Trump signals interest in easing tensions, but Minneapolis sees little change on the streets

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — President Donald Trump seemed to signal a willingness to ease tensions in Minneapolis after a second deadly shooting by federal immigration agents, but there was little evidence Wednesday of any significant changes following weeks of harsh rhetoric and clashes with protesters.

The strain was evident when Trump made a leadership change by sending his top border adviser to Minnesota to take charge of the immigration crackdown. That was followed by seemingly conciliatory remarks about the Democratic governor and mayor.

Trump said he and Gov. Tim Walz, whom he criticized for weeks, were on “a similar wavelength” following a phone call. After a conversation with Mayor Jacob Frey, the president praised the discussion and declared that “lots of progress is being made.”

But on city streets, there were few signs of a shift. Immigration enforcement operations and confrontations with activists continued Wednesday in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

A group of protesters blew whistles and pointed out federal officers in a vehicle on a north Minneapolis street. When the officers’ vehicle moved, a small convoy of activists followed in their cars for a few blocks until the officers stopped again.

When Associated Press journalists got out of their car to document the encounter, officers with the federal Bureau of Prisons pushed one of them, threatened them with arrest and told them to get back in their car despite the reporters' identifying themselves as journalists. Officers from multiple federal agencies have been involved in the enforcement operations.

From their car, the AP journalists saw at least one person being pepper sprayed and one detained, though it was unclear if that person was the target of the operation or a protester. Agents also broke car windows.

Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is visiting Minnesota, said 16 people were arrested Wednesday on charges of assaulting, resisting or impeding law enforcement in the state. She said more arrests were expected.

“NOTHING will stop President Trump and this Department of Justice from enforcing the law," Bondi said in a social media post.

Messages seeking comment were left with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol.

In the suburb of Brooklyn Center, a half a dozen agents went to a house in a small residential neighborhood.

One agent knocked on the door repeatedly. Another told the AP they were seeking a man who had been twice deported and was convicted of domestic abuse. The agent said the man had run into the home and the agents lacked a judicial warrant to get inside.

A handful of activists blew whistles. One agent said: “They’d rather call the police on us than to help us. Go figure.”

As the agents prepared to leave, a woman called out to them saying, “You need to know they’re good neighbors.”

Kari Rod told the AP that she didn’t know these neighbors well, but they had come to her garage sale, kept their yard clean and waved hello when she drove by. She didn’t believe enforcement agents to be speaking the truth about whom they arrest, including another neighbor whom she said was deported to Laos last summer.

“I don’t trust a single thing they said about who they are,” Rod said. “From my interactions, I know them way better than anyone else does, any one of those federal agents.”

Many immigrant families are still fearful of leaving their homes, and Latino businesses are still closed, said Daniel Hernandez, who owns the Minneapolis grocery store Colonial Market. He also runs a popular Facebook page geared toward informing the Hispanic community in the Twin Cities.

While Colonial Market is open, all but one of the dozen immigrant-run businesses that rented space inside have closed since late December, and none has plans to reopen, Hernandez said.

“The reality is the community is still very worried and afraid,” Hernandez said.

Hernandez referenced Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, who helped lead the administration's crackdown in the Twin Cities and who has reportedly been assigned elsewhere.

Bovino "was removed, but the tactics so far are still the same," Hernandez said. “Nobody now is trusting the government with those changes.”

In Minnesota federal court, the issue of ICE not complying with court orders came to the fore as Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz said the agency had violated 96 court orders in 74 cases this month.

“This list should give pause to anyone — no matter his or her political beliefs — who cares about the rule of law,” he wrote. “ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.”

Schiltz earlier this week ordered ICE’s acting director to personally appear in his courtroom Friday after the agency failed to obey an order to release an Ecuadorian man from detention in Texas. The judge canceled the order after the agency freed the man.

The judge, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, warned ICE that future noncompliance may result in orders requiring the personal appearances of Acting Director Todd Lyons or other government officials.

ICE didn't respond to an email seeking comment.

Separately, another federal judge granted a temporary restraining order preventing federal officers from arresting and detaining resettled refugees in Minnesota. The order responded to a lawsuit challenging a new Homeland Security operation to to reevaluate the refugee status of the nearly 5,600 people.

The order called for the immediate release of refugees detained in Minnesota and release within five days of those transferred to Texas.

Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller quickly slammed the judge’s decision on social media: “The judicial sabotage of democracy is unending.”

Hundreds gathered in the cold Wednesday night for a solemn vigil to honor intensive care unit nurse Alex Pretti, who was killed by immigration agents on Saturday. Some held candles and flowers as people sang and a band played at the spot where he was killed.

Harmonie Pirius, a registered nurse, said she had been feeling depressed, heartbroken and enraged and thought it would be good to get together with other medical professionals.

