We know that the anti-ICE clowns have a fairly organized strategy to disrupt lawful enforcement of U.S. immigration law. Their objective is to discredit ICE and the entire Trump administration by provoking the kinds of conflicts that got Renee Good and Alex Pretti killed. People died, these radical leftists rationalize, but at least ICE looked really bad.

Oh, and the guy ICE originally sought — a violent criminal named Jose Huerta-Chuma — escaped capture while the subversives occupied ICE agents.

As the New York Post editorial board put it, “The anti-ICE crew is getting exactly what it wants right now. People looking at a video on TikTok don’t get any of the context: All they’re seeing is a crowd of agents beating a guy onto the ground, with shots then ringing out and him ending up dead. Having Homeland Security double down now is all too likely to produce more such scenes.”

That means Team Trump had better adjust its own strategy. That doesn’t mean pulling out of Minnesota or ceasing to detain and deport illegal alien criminals, but it does mean a shift in how ICE interacts with the agitators, and it also means some significant personnel changes.

It seems that President Donald Trump is working on this, beginning with a shift in tone. “Nobody in the White House, including President Trump, wants to see people getting hurt or killed in America’s streets. This includes Renee Good, Alex Pretti, the brave men and women of federal law enforcement, and the many Americans who have been victimized at the hands of illegal alien criminals,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday. “It is President Trump’s hope and wish and demand for the resistance and chaos to end today.”

Personnel moves came next. “I am sending [Border Czar] Tom Homan to Minnesota tonight,” the president announced on Truth Social yesterday. “He has not been involved in that area, but knows and likes many of the people there. Tom is tough but fair, and will report directly to me.”

Homan is a serious man who has served in immigration enforcement for decades under administrations of both parties. He has also been at the center of a seemingly growing internal dispute with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem over who should be deported. Homan and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Todd Lyons have advocated that the emphasis be put on illegals with criminal records or final deportation orders. Noem and other administration players, by contrast, have favored and pushed a broader approach.

The one that is causing optics problems for ICE.

Noem herself has caused optics problems with her irresponsible rhetoric after Pretti’s death. She called him a “domestic terrorist,” which is at best hyperbolic nonsense. That term has a specific definition under federal law, and Pretti doesn’t meet it. Neither did Renee Good, whom Noem hit with the same label. Noem (falsely) added that Pretti was “brandishing” his gun, saying, “This looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement.” None of that is supported by the known facts of the case, and as our Mark Alexander says, it “serves only as an accelerant.”

Noem is a team player and praised Trump’s decision to send Homan. “This is good news for peace, safety, and accountability in Minneapolis,” she said. “I have worked closely with Tom over the last year and he has been a major asset to our team.” Both Noem and Homan directly report to Trump, and Noem had a long meeting with the president on Monday.

That doesn’t mean Noem’s job is entirely safe. Naturally, many Democrats are rallying for impeachment or demanding that Trump fire her.

That won’t happen — yet. However, Trump ordered Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino out of Minnesota after he essentially said the same things as Noem — that Pretti “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”

We certainly can’t count on Democrats like Governor Tim Walz to speak responsibly. He’s busy comparing Minnesota to the story of Anne Frank and the Nazis, for which even the U.S. Holocaust Museum rebuked him. We should be able to count on Team Trump to accurately speak about incredibly tense situations. Doing so would calm Americans, rather than fomenting more division and anger.

Speaking of Walz, he wrote an op-ed in which the first paragraph condemns “the Trump administration’s assault on Minnesota” and “campaign of organized brutality against the people of our state.” He assails the enforcement of immigration law as targeting people who “have done nothing wrong except exist as a person of color.” That’s inflammatory hogwash that inspires the people harassing federal agents in the streets.

On the same day Walz’s incendiary op-ed was published, the president and the governor had what Trump called “a good conversation.” I’m skeptical that a guy who thinks the Trump administration is the reincarnated Nazi regime is interested in cooperating at all, even to meet Trump’s series of very reasonable conditions.

Let’s conclude with a strategic view: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris opened the border, allowing 10-15 million illegals to flood across. Minnesota and several other states and cities, all run by Democrats, are sanctuary jurisdictions, and ICE has to operate in these places because more illegal aliens reside there. Anti-ICE agitators organize, provoke, and film in order to discredit law enforcement. Precious few people appear capable of speaking honestly about the situation or what they (think they) see on video. Everyone is angry and spoiling for a fight.

It turns out that the more access to “information” people have, the more difficult it becomes to restore the Rule of Law.

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