Good morning. It’s spring! (Don’t tell us otherwise)

The immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota is being wrapped up. The Trump administration said it would wrap up the push next week with many agents on the way out sooner. White House border czar Tom Homan was vague beyond that about a timeline or when the ICE agent complement would return to normal levels of about 150. “A small footprint of personnel will remain for a period of time,” he said. Homan said President Donald Trump had blessed the decision and the adviser went out of his way to declare some sense of victory. Homan said the thousands of agents had made 4,000 arrests during the course of the mission, although federal officials have only selectively released arrest data. The announcement was greeted with varying degrees of relief and skepticism by local and state elected officials, and community members. The federal operation began in early December and intensified in early January as hundreds of federal immigration officers flooded into the state. Those agents were met with widespread protests, and countless observers tracking their arrests and operations. Federal agents fatally shot two people in Minneapolis — Renee Macklin Good and Alex Pretti — and also shot and wounded a third person (there’s news on that front, too). Homan said: “We do not want to see anymore bloodshed. I don’t want to see anymore bloodshed.”

Homan cited implied coordination with state and local leaders that allowed for the exit by immigration officers, although state leaders said they had made no concessions. A smaller number will remain in the state to focus on fraud investigations and continue immigration enforcement efforts with a greater deal of cooperation with law enforcement agencies than they’d experienced early on in the surge, Homan said. Gov. Tim Walz refuted the assessment that the state capitulated to reach a deal. He said the Department of Corrections has been working with ICE to hand off people in Minnesota prison facilities when their sentences come to a close. Walz also said the Trump administration asked that he encourage peaceful protest of ICE actions, which he maintained he’d done all along. Walz expressed pride about the state’s resilience and work standing up for one another. “This is something that I don't think any state has ever experienced, and through that entire time, the dignity, the compassion, the love, the care, and the absolute determination to do what was right never wavered amongst Minnesotans,” he said. Walz added that the current temperature warmup seemed to be a metaphor for what was happening. “ I know that we're still in the deep part of winter, but it's going to be 40 today. Here, the sun's going to be shining. Probably a pretty good metaphor for spring is out there, summer over the horizon.”

Walz pointed to the damage the operation has done to small businesses in the state, some of which are owned by immigrants and that closed their doors during the surge. Walz proposed a $10 million aid package to support businesses that were affected by the operation that began on Dec. 1. He said it would be an emergency fund that would offer forgivable loans to small businesses. He said the upcoming legislative session “needs to be about the recovery of the damage” caused by the immigration surge and called on the federal government “to pay for what they broke here.” He stood with business owners affected by ICE actions and encouraged lawmakers to approve more funding to help make them whole.

On a split screen with Homan’s announcement of the federal drawdown were a set of Minnesota officials of opposite political stripes testifying before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security. Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer, state House Republican Leader Harry Niska, Minnesota DFL Attorney General Keith Ellison and Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell testified before the panel about ICE enforcement actions in the state. Peter Cox reports that their physical proximity did little to cool a sharp partisan and philosophical divide over the 10-week long operation in Minnesota. "The unrest that we all watched unfold in Minneapolis over recent weeks was unnerving,” Emmer said. “It was heartbreaking, and any loss of life is tragic, but make no mistake, it was all a direct result of radical sanctuary state and city policies in Minnesota." Ellison had a much different take. "This war on Minnesota is retribution, to be sure. Our policies, our values and how we vote, and it comes at a great cost. It comes at a cost of the lives of two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti." The questioning largely broke down political lines but Committee Chair Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, aired concerns over actions of federal law enforcement during the surge and the resistance to it. "In a free society, filming government officials in public is a constitutional right,” Paul said. “It's not an act of aggression... Americans are led to believe that exercising the right, the right of being there and protesting, shouldn't place them at the risk of lethal force. If it does, public trust collapses.”

There is still no agreement for a joint state-federal investigation of the Renee Macklin Good or Alex Pretti fatal shootings by federal agents. State authorities have been denied access to key forensic evidence and, initially, had to sue to force preservation of evidence in the Pretti case. Gov. Tim Walz said talks had been moving toward a cooperative investigation but the federal government backed away as word leaked out. The Star Tribune, which reported last week a deal was at hand, goes through the details of the false start here.