WASHINGTON — The number of Operation Metro Surge federal agents in Minnesota remains near 650. This this quadruple the usual immigration control contingent for the state. The 650 number was squeezed out of Trump’s Homeland Security chief, Kristi Noem, when pressed for a update by Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar at a Congressional hearing. Trump had dispatched 3,600 to 4,000 immigration and border control agents into Minnesota in a political retribution campaign. Their street beatings, warrant-less intrusions and other barbary ignited massive citizen resistance and eventually forced Trump to back off. The drawdown began three weeks ago. Trump’s point man for Metro Surge, bypassing Noem, was federal border czar Tom Homan, who promised in mid-February to shrink the presence of federal agents in Minnesota within a week to their “regular footprint” of 150. If Noem’s 650 figure is to be believed, it hasn’t happened. To be sure, Noem has a weak management record for precison and clarity. The Klobuchar-Noem exchange at the Senate Judiciary hearing:
Klobuchar: