JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel brought home the remains of the last hostage in Gaza on Monday, closing a painful chapter for the country and clearing the way for the next and more challenging phase of its ceasefire with Hamas.
The next step is likely to be the reopening of Gaza’s border with Egypt, enabling Palestinians to travel in both directions and eventually allowing more aid to enter the territory devastated by two years of war. The ceasefire's second phase also calls for deploying an international security force, disarming Hamas, pulling back Israeli soldiers and rebuilding Gaza.
Click to Gallery
Itzik and Talik Gvili, parents of of Israeli hostage Ran Gvili speak after the announcement that his remains were the last to be recovered from Gaza, at there home in the village of Meitar, southern Israel, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
The coffin with remains of Israeli hostage Ran Gvili, last to be recovered from Gaza, arrives to the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
A woman carries a photo of Israeli hostage Ran Gvili after the announcement that his remains were the last to be recovered from Gaza, had been identified, in a plaza known as Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
A police officer hugs a family member of Israeli hostage Ran Gvili after the announcement that his remains were the last to be recovered from Gaza, at his home in the village of Meitar, southern Israel, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Two women embrace next to a banner with a photo of Ran Gvili after the announcement that the hostage, whose remains were the last to be recovered from Gaza, had been identified, in a plaza known as Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
A woman walks by chairs with photo of Ran Gvili, the final hostage in Gaza who was killed while fighting Hamas militants during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack and whose remains have been recovered Monday, clearing the way for the next phase of the ceasefire that paused the Israel-Hamas war, in a plaza known as Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
Palestinian children receive donated food at a community kitchen in Nuseirat, in central Gaza Strip, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
People hold signs with a photo of Ran Gvili, who was killed while fighting Hamas militants during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack and whose body has been held in Gaza ever since, during a rally calling for his return in Tel Aviv, Israel, Friday, Jan. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
The remains of police officer Ran Gvili were found in a cemetery in northern Gaza.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it “an incredible achievement” for Israel and its soldiers. He said Gvili, who was killed during the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked the war, was among the first to be taken into Gaza.
Dozens of people, including relatives, military officials and friends from Gvili's police unit, received his coffin at an army post on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza.
Many more Israelis lined nearby roads to pay their respects as a convoy carrying the coffin made its way to Tel Aviv, where it arrived Monday night.
“You should see the honor you’re receiving here,” Gvili’s father, Itzik, said, kissing his son’s coffin, which was draped in an Israeli flag. “The entire police is here with you, the entire army is with you, the entire people. I’m proud of you.”
The return of all remaining hostages, living or dead, had been a key part of the Gaza ceasefire’s first phase. Hamas said it now has met those terms.
Netanyahu’s office said Sunday that once the search for Gvili was finished, Israel would open the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, which Palestinians see as their lifeline to the world. It has been largely shut since May 2024, except for a short period early last year.
The ceasefire's next phase will confront thornier issues, including transitioning to a new governance structure in Gaza and disarming Hamas, which has ruled the territory for nearly two decades.
“The next phase is disarming Hamas and demilitarizing the Gaza Strip. The next phase is not reconstruction,” Netanyahu said Monday while addressing the Israeli parliament.
Palestinians in Gaza were optimistic that opening the Rafah crossing will allow travel to and from the enclave along with the evacuation of people needing medical care.
“We hope this will close off Israel’s pretexts and open the crossing,” said Abdel-Rahman Radwan, a Gaza City resident whose mother has cancer and requires treatment outside Gaza.
Ahmed Ruqab, a father who lives with his family of six in a tent in the Nuseirat refugee camp, called for mediators and the U.S. to pressure Israel to allow more aid.
“We need to turn this page and restart,” he said over the phone.
An official with the United Nation’s children’s agency said Monday that there is backlog of supplies in Egypt ready to move into Gaza whenever the crossing opens to aid traffic.
The next phase needs to include bringing not only more humanitarian and commercial supplies but also permanent shelter materials and items to repair infrastructure, said Ted Chaiban, UNICEF’s deputy executive director.
Gvili’s relatives last week repeated calls for Israel’s government and U.S. President Donald Trump to ensure the release of his remains.
“Most thought of it as an impossible thing to do,” Trump posted on social media.
Gvili’s mother, Talik, thanked the Israeli government and security forces as well as Trump for allowing the family to “achieve closure.”
