Border Patrol police disperse pepper spray at demonstrators, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jen Golbeck)
Jen Golbeck/AP/FR172329 AP
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Jen Golbeck/AP/FR172329 AP
President 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 is a responsibility to care for the community,” he emphasizes.
He critiques the videos for depicting federal officers as escalating conflicts rather than diffusing them.
“They are immersed in a toxic environment of their own making unrelated to law enforcement,” Taylor asserts, attributing this to messaging from high-ranking officials like Vice President Vance that grants them “immunity.”
“If they were instructed before deployment that they have an absolute responsibility instead of absolute immunity… it all begins with the mindset of their actions,” he argues.
David “Kawika” Lau, a senior instructor at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers, notes an increased emphasis on de-escalation techniques post an external report on CBP use of force, a training program he has contributed to shaping.
“We teach emotional intelligence, self-regulation, self-awareness. You cannot bring calm to a situation if you are not composed yourself,” Lau explains.
However, Lau questions the readiness of CBP in handling large, tumultuous crowds in the Twin Cities, as their de-escalation techniques are primarily for one-on-one interactions.
“While they may have expertise in urban operations,” Lau says, “that is not the intended role for a CBP officer. Consequently, the training does not align with this.”
Federal immigration agencies claim to be pushed into an unfamiliar role. CBP commissioner Rodney Scott expressed on Fox News that their primary training was for arresting suspects, which is inherently risky. The current scenario where the community is urged by local leaders to obstruct felony arrests presents a new challenge that they are adapting to.
Minnesota leaders have urged protesters to remain peaceful, not explicitly calling for interference in immigration arrests.
However, federal officials argue that protesters following immigration agents and alerting at-risk individuals is hindering their operations. Consequently, officers may perceive such actions as criminal behavior, as outlined in the recent Attorney General memo on “domestic terrorism.”
Minnesota officials believe that federal urban law enforcement tactics have diverted attention from their immigration enforcement duties. Governor Tim Walz criticized federal agents for neglecting to apprehend a non-citizen with a significant criminal history upon release from a jail outside the metro area.
“Their role is immigration and customs enforcement. Minnesota law enforcement is responsible for upholding the law in our state,” Walz emphasizes.
As the backlash against federal presence in Minnesota escalated, Walz reported a “productive call” with President Trump, who indicated potential reductions in federal officers in the state.