“It could have been any of us,” she said. “I mean, he was trying to help someone and that’s kind of what we’re all about.”

Earlier, Vietnam veteran Donnie McMillan placed a cardboard sign reading “In remembrance of my angel” at a makeshift memorial for Pretti. McMillan said he remembered seeing Pretti during frequent visits to the Veterans Affairs hospital where he worked.

The Department of Homeland Security said two federal agents involved in Pretti's death have been on leave since the shooting happened.

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat, spoke to journalists one day after a man attacked her during a town hall meeting by squirting a strong-smelling substance at her as she denounced the Trump administration.

“What is unfolding in our state is not accidental. It is part of a coordinated effort to target Black and brown, immigrant and Muslim communities through fear, racial profiling and intimidation," Omar said. "This administration’s immigration agenda is not about law enforcement — it is about making people feel they do not belong.”

Associated Press journalists Mark Vancleave in Minneapolis, Mike Catalini in Trenton, New Jersey, Michael Biesecker in Washington, Sarah Raza in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City contributed to this report.

People watch from a building as police prepare to make arrests during a noise demonstration outside the Graduate by Hilton Minneapolis hotel on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

A protester raises their arms on the ground as law enforcement make arrests after declaring an unlawful assembly during a noise demonstration outside the Graduate by Hilton Minneapolis hotel on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

People gather during a vigil where Alex Pretti was shot and killed by federal immigration enforcement in Minneapolis, on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

A demonstrator shouts during a rally against federal immigration enforcement on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

A federal officer approaches observers and journalists on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

People attend a vigil where Alex Pretti was shot and killed by federal immigration enforcement in Minneapolis, on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

A federal immigration officer knocks on the door of a residence Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Brooklyn Center, Minn. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

The Ecuadorian consulate stands in Minneapolis, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Jack Brook)

Vietnam war veteran Donnie McMillan places a sign that says "In remembrance of my angel" at a memorial set up at the location where Veterans Affairs nurse Alex Pretti was shot by U.S. federal agents, in Minneapolis, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Jack Brook)

A person is attended to after federal officers used a chemical irritant on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

A person walks past a memorial honoring Alex Pretti outside the Minneapolis VA hospital on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Minneapolis. (Kerem Yücel/Minnesota Public Radio via AP)

A federal officer approaches observers and journalists on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

ADDS MORE INFORMATION Federal Bureau of Prisons officers threaten AP video journalist Mark Vancleave with arrest on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Federal agents knock on a door of a residence on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Blaine, Minn. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

NEW YORK (AP) — On a recent weeknight, three tenants of an aging Bronx building were trading apartment horror stories inside a packed ballroom lined with city bureaucrats.

The occasion was the third in a series of “rental rip-off hearings,” a new forum launched by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani for disgruntled renters to air their complaints directly to housing officials — and in some cases, the mayor himself.

As she waited in line, Gulhayo Yuldosheva said she worried that noxious mold in her apartment had worsened her child’s asthma. Nearby, her downstairs neighbor, Marina Quiroz, was showing a video of rats scurrying through her kitchen to a representative of the city’s tenant protection office.

Ann Maitin, a longtime resident of the same building, had just met with the mayor.

“He let me go over my three minutes,” she said, holding up a spiral notebook’s worth of grievances.

Mamdani, a democratic socialist swept into office on a promise of zealous tenant advocacy, framed the event as a struggle session for renters, assuring the standing room only crowd that their stories would guide the city's efforts “to actually hold landlords accountable when they don’t follow the law."

To the residents of 705 Gerard Avenue, this raised a practical problem: No one seemed to know who actually owned their building.

“It feels like such a basic question,” said Maitin, a retired Verizon technician who recently organized the building’s tenant association. “You’d think we’d have the right to that information.”

Their situation is hardly unique. As corporate owners and investor groups have grown their share of the rental market in New York City, they are increasingly shielding their identities behind limited liability companies, or LLCs.

The practice, which has also been spreading nationally, is legal. But experts warn it could complicate Mamdani’s promised crackdown, making it harder for the city and tenants to track the chronically negligent owners whose buildings the mayor has vowed to target and even seize.

“There are these big slumlords that everyone knows are doing predatory investment, but pinning them down is going to be difficult, for the LLC reason,” said Oksana Mironova, a housing policy analyst at the Community Service Society. “That’s a problem for the administration, and it’s even worse for tenants.”

For Yuldosheva and her neighbors, finding their landlord is one of many problems afflicting their six-story building near Yankee Stadium.

Heat and hot water outages are regular enough that some tenants keep a thermometer on their fridge and the city’s complaint hotline on speed dial. Common areas are often filthy, and increasingly populated by drug users. Getting help with an urgent maintenance issue “feels like waiting for Christmas in July,” said Maitin.