Israel had repeatedly accused Hamas of dragging its feet in the search while Hamas said it had provided all the information it had, accusing Israel of obstructing the efforts.
Gvili’s remains were found right along the “yellow line” dividing Gaza just on the Israeli side, according to a military official, speaking anonymously under army protocol.
The October 2023 attack on Israel that launched the war killed about 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage. Gvili, a 24-year-old police officer known affectionately as “Rani,” was killed while fighting Hamas militants.
On a call with reporters Monday, two U.S. officials credited Egypt, Qatar and Turkey with helping to get Hamas to release Gvili’s body, and said Hamas was very cooperative in making it happen.
The officials, who insisted on anonymity per the rules of a call setup by the White House, said they now expect Israel to help both sides move forward into phase two of the ceasefire and they want Hamas to disarm in accordance with the agreement and believe they will.
Before Gvili’s remains were recovered, 20 living hostages and the remains of 27 others had been returned to Israel since the ceasefire, most recently in early December.
Israel has released roughly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners under the ceasefire deal, many who were seized by Israeli troops during the two-year war and held without charge. It also has released the bodies of more than 300 Palestinians back to Gaza, where officials have struggled to identify them.
In a symbolic act, Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Monday removed a yellow pin worn by many to show solidarity with the hostages and their families.
Palestinians in Gaza who spoke to The Associated Press in recent weeks questioned whether the ceasefire's next steps will improve conditions, pointing to ongoing bloodshed and challenges securing basic necessities.
Israeli forces on Monday fatally shot two people in Gaza, according to hospitals that received the bodies. One man was close to the area where the military was searching for Gvili, according to Shifa Hospital.
Israel’s offensive has killed at least 71,660 Palestinians since 2023, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry — with more than 480 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire since the latest ceasefire began. The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts.
The Foreign Press Association on Monday asked Israel’s Supreme Court to allow journalists to enter Gaza freely and independently.
The FPA represents dozens of global news organizations and has been pushing for independent media access to Gaza. Israel has barred reporters from entering Gaza independently since the 2023 attacks by Hamas, saying entry could put journalists and soldiers at risk.
FPA lawyers told the court that the restrictions are not justified and that with aid workers moving in and out of Gaza, journalists should be allowed in. They said tightly controlled visits under strict military supervision are no substitute for independent access. The judges are expected to rule soon.
Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
Itzik and Talik Gvili, parents of of Israeli hostage Ran Gvili speak after the announcement that his remains were the last to be recovered from Gaza, at there home in the village of Meitar, southern Israel, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
The coffin with remains of Israeli hostage Ran Gvili, last to be recovered from Gaza, arrives to the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
A woman carries a photo of Israeli hostage Ran Gvili after the announcement that his remains were the last to be recovered from Gaza, had been identified, in a plaza known as Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
A police officer hugs a family member of Israeli hostage Ran Gvili after the announcement that his remains were the last to be recovered from Gaza, at his home in the village of Meitar, southern Israel, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Two women embrace next to a banner with a photo of Ran Gvili after the announcement that the hostage, whose remains were the last to be recovered from Gaza, had been identified, in a plaza known as Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
A woman walks by chairs with photo of Ran Gvili, the final hostage in Gaza who was killed while fighting Hamas militants during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack and whose remains have been recovered Monday, clearing the way for the next phase of the ceasefire that paused the Israel-Hamas war, in a plaza known as Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
Palestinian children receive donated food at a community kitchen in Nuseirat, in central Gaza Strip, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
People hold signs with a photo of Ran Gvili, who was killed while fighting Hamas militants during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack and whose body has been held in Gaza ever since, during a rally calling for his return in Tel Aviv, Israel, Friday, Jan. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
President Donald Trump said Tuesday a “big investigation” was underway into the killing of protester and ICU nurse Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis.
“I want to see the investigation. I’m going to be watching over it, and I want a very honorable and honest investigation. I have to see it myself,” the president said as he left the White House.
The comment is the latest marker of Trump’s sudden turnabout on the issue as his administration confronts growing pushback — including from some Republicans and Second Amendment advocates — on federal agents’ tactics in the second fatal shooting from the aggressive immigration operation in Minnesota.
A day earlier, the White House made an effort to distance Trump from some early comments by high-ranking administration officials who had branded Pretti as a domestic terrorist despite videos of the encounter contradicting their narrative.
Immigration agents were active Tuesday across the Twin Cities region, but it was unclear if officials had changed tactics after the shift in tone from the White House.
