Trump Border Czar Suggests First Amendment Isn’t All That Important

Border czar Tom Homan seems to think that free speech is the reason federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.

“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 gonna be bloodshed. And there has been,” Homan said at his introductory press conference in Minneapolis Thursday morning, as he takes over Operation Metro Surge from Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino.

“I wish I wasn’t right. I don’t wanna see anybody die. Not officers, not members of the community, and not the targets of our operations,” Homan continued. “For the people out there who don’t like what ICE is doing—if you want certain laws reformed, then take it up with Congress.”

The Trump administration’s framing of this situation is bizarre. It seems impossible for them to grasp that marching into Minneapolis with thousands of masked federal agents, doing door-to-door raids, and killing two people might elicit some resistance from the community. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, and protesters being “mean” to agents is not the reason two people are dead. And if we’re so focused on rhetoric, what about the slanderous things that President Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, and Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino have said about Renee Good and Alex Pretti? That rhetoric is far more incendiary than the response from the community.

Senior Trump administration officials have held meetings with the Alberta Prosperity Project, a fringe separatist group that seeks to split the province away from Canada. 

The Financial Times reports that State Department officials have met representatives from the group in Washington, D.C., three times in the last nine months. The group’s counsel, Jeff Rath, told the publication, “We’re meeting very, very senior people leaving our meetings to go directly to the Oval Office. 

“The U.S. is extremely enthusiastic about a free and independent Alberta,” Rath said. 

The Times, citing unnamed sources, said that the group was hoping for another meeting in February to request $500 billion in credit to prop up the province if an independence referendum, which has not yet been called, were to pass. The State Department confirmed the meetings to the publication but said, “No commitments were made,” and a White House official added that “no such support, or any other commitments, was conveyed.”

Last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent played up Albertan independence, calling the oil-rich province “a natural partner for the U.S.”

“They have great resources. The Albertans are very independent people. Rumor that they may have a referendum on whether they want to stay in Canada or not,” Bessent said to right-wing podcaster Jack Posobiec.  

Podcaster and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon discussed Alberta breaking away from Canada in an episode in November, saying that President Trump sees Canada like Ukraine. 

“The Chinese and the Russians are up there and they see the undefended northern territories of Canada, they’re going to take a bite,” Bannon said. His guest, right-wing commentator Brandon Weichert, expounded further. 

“I know a lot of the people in charge of the Alberta separatist movement,” Weichert said. “The Albertans are ready to vote in the next six months. They’re going to get out of the Canadian union. They’re going to become an independent country. We’re going to recognize them, and that’s going to put them on the pathway to becoming the fifty-first state.” 

In reality, polls show that the majority of Albertans would prefer to stay in Canada. Canadian leaders have denounced the APP’s meetings, with British Columbia Premier David Eby calling them “treason” and Ontario Premier Doug Ford saying that “going behind Canada’s back and negotiating is unacceptable.”

The U.S. is growing increasingly unpopular in Canada, thanks to Trump’s threats to make them the “fifty-first state.” The idea that his team would try to engineer a breakup of the country will only worsen the relationship, especially considering that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is already seeking to make Canada financially independent from the U.S.

Some people marry to obtain U.S. citizenship, while others undergo a complex and pricey naturalization process. For Nicki Minaj, it was a simple matter of panhandling the Trump administration.

The Trinidadian rapper turned MAGA activist has been begging for citizenship for months. In one particularly skin-crawling social media missive in November, Minaj whimpered to “Papi Trumpo” in a bid for “honorary citizenship.”

On Wednesday, her dreams came true.

Shortly after appearing beside the president for the unveiling of Trump Accounts—the White House’s attempt to slyly privatize Social Security—Minaj posted an image of her reward: a newly minted Trump “Gold Card” granting her legal residency and a pathway to citizenship.

“Residency? Residency? The cope is coping,” Minaj posted Wednesday night alongside an image of the Chucky doll flashing a middle finger. “Finalizing that citizenship paperwork as we speak as per MY wonderful, gracious, charming President.

“Gold Trump card free of charge,” she added.

