As Americans debate the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, an even bigger battle is brewing in Washington, as the Trump administration splits over how to handle mass deportation raids.
The dividing lines have been drawn: on one side, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, and Corey Lewandowski, a top Trump adviser and temporary government employee. On the other side are Border Czar Tom Homan and acting ICE Director Todd Lyons.
Noem’s camp is focused on aggressive and showy tactics — fiery press conferences and Bovino marching through town with a squad of Border Patrol agents in tow — and is fixated on increasing arrest numbers. Homan’s side, however, is focused on the quality of arrests and getting the worst criminals off the streets, which they feel is a job best suited for ICE.
The fractures between the camps only became more evident after a Border Patrol agent shot and killed Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse who officials say was armed while he was interacting with law enforcement on Saturday in Minneapolis. His death comes just weeks after an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Good, igniting a wave of unrest in Minneapolis, the site of Homeland Security’s Operation Metro Surge.
In a press conference after the shooting, Noem asserted that Pretti was a “domestic terrorist” who appeared to have shown up “to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement.” Noem’s claims were met with scorn by Democrats and Republicans alike.
“This is a violent riot when you have someone showing up with weapons,” Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said during a press conference following the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Alex Jeffrey Pretti by a federal immigration agent.
“This individual showed up to impede… pic.twitter.com/dt2MtXXtvI
— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 25, 2026
Officials inside Noem’s own department slammed her rush to judgment, sources told The Daily Wire.
“It was a horrible response,” said one official. “Many people I’ve heard from say it was unprofessional. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”
“The people in DHS are frustrated with Secretary Noem and the way DHS is handling the media,” the official added. “The employees want a more professional response, not memes and one-liners.”
One Border Patrol source said it looked like “a really bad shoot.”
North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis was among the growing number of congressional Republicans to condemn Noem, writing on X, “any administration official who rushes to judgment and tries to shut down an investigation before it begins are doing an incredible disservice to the nation and to President Trump’s legacy.”
Texas Senator Ted Cruz even offered some advice to the Trump administration, saying they need to “be more measured” in their response.
“What I think the administration could do better is the tone with which they’re describing this,” Cruz said on his podcast Monday. “The problem is particularly for someone not paying attention.”
“If you’re being told this is a mom of three, and there’s no indication, you know she’s not waving an ISIS flag or doesn’t have a suicide vest around her,” Cruz added. “Escalating the rhetoric doesn’t help, and it actually loses credibility.”
Trump dispatched Homan to Minneapolis Monday, saying the ex-ICE chief will report directly to him as he attempts to quell the situation on the ground. That prompted multiple reporters to question the White House during Monday’s briefing whether Trump is losing confidence in Noem.
It’s unclear why Homan, who began as the face of the Trump administration’s deportation efforts, was not at the forefront of the Minnesota operations to begin with.
“People who have no business being in charge in law enforcement operations at DHS f***ed up,” said a source, adding that “there’s a lot of us in the patrol that aren’t happy with how things have been handled.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted the commander-in-chief remains confident in Noem’s ability to lead.
“Secretary Noem will continue to lead the Department of Homeland Security with the full trust and confidence of the president,” Leavitt told Reuters Monday. “Tom Homan is uniquely positioned to drop everything and focus solely on Minnesota to solve the problems that have been created by the lack of cooperation from state and local officials.”
Q: “Should the deployment of Mr. Homan to Minneapolis be seen as a sign that the president is dissatisfied with how the officials on the ground have handled the incident?”@PressSec Karoline Leavitt: “No. Mr. Homan is doing an exceptional job…” pic.twitter.com/JnnEinADsi
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 26, 2026
But the decision to send Homan to Minneapolis signals a change in the posture of the Trump administration’s immigration raids. The White House has also decided to pull Bovino, who has become the face of the aggressive approach to immigration enforcement, along with some of his agents, out of Minneapolis.
Homan’s approach is to have ICE make arrests of the worst of the worst illegal immigrant criminals, while Noem and Bovino care more about increasing numbers and putting on a show of force, sources said. Border Patrol isn’t as equipped to operate in urban areas and is used to functioning on the border, where they’re mostly nabbing illegal border crossers and busting smuggling operations.
“Noem lost control and never knew what she was doing,” one source told The Daily Wire. “She hated Homan because he reminded her daily that she knew nothing about law enforcement operations and that pissed her off.”
Another source said “the internal strife between Homan and Noem” has led to “issues between the enforcement and reporting.”
“She wants numbers, and this makes the heads of the components do anything to get those numbers. Homan is about enforcement, but not at any cost,” the source added.
“I don’t think Border Patrol should be here, let ICE do their thing.”
Noem shared her support of Homan’s trip, saying on X Monday that it’s “good news for peace, safety, and accountability in Minneapolis.”
“I have worked closely with Tom over the last year, and he has been a major asset to our team — his experience and insight will help us in our wide-scale fraud investigations, which have robbed Americans, and will help us to remove even more public safety threats and violent criminal illegal aliens off the streets of Minneapolis,” she said. “We continue to call on the leadership in Minnesota to allow for state and local partnership in our public safety mission.”
In response to claims of an internal rift at DHS, the agency told The Daily Wire that “DHS is one team, and we have one fight, to secure the homeland,” adding “DHS has arrested more than 3,500 illegal aliens, including rapists, murderers, and gang members, as part of DHS’s Operation Metro Surge.”