The Latest:
A Customs and Border Protection official told Congress that one officer fired his Glock and another officer fired his, according to a notification obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.
Investigators from CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility conducted the analysis based on a review of body camera footage and agency documentation, according to the notice.
The agency is required to report in-custody and certain other deaths involving its agents and officers to Congress.
The notice said officers tried to take Pretti into custody and he resisted, leading to a struggle. During the struggle, a Border Patrol agent yelled, “He’s got a gun!” multiple times, according to the notice.
Federal immigration authorities have released an Ecuadorian man whose detention led the chief federal judge in Minnesota to order the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to appear in his courtroom, the man’s attorney said Tuesday.
Attorney Graham Ojala-Barbour said the man, who is identified in court documents as “Juan T.R.,” was released in Texas. The lawyer said in an email to The Associated Press that he was notified in an email from the U.S. attorneys office in Minneapolis shortly after 1 p.m. CT that his client had been freed.
▶ Read more about Ecuadorian man’s release
Trump called the fatal shootings of two Americans by federal agents in Minneapolis “terrible” and said that hearing that one was the daughter of Trump supporters makes it even worse for him.
Renee Good, 37, was shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer on Jan. 7. Pretti, also 37, was killed on Jan. 24.
“I’m not sure about his parents but I know her parents were big Trump fans. Makes me feel bad anyway. But I mean, I guess you could say even worse,” he said.
Trump made the comments Tuesday in an interview with Fox News in Iowa, where he had flown earlier that day to speak at a rally in the Des Moines area.
A federal judge has issued a temporary order prohibiting removal of a 5-year-old Ecuadorian boy and his father whose arrest last week in Minnesota quickly become another lightning rod for America’s divisions on immigration under the Trump administration.
U.S. Judge Fred Biery ruled Monday that any removal or transfer of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, is on hold while a court case proceeds.
The father and son are now at family detention facility in Dilley, Texas, near San Antonio.
▶ Read more about 5-year-old boy and father who were detained
Trump said during an interview on Fox News’ “Will Cain Show” of his sending Homan to Minnesota, “we’re going to de-escalate a little bit.”
That’s significant since White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, when questioned repeatedly Monday about Homan’s being dispatched to Minnesota, refused to say that doing so was an effort to calm the situation.
The president added of Homan, “Tom, as tough as he is, gets along” with governors and mayors, even in Democratic areas.
As he greeted diners in a Des Moines-area restaurant, Trump again weighed in on the Minnesota shooting.
“We view that as a very unfortunate incident, OK?,” he said, adding that everyone “unless you’re a stupid person” viewed it that way.
In comments that were likely to further irritate his backers who are also strong Second Amendment supports, he said: “I don’t like that he had a gun. I don’t like that he had two fully loaded magazines. That’s a lot of bad stuff.”
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is “a liar,” “vicious” and “incompetent” and must be fired after the fatal shootings of two Minneapolis protesters by federal authorities.
In opening floor remarks as the Senate returned to Washington, Schumer said that Democrats will not vote for Homeland Security funding as part of a wide-ranging spending bill passed by the House last week. The government will partially shut down if the Senate doesn’t pass the legislation by Friday.
Schumer said Republicans should strip the Homeland spending portion out of the bill and should not force a vote on legislation “that everyone knows cannot pass.”
“The ball is in Leader Thune’s court,” Schumer said of Senate Majority Leader John Thune.
Democrats have criticized Noem and other officials for saying Pretti “approached” immigration officers with a gun and acted violently when video evidence appears to show otherwise.
Schumer stopped short of saying that Noem should be impeached as dozens of Democrats have signed on to an impeachment resolution in the House.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, of Wisconsin where Pretti grew up and graduated from high school, said she supports impeaching Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
“She has to go,” Baldwin told reporters during an online news conference Tuesday. “She needs to be fired or she should resign. ... If impeachment is the way to do it, I’d support it.”
Baldwin also said she would not vote for the DHS funding bill before the Senate without additional accountability measures for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“ICE is out of control and they are wreaking havoc on American cities, including Minneapolis-St. Paul,” Baldwin said. “The question is are my Republican colleagues just going to look away or are they going to join us in adding accountability measures that rein in ICE?”
Mayor Jacob Frey told Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, that the city will not enforce federal immigration laws, and he asked that the immigration enforcement surge “come to an end as quickly as possible.”
