they don’t. ICE is out of control and extreme measure like this are warranted. Its abuses run the gamut from failure to comply with court orders like this one to the murders of innocent civilians. And everything in between. Today, there was reporting from David Nakamura and Olivia George at the Washington Post that “Department of Homeland Security officers have fired shots during enforcement arrests or at people protesting their operations 16 times since July.” In each case, “the Trump administration has publicly declared their actions justified before waiting for investigations to be completed.” This is a complete break of faith with the communities federal law enforcement officers take an oath to serve. If agents know that every shooting will be whitewashed, that they will not be held to account if there is wrongdoing, then there is no incentive to do right. And we’ve seen the consequences in the plainest possible terms. Renee Good and Alex Pretti. If the President cannot clean house, then Congress has to, with the courts stepping in when cases are brought before them. But the real debt to Minnesotans and the rest of us falls on the shoulders of Republicans in Congress who have given this president a pass his entire time in office, no matter how reprehensible his conduct. It’s their responsibility to stop this now, before it goes any further. The idea that Tom Homan, the White House border czar who was credibly accused of accepting $50,000 to steer government contracts to the men who paid him—we don’t know the truth here because the criminal investigation was dropped shortly after Trump returned to office—will be an improvement over Greg Bovino is laughable. Homan was a contributor to “Project 2025,” the blueprint for Trump’s second term. He was a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, where it was written, and he supports some of Trump’s most extreme policies, like mass deportations and family separation. It’s clear he’s in lockstep with Trump on immigration or he wouldn’t be the “border czar” in the first place. So, the administration would have us believe that it’s shifting gears and backing down, taking federal agents out of Minneapolis. But it’s a classic example of how Trump relies on short public memory spans, appearing to pull back for a minute before continuing on its way once the public has lost interest. Journalist Ken Klippenstein tweeted tonight, “Federal deployment to Minneapolis ‘is steady state and expected to continue as planned,’ per Border Patrol memo leaked to me,” and said this was after Bovino’s reassignment yesterday. “…expected to continue as planned.” Don’t get distracted. This is not the moment to ease off on opposition to ICE.
At an Iowa restaurant this afternoon, Trump claimed he hadn’t heard Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller calling Alex Pretti a domestic terrorist. That is either a lie or a confession of outright incompetence, if he wasn’t following what his key people were doing in the wake of the second point-blank shooting death of an innocent American in two weeks. Trump added that Pretti “certainly shouldn’t have been carrying a gun.” “I don’t like that he had a gun. I don’t like that he had two fully loaded magazines. That’s a lot of bad stuff.” While Trump was alienating his long-time supporters at the NRA, Axios was reporting that “Kristi Noem's language that Alex Pretti wanted to 'massacre’ federal agents was dictated to Noem and her department by the man most responsible for the controversial operation: Stephen Miller.” That reporting surprised absolutely no one. So far, Miller has managed to stay out of the spotlight, but the hand that rocks the cradle on all things immigration should also bear responsibility. Miller’s character assassination of Pretti before there had even been time to conduct preliminary investigation deserves the strongest condemnation. Miller’s role in the White House doesn’t require Senate confirmation. The responsibility for everything he has done and will do rests squarely with Donald Trump. And then, by the end of the day, there was another shooting, this one, fortunately, not a fatality, but still grim enough. ICE deserves every bit of scrutiny that it has fallen under. How many other people have they harmed and then slandered? How many incidents have they written off as provoked or as self-defense when they aren’t, and gotten away with it because there are no cameras on them? We don’t know. That’s the problem when law enforcement breaks faith with a community. There’s no longer any reason to trust them. And the reason they’re supposedly there is so we have someone we can trust. We’re in this together, Joyce You're currently a free subscriber to Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance . For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
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Tuesday, January 27, 2026
ICE: Getting The Scrutiny It Deserves
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ICE: Getting The Scrutiny It Deserves
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