Tom Homan Makes It Clear He’s All Business in Minneapolis: ‘I Didn’t Come … for Photo-Ops and Headlines’

Border Czar Tom Homan said Thursday that federal agents will keep to their mission in Minnesota even as he talks with state and local officials who oppose their mission.

“You can’t fix problems if you don’t have discussions,” Homan said.

“I didn’t come to Minnesota for photo ops or headlines. You haven’t seen me. I came here to seek solutions, and that’s we’re going to do,” he said in a video posted to X.

HOMAN: “I didn’t come to Minnesota for photo ops or headlines.” pic.twitter.com/Hewi8mcdBn

— Jennie Taer (@JennieSTaer) January 29, 2026

“We’ve come a long way. We’ve got some good wins for the people of Minnesota,” he continued.

Referring to conversations with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, he noted that they agreed ICE is “a legitimate law enforcement agency that has a duty to enforce the laws enacted by Congress to keep this community safe.”

Homan doubled down on one of his principles that failure to cooperate with ICE creates sanctuaries for criminals.

“To be clear, we did not agree with Minnesota’s state and local officials that they would be involved in immigration enforcement,” Homan said. “I didn’t ask them to be immigration officers. I’m asking them to be cops working with the cops to help us take criminal aliens off the street.”

Homan said the Minnesota operation to remove criminal illegal immigrants will be refined so “when we hit the streets, we know exactly who we’re looking for,” according to CNN.

“What we’ve been working on is making this operation safer, more efficient, by the book,” Homan said. “The mission is going to improve because of the changes we’re making internally.”

Homan said the inflammatory rhetoric leads to conflict that leads to violence.

“I begged for the last two months on TV for the rhetoric to stop. I said in March, if the rhetoric didn’t stop, there’s going to be bloodshed, and there has been. I wish I wasn’t right,” he said.

Homan added that blocking agents from doing their work is “never okay” and there will be “zero tolerance” for such actions.

Homan said that the number of agents deployed has increased “because of the threats, because of the violence.”

“If I’m on an operation arrest team, I’m going to a house, I’ve got to be busy with that guy, the dangerous guy, and I can’t keep looking over my shoulder at what’s happening outside the house,” he said.

Homan noted that his priorities are to deport the worst of the worst.

“All operations will be targeted, but the prioritization are going to be criminal aliens, public safety threats and national security threats,” Homan said. “We got a lot of them to keep us busy.”

“If you’re in the country illegally, you’re not — you’re never off the table,” he said.

While noting that agents who violate agency rules will face internal review, he added, “These men and women, that carry that badge and gun, are American patriots. They put their selves on the line for this nation every day. God bless every one of them.”

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