During a monthslong elevator outage, a tenant who uses a wheelchair, Tommy Rodriguez, said he was forced to “slide down the steps, like a kid.” Calls to the building management about a repair timeline went unanswered, he said.

Growing up in the building in the 1980s, Rodriguez recalled the previous landlord as a friendly and responsive neighborhood presence.

“This felt like a home before,” Rodriguez said. “Now they treat us the same as the rats.”

A large rodent had recently chewed a hole through his couch cushion. He handled the extermination himself, with a two-by-four.

Recently, tenants received a clue about their landlord, following the partial collapse of another Bronx building. The man identified in news stories as the owner of that building, David Kleiner, shared a Brooklyn office with their building manager, Binyomin Herzl.

A handful of tenants visited each of the building’s 72 units, logging an array of decrepit conditions and unusual alterations.

“We didn’t want to become the next news story,” said Yuldosheva, pointing to a crack in the wall of a bedroom shared by her three children — a result, she feared, of the subway that rumbles just below her windows.

Lawsuits show that Herzl has been ordered to pay more than $100,000 for violations across at least six Bronx buildings, several of which were found by a judge to pose an imminent hazard.

Reached by phone, Herzl said he didn't own any of those properties, but simply acted as a middleman between tenants and the true owners, whom he declined to list. “There’s no one landlord,” he said. “It’s a group of investors.”

Kleiner, who was previously featured on the city’s “worst landlord” list, confirmed his partial ownership of 705 Gerard in a brief phone call, but declined further comment.

Herzl, meanwhile, attributed the tenants’ complaints to “normal wear and tear” of a nearly century old building. He said Mamdani should focus on improving the city’s public housing, rather than going after private landlords.

“Our buildings look like five star hotels against his,” he added.

When landlords refuse to address a serious violation, like heat or hot water outages, the city can step in and order repairs, then bill the owner directly.

In the last three years, inspectors have ordered emergency repairs at 38 buildings that list either Herzl or Kleiner as an owner, according to records provided by the city’s housing department. The men have been billed $446,521 for those repairs.

Mamdani has proposed using such fines as a vehicle to bring distressed rental properties under city stewardship, by aggressively pursuing liens on delinquent landlords and buying up their portfolios through foreclosure auctions.

Just as the city can shut down unsanitary restaurants, Mamdani has said, landlords that “repeatedly put New Yorkers at risk will not be allowed to operate in New York City — with no exceptions."

In reality, the process is resource-intensive and legally fraught. It is made more complex by the nest of LLCs often used by landlords to obfuscate the full scope of their portfolios, according to Cea Weaver, director of the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants.

“It’d be great to have a better sense of who owns the buildings that we are regulating and overseeing,” she said.

State legislation that would have made it easier to identify LLC owners was recently vetoed by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul amid pressure from landlords.

Kenny Burgos, the CEO of the New York Apartment Association, a landlord lobbying group, said Mamdani’s tenant proposals — including freezing the rent for regulated tenants — would force landlords to cut back on maintenance and services.

“That’s going to take away from the elevator budget, the boiler budget, the heating budget,” he said. “It’s a question of math: These buildings are crumbling because of policy, not because of bad landlords.”

He characterized the rental rip-off hearings as “show trials” that took a “tribal approach” to the city’s affordable housing crisis.

Despite the combative branding — “New Yorkers vs. Bad Landlords,” blares one promotion — the Bronx event mostly resembled a standard constituent service night: City officials fielded questions about local laws, helped residents with paperwork and connected them to service providers.

Maitin left feeling “glad to be heard by someone who can actually do something about the problem,” but felt it was too early to tell “if it’s all talk."

The next morning, she was surprised to find the building’s superintendent applying a fresh coat of paint to a staircase. Outside, workers were removing scaffolding that had been in front of the building for years.

“I think they caught wind of the rental rip-off,” Maitin said. “They’re scared.”

FILE - New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks to reporters during a news conference in New York, Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

FILE - New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks during a Rental Ripoff Hearing at Fordham University on Wednesday, March 11, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki, File)

Gulhayo Yuldosheva's children get ready for school in an apartment building where tenants report maintenance issues and pest infestations, in the Bronx borough of New York, Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)

Francisco Medina, left, cleans his apartment next to his relative, Maria Frias, right, in an apartment building where tenants report maintenance issues and pest infestations, in the Bronx borough of New York, Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)

Gulhayo Yuldosheva, 33 , center right, Marina Quiroz, 65, top, pose for a portrait with other two residents in an apartment building where tenants report maintenance issues and pest infestations, in the Bronx borough of New York, Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)

Tommy Rodriguez, right, talks to his relative, Francisco Medina, left, in an apartment building where tenants report maintenance issues and pest infestations, in the Bronx borough of New York, Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)

Marina Quiroz stands in her living room in a Bronx apartment building, where tenants report maintenance issues, pest infestations, Tuesday, March 17, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)