Homan met with Frey and Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara on Tuesday morning.
“Public safety works best when it’s built on community trust — not tactics that create fear or division,” Frey said in a statement released after the meeting. “I shared with Mr. Homan the serious negative impacts this operation has had on Minneapolis and surrounding communities, as well as the strain it has placed on our local police officers.”
Frey said the city would “remain focused on keeping our neighbors and streets safe.”
One person was shot and in critical condition Tuesday in a shooting involving the Border Patrol near the U.S.- Mexico border, authorities in Arizona said.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department said it was working with the FBI and U.S. Customs and Border Protection in response to the shooting in Arivaca, Arizona, a community about 10 miles from the border.
The shooting involved a Border Patrol agent and a suspect, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department told the Arizona Daily Star.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the FBI did not immediately respond to emails and telephone calls seeking more information.
▶ Read more about shooting involving Border Patrol
There’s a potential path forward for Minnesota prosecutors to charge the federal officers who killed Good and Pretti, a former federal prosecutor said Tuesday.
State officials have complained about a lack of cooperation from federal authorities.
But former federal prosecutor Anders Folk laid out a potential road map on social media Tuesday. He said there first needs to be a fair, impartial investigation.
If state charges are then filed, Folk said, the case would likely get moved to federal court. He said a federal judge would then decide whether the officer was shielded by the Supremacy Clause. He said that immunity is not absolute, and whether the case can go forward will depend on the facts.
“Let’s get caught trying to do the right thing and ensure people are held accountable for these unlawful killings,” said Folk, who is running for the job of Hennepin County’s top prosecutor.
“The country is disgusted by what the Department of Homeland Security has done,” said Leader Hakeem Jeffries in a statement.
The Democrat is the latest in a growing number of voices — from party leaders to advocacy groups to the most centrist of lawmakers in Congress — insisting on dramatic changes in the aftermath of the shooting deaths in Minnesota.
“Kristi Noem should be fired immediately or we will commence impeachment proceedings in the House,” said Jeffries, whose party would need GOP support on any legislation to launch such an effort.
“The violence unleased on the American people by the Department of Homeland Security must end.”
Trump was asked if the killed Minneapolis protester was an “assassin” as a key aide has claimed and the president answered “no.”
The president added, however, that protesters “can’t have guns” as Pretti did and “it’s just a very unfortunate incident.” Trump has said he wants the death investigated.
On Saturday, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller on social media described Pretti as an “assassin” who “tried to murder federal agents.” Vice President JD Vance shared the post on X as well.
The president was asked as he left the White House on Tuesday whether he thought Pretti’s killing was justified and he responded by saying that a “big investigation” was underway.
“I want to see the investigation. I’m going to be watching over it, and I want a very honorable and honest investigation. I have to see it myself,” he said.
He was also asked about Pretti’s family and said in response, he said: “I love everybody. I love all of our people. I love his family. And it’s a very sad situation.”
Asked by reporters as he left the White House on Tuesday for a trip to Iowa whether Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is going to step down, Trump had a one-word answer: “No.”
He did not elaborate further.
Democrats in Congress have called for Noem’s exit after federal agents fatally shot two people in Minneapolis protesting immigration enforcement actions.
Trump sent his border czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis and said on Tuesday that Homan was meeting with both the mayor and Minnesota governor.
Christina Leeson, who lives in the Minneapolis suburb Edina and was at Pretti’s vigil Tuesday morning, said Bovino’s leave is encouraging, though she’s hesitant to believe things are over since Tom Homan is coming in.
“It’s just overwhelming, the amount of world-changing events that have happened within a 3-mile radius,” she said, referring to the death of Renee Good earlier in January, and George Floyd in 2020.
“I feel like this is usually the time of year where I think we all kind of question why we live in Minnesota when it’s, you now, negative zero or below zero for weeks on end,” she said.
Leeson said the way the community has come together in recent weeks has been a reminder of “the community, and how much we care for our neighbors and look out for each other, and are going to come out, and stand for what we believe is right no matter what.”
“Governor Walz met with Tom Homan this morning and reiterated Minnesota’s priorities: impartial investigations into the Minneapolis shootings involving federal agents, a swift, significant reduction in the number of federal forces in Minnesota, and an end to the campaign of retribution against Minnesota,” the governor’s office announced.
