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Watch: Minneapolis immigration enforcement could use "softer touch", Trump says
US President Donald Trump has said immigration agents could use a "softer touch" as his administration began pulling about a quarter of its force out of Minnesota, where two American citizens died last month in confrontations with federal officers.
"I learned that maybe we could use a little bit of a softer touch," Trump told NBC News, adopting a rare conciliatory tone on his political touchstone. "But you still have to be tough."
US border tsar Tom Homan said earlier 700 federal immigration agents would be withdrawn from the Minneapolis area.
He said 2,000 agents would remain, and that he aimed to cut their presence in the city to its level before Operation Metro Surge began in December.
During a news conference on Wednesday, Homan added that the US government had made providing body-worn cameras to all officers in Minneapolis a priority, and was planning to deploy the equipment to agents across the country.
The border tsar said federal immigration agents in Minnesota had been arresting "bad people" during Operation Metro Surge, including 14 charged with homicide and 139 with assault, as well as 87 sex offenders and 28 gang members.
But Operation Metro Surge has sparked protests after two residents, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were fatally shot during encounters with federal agents.
And a five-year-old boy, Liam Ramos, was caught up in the deportation dragnet as he was detained along with his Ecuadorean migrant father until a judge ordered their release at the weekend.
US border tsar: 700 federal agents to 'draw down' in Minneapolis
Homan acknowledged it was not a perfect operation and said it had become "more streamlined" with an "established, unified chain of command".
"It's not that it wasn't good before, but we improved upon it," he said.
Homan said he was cutting the federal presence after receiving "unprecedented" co-operation. When he took over the operation last month, he said any reduction in the number of agents would depending on how much state and local officials co-operated with federal authorities.
In a separate development on Tuesday, a government lawyer who complained that her job "sucks" during a court hearing about the surge in Minnesota was removed from her role at the justice department.
Citing a person familiar with the matter, the BBC'S US partner CBS News reported that the lawyer, Julie Le, told a judge on Tuesday that she hoped to be held in contempt of court "so that I can have a full 24 hours of sleep".
"What do you want me to do?" she said. "The system sucks. This job sucks. And I am trying every breath that I have so that I can get you what you need."
The justice department and Department of Homeland Security have not publicly commented on Le's departure.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that cracks had been forming in Trump's relationship with White House adviser Stephen Miller over his immigration agenda, citing unnamed sources.
Asked by the BBC about that reporting, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Miller was "intelligent, hardworking, and loyal".
"As both Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Adviser, Stephen brings together all corners of the government to ensure every single policy, both foreign and domestic, is implemented at record speed," she said. "The results over the course of the past year speak for themselves."
