The “autonomous zone” strategy worked for the Left in 2020, in Minneapolis and elsewhere. Some of those “zones” remained under insurrectionist control for months. However, those zones interfered with local law enforcement.
This morning, Tom Homan explained the difference. Federal law enforcement won’t stop at Antifa roadblocks, and woe betide the fools who think the barricades will derail their legitimate efforts, Homan told the media this morning:
Border Czar Tom Homan tells Antifa and far-leftists who have set up roadblocks in Minneapolis that those tactics will not stop ICE and Border Patrol:
“The only thing you’re doing is irritating your community…I talked to the chief of police and he committed to taking swift… pic.twitter.com/nMXf7UEjhw
— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) February 4, 2026
This part made my ears perk up a bit:
“I talked to the chief of police and he committed to taking swift action on those illegal roadblocks. They’re illegal and we shouldn’t tolerate them.”
David will have more on that shortly, but Homan is entirely correct on this point. These roadblocks and vigilante patrols are a form of insurrection, just as they were in 2020, which local police in Minneapolis, Seattle, and other cities tolerated while consigning their citizens to mob rule for months on end. A jury in Seattle dropped a $30 million judgment on the city for that choice in a wrongful-death suit, as Jonathan Turley wrote yesterday:
The Mays lawsuit included not only the city but former Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best and Seattle Fire Chief Harold Scoggins.
The jury awarded the Mays family more than $30 million in damages — $4 million to the estate of Mays Jr. and $26 million to Mays Sr., according to The Seattle Times.
Mays Jr. was visiting Seattle from San Diego when he went to the area to join the protests. He was later shot and the police failed to respond for five hours due to the limits on entry into CHOP. At that point, the crime scene was hopelessly corrupted.
That brings us to the question of whether Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara really plans to do anything about the latest “CHOP” zones in his city. Homan seems to think he will, but that would require the Minneapolis police force to commit significant resources to an effort that the city’s leadership likely opposes, even in O’Hara himself doesn’t. Given that O’Hara has spent the past few days whining to the New York Times about federal law enforcement, his commitment to the project seems a bit difficult to credit:
The kind of recklessly confrontational policing that Chief O’Hara had spent the last decade trying to exorcise, first as a police official in Newark, N.J., and more recently as the chief in Minneapolis, was now playing out all over the city.
“Even before Renee Good was killed, there were all these videos online every single day of situations that were just chaotic, with poor tactics that looked like policing from 30 years ago,” he said in an interview before the induction ceremony. “It looked like chaos.”
Chief O’Hara has been in a difficult position, stuck between federal law enforcement officers and the residents of Minneapolis. Many protesters have criticized the Minneapolis police for not doing more to rein in ICE agents. Angry protesters have sometimes screamed at local officers when they show up at tense scenes. But with just over 620 officers, the department has been at a breaking point for weeks, juggling routine calls and those related to the immigration operations
Beyond the daily emergency, Chief O’Hara has a deeper concern: that years of hard-won progress following the murder of Mr. Floyd and the riots that ensued could be undone in a matter of weeks.
All O’Hara and Minneapolis had to do to avoid this was follow the law. Had they cooperated with ICE on immigration enforcement by honoring immigration detainers and providing crowd control around ICE operations, this situation never would have escalated. Instead, Jaob Frey and Tim Walz doubled down on their “sanctuary” claims, and O’Hara went along. St. Paul Police Federation president Mark Ross explained this clearly to the New York Post last week:
“Since the Republican National Convention was held in St. Paul back in 2008, Minnesota law enforcement has undergone extensive training in mobile field force configurations and crowd management for major events. And because of that, I think we’re in the best position to deal with that,” Ross said.
“Unfortunately, our local politicians would not allow us to do that,” he added. …
“Had we been allowed just a little bit of coordination – not in terms of what ICE is doing, but if they say, ‘Hey, we need to go to this place to serve a warrant, we’re going to be out there a couple hours. We’re nervous that crowds are going to form and give us trouble. Can you come out and help?’ That’s something we can easily coordinate with a little bit of notice, and sometimes with hardly any notice, we can get out there quickly,” Ross said.
“I believe, had we been able to do that, that there would be no loss of life at this point,” he said. …
“Part of it is leadership, because the leadership in our cities doesn’t want us communicating with the federal folks. And that disconnect has created some problems for everybody, and we’re stuck in the middle of it, and public safety is everybody’s responsibility,” he said.
“We want to be out there. We want to be keeping people safe, and it’s been really tough. We really feel like we’re in the middle of this, obviously, not by choice,” Ross added.
Perhaps everyone involved now realizes the liabilities involved in insurrections against authority. This one started as an insurrection by Walz and Frey against federal law enforcement, but it has now devolved into insurrections against their authority – again – by radical Leftists and street gangs. So perhaps O’Hara may be more willing to commit to the effort necessary to dismantle these roadblocks and insurrectionist campaigns, but he might need some help from the National Guard to accomplish it. Would Walz authorize it? Doubtful.
Homan wants to work with O’Hara, Frey, and Walz, he stated today, but not by refusing to enforce immigration law. He noted how many serious offenders that Operation Metro Surge has taken off the street, including 14 illegal aliens with homicide convictions. Homan did announce a drawdown of 700 agents, but that leaves 2,000 still in the state. He also warned that the drawdown of agents would remain connected to cooperation from local and state authorities with federal agencies:
The Trump administration is pulling 700 of the approximately 3,000 federal officers and agents out of Minnesota, border czar Tom Homan said Wednesday, indicating that it plans to continue large-scale immigration operations in Minneapolis.
“Effective immediately, we will draw down 700 people,” Homan said Wednesday, adding that the remaining officers will stay to carry out immigration enforcement in the state. He added that about 2,000 officers will remain. …
Homan said he wanted to turn down the temperature but would continue the unprecedented surge of federal officials in Minnesota until attacks on federal agents stop.
“We want to get back to the normal operational footprint here,” Homan said. “The more cooperation we get, the less rhetoric and hate we see, and the less attacks, means we can draw down even more quicker.”
Homan says illegal aliens who have not committed criems aren’t getting a pass – but the priority now is focusing on criminals, who are the biggest threat. So far ICE removed 14 criminal aliens with homicide convictions, 139 with sexual-related offenses, and 28 gang members.… https://t.co/aD5LRHzKUJ
— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) February 4, 2026
Homan says POTUS still intends to effectiuate mass deportations, and “We have not directed otherwise”
Complete drawdown of federal agents will be contingent on continued cooperation between state/local officials and decrease of attacks on federal immigration agents. 2k will remain after the drawdown, normal footprint is about 150.
Special agents in Twin Cities working on fraud investigation will remain.
Will O’Hara cooperate on that too? Don’t hold your breath.
Editor’s Note: Democrat politicians and their radical supporters will do everything they can to interfere with and threaten ICE agents enforcing our immigration laws.
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