For months, Donald Trump and his team pitched his Amex-inspired “gold card” as a replacement for the EB-5 visa program, which gives foreign investors an opportunity to gain permanent residency and bypass the traditional visa system. But the $5 million price tag on the slice of plastic has sparked significant backlash, as did its questionable legality.

The “gold card” program officially launched in late 2025, but the novel citizenship framework has come under fire by immigration experts, who have scrutinized the Trump administration’s decision to bypass standard congressional immigration law.

Minaj took a hard-right turn toward MAGA avenue three months ago, when her vaccine skepticism—which by then had become a hallmark of the far right—veered into a larger conservative ideology.

Since then, her “everything must go” sellout spree has morphed her into an administration mouthpiece. She has reposted White House messaging attacking trans kids, spoken at the United Nations on behalf of the Trump administration, chastised her own LGBTQ+ fans (after initially using her allyship to propel her music career), joined Erika Kirk at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest, and attacked Democrats with the White House’s talking points.

National leadership at the Department of Veterans Affairs initially blocked a memorial planned for Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old ICU nurse who was shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis.

In an email obtained by The New Republic, officials at the Minneapolis VA claimed that “local leadership was instructed to pause the memorial” for Pretti, initially scheduled for Tuesday at noon.

“So in other words, somebody told our people, ‘Back off,’” said one Minneapolis VA employee, who spoke with TNR under the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

“Our local leadership I think is very good, they’re quite sensitive, I mean they’re really trying to do that. But they’re getting it from above,” the employee said. “I mean, there’s supposed to be a memorial service yesterday, they’re told to postpone it? I mean, come on! That doesn’t seem consistent with how they usually respond.”

“As an institution, we owe it to him,” the employee said. “And I think the formal ritualized events help some people.”

Two employees also told The Washington Post that a memorial for Pretti had been initially blocked, but another service is scheduled for next week.

In response to an inquiry Wednesday about why the first memorial was canceled, Minneapolis VA Medical Center spokesperson Melanie Nelson told TNR that the organization was still working to schedule an event.

“VA employees are welcome to memorialize Alex Pretti in their own way as long as they are respectful and it does not interfere with their work duties,” the statement said.

At the Minneapolis VA, the decision to cancel Pretti’s memorial was another blow in an ongoing struggle with national leadership under the Trump administration. During the Biden administration, “we felt like the national office was there to support us in our mission as opposed to hamper us,” the first employee told TNR.

While VA Secretary Doug Collins has reportedly not issued an agency-wide statement about Pretti’s killing, he did blame Democratic leadership for his death on social media. “Such tragedies are unfortunately happening in Minnesota because of state and local officials’ refusal to cooperate with the federal government to enforce the law and deport dangerous illegal criminals,” Collins said on X Sunday.

“Really, that kind of got to me,” the employee said, referring to Collins’s statement. “And that’s our leader at the highest level.”

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz revealed President Donald Trump brought up the military operation in Venezuela when discussing the situation in Minnesota.

Speaking to MS NOW Wednesday night, Walz described his conversation with Trump earlier this week, which the president had claimed was a “very good call.” Walz had a different take.

“He told me that he doesn’t understand what’s wrong with Minnesota. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you people,’” Walz recounted.

“And he told me, ‘Well look, Tim, we did this in New Orleans, we did it in Louisville. There’s no problems.’ And I said, ‘You didn’t kill anybody in Louisville or New Orleans, and the operation here looks very different from that.’

“And then he told me it was successful in Venezuela,” Walz said.

“I’m not sure what gave him the indication that at this point in time, what’s happening to my state, that I’m interested in Venezuela. But he told me how well that went,” he said, adding that the remark was “strange.”

“He saw an operation in Venezuela against a foreign nation in the same context he saw an operation against a U.S. state, a U.S. city.”

Either the president was doing what he always does, flitting from one subject to another in order to inflate his own ego—or he was attempting to intimidate Walz by invoking a violent regime change.

The immigration enforcement operations in Louisville and New Orleans were incredibly different from the large-scale occupation in Minnesota. In Louisville, the operation lasted less than a week, and in New Orleans, only 200 federal immigration officers were dispatched. In the Twin Cities, at least 3,000 federal immigration agents have been dispatched for multiple weeks, resulting in two American citizens being killed in broad daylight.