“The Governor and Homan agreed on the need for an ongoing dialogue and will continue working toward those goals, which the President also agreed to yesterday. The Governor tasked the Minnesota Department of Public Safety as the primary liaison to Homan to ensure these goals are met,” the statement said.
If they’ve changed tactics with the shift in tone from the White House, it wasn’t immediately clear in the Minneapolis and St. Paul area.
The streets appeared largely quiet Tuesday morning in South Minneapolis neighborhoods where unmarked convoys of immigration agents have been regular sights in recent weeks, including the neighborhoods where two people were killed by federal agents.
But Associated Press staff saw carloads of agents in northeast Minneapolis and in the suburb of Little Canada.
Former President Joe Biden said on social media on Tuesday that the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis “betrays our most basic values as Americans.”
Former President Barack Obama said Sunday that Pretti's killing should be a “wake-up call to every American” and warned that “our core values as a nation are increasingly under assault.”
Former President Bill Clinton’s statement Sunday said that “over the course of a lifetime, we face only a few moments where the decisions we make and the actions we take will shape our history for years to come.”
“This is one of them,” Clinton said. “If we give our freedoms away after 250 years, we might never get them back.”
NAACP president Derrick Johnson and League of United Latin American Citizens president Roman Palomares will hold community events in Minneapolis on Tuesday before meeting with Ellison.
The events include a visit to the site where Pretti was shot and killed by federal immigration officers for a “moment of reflection,” according to a press release from LULAC, and a “Community Conversation” held at NAACP’s Minneapolis headquarters.
Trump’s crackdown on immigration contributed to a year-to-year drop in the nation’s growth rate as the U.S. population reached nearly 342 million people in 2025, according to population estimates released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The 0.5% growth rate was a sharp drop from 2024’s immigration-fueled rate of almost 1%, which grew the population to an estimated 340 million.
Births outnumbered deaths last year by 519,000 people last year and 1.3 million people immigrated, compared with 2.8 million immigrants in 2024.
In the past 125 years, the lowest growth rate was during the coronavirus pandemic, when the population grew by just 0.16% in 2021. Before that, the lowest rate was just under 0.5% in 1919 during the Spanish flu.
▶ Read more about how Trump policies are affecting U.S. population numbers
Keith Ellison said he hopes Trump’s “Operation Metro Surge” will end immediately. Asked on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” Tuesday if Trump’s newly conciliatory posture has led to more federal cooperation with state and local officials in Minneapolis, Ellison said “not that I’ve seen so far.”
“You should understand, Minnesota is abiding by the law as written. We, under the 10th Amendment, the federal government doesn’t have the authority to convert us into its deputies,” Ellison said. “And what the federal government has done is said, ‘well, if you don’t do it our way, we’re going to saturate your state with 4,000 ICE agents until you cry uncle and obey.’ And that’s unconstitutional and illegal.”
“It’s a good thing” Trump talked with Minnesota’s governor and Minneapolis’ mayor, Ellison said. “But we need to see some results ... they’ve got to show, not just say.”
Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman is calling on Trump to fire Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after federal agents fatally shot two protesters in Minneapolis.
“Americans have died,” Fetterman said in a direct appeal to Trump. “She is betraying DHS’s core mission and trashing your border security legacy.”
Fetterman, a Democrat who has increasingly voted with Republicans, said Trump should “NOT make the mistake President Biden made for not firing a grossly incompetent DHS Secretary.”
Fetterman voted with Democrats in April 2024 to dismiss a trial against Biden’s Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, after he was impeached by the Republican-led House.
The field commander of Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis is leaving the city after federal agents fatally shot two people.
Bovino had been the go-to architect for the large-scale immigration crackdowns ordered by Trump and the public face of his administration’s city-by-city sweeps. The Border Patrol chief led agents in Los Angeles, Chicago and New Orleans before he headed to Minnesota in December for what the Department of Homeland Security called its largest-ever immigration enforcement operation.
“We’re going to turn and burn to that next target and the next and the next and the next, and we’re not going to stop,” Bovino said in an interview.
▶ Read more about Bovino’s career, methods and approach
First lady Melania Trump said in a Fox News interview Tuesday that Americans needed to come together as protests continue in Minneapolis.
“I’m against the violence. So, if — please, if you protest, protest in peace. And we need to unify in these times,” she said.
Melania Trump’s comments went beyond her husband’s in calling for calm, though he has softened his rhetoric in recent days while continuing to blame Democrats for the violence.
She also echoed the president’s previous statements that he had a “great call” Monday with Walz and Frey, adding they were working together to ensure protests were “without riots.”
The interview with Ainsley Earnhardt on “Fox & Friends” was pegged to the upcoming release of a new documentary about the first lady.
This item has been corrected. Melania Trump said “if you protest,” not “if we protest.”
In a display of reducing tensions, Trump said in a radio interview broadcast Tuesday that he had “great calls” with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Jacob Frey on Monday, after federal immigration officers killed a protester for the second time in two weeks.
The Trump White House has tried to blame Democratic leaders for the protests. But after videos suggest his administration wrongly labeled Pretti an active threat to ICE agents, the administration is trying to recalibrate its crackdown, putting White House border czar Tom Homan in charge of its Minnesota immigration operations among other moves.
“Actually, they were both great conversations,” the president said on the show “Sid & Friends In The Morning” on 77 WABC in New York City. “So let’s hope that turns out to be so.”
The chief federal judge in Minnesota says the Trump administration has failed to comply with orders to hold hearings for detained immigrants. He’s ordered Todd Lyons, Trump’s acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to appear before him Friday to explain why he shouldn’t be held in contempt.
“This Court has been extremely patient with respondents, even though respondents decided to send thousands of agents to Minnesota to detain aliens without making any provision for dealing with the hundreds of habeas petitions and other lawsuits that were sure to result,” Chief Judge Patrick J. Schiltz wrote in the order dated Monday.
Messages were sent Tuesday to ICE and a DHS spokesperson seeking a response.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will have a security role during the upcoming Milan Cortina Winter Games, according to information shared with local media by sources at the U.S. Embassy in Rome. The Associated Press independently confirmed the information with two sources at the embassy.
The sources who confirmed ICE participation on Tuesday said federal ICE agents would support diplomatic security details and would not run any immigration enforcement operations.
During previous Olympics, several federal agencies have supported security for U.S. diplomats, including the investigative component of ICE called Homeland Security Investigations, the sources said. They could not be named because they are not authorized to speak publicly.
Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala said ICE would not be welcome in his city, which is hosting most ice sports during the Feb. 6-22 Winter Games.
▶ Read more about the ICE agents' planned role in Milan
—- By Trisha Thomas and David Biller
Bovino is expected to leave Minneapolis on Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the matter, as the Trump administration reshuffles leadership of its immigration enforcement operation and scales back the federal presence after a second fatal shooting by federal officers.
Trump said he was placing his border czar, Tom Homan, in charge of the mission, with Homan reporting directly to the White House, after Bovino drew condemnation for claiming Pretti had been planning to “massacre” law enforcement officers, a characterization that authorities had not substantiated.
Bovino’s leadership of highly visible federal crackdowns, including operations that sparked mass demonstrations in Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte and Minneapolis, has drawn fierce criticism from local officials, civil rights advocates and congressional Democrats.
A person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press that Bovino is among the federal agents leaving Minneapolis. The person was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the operation and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.
▶ Read more about Trump's ICE enforcement leadership reshuffle
During his second term, Trump has persistently undermined the trust and credibility of major universities, national law firms and media and taken punitive actions against them. His supporters largely either endorsed those actions or stayed mum.
Now the credibility question is aimed at his administration. While the criticism is not directly aimed at the president by his supporters, it is a sign that trust is eroding over some of his most important policies.
Lawmakers from both parties — including many Republicans — called for independent investigations and, perhaps most importantly, trust after administration officials gave one account of the shooting in Minneapolis, while contemporaneous video provided a decidedly different one.
▶ Read more about how Trump's credibility is increasingly being questioned
Prominent Republicans and gun rights advocates helped elicit a White House turnabout this week after bristling over the administration’s characterization of Pretti as responsible for his own death because he lawfully possessed a weapon.
Important voices in Trump’s coalition have called for a thorough investigation of Pretti’s death while also criticizing inconsistencies in some Republicans’ Second Amendment stances.
If the dynamic persists, it could give Republicans problems as Trump heads into a midterm election year with voters already growing skeptical of his overall immigration approach. The concern is acute enough that Trump’s top spokesperson sought Monday to reassert his brand as a staunch gun rights supporter.
“The president supports the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding American citizens, absolutely,” Leavitt told reporters.
▶ Read more about the backlash among gun rights advocates
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks during a news conference in Blaine, Minn., Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
Reporters raise their hands to ask a question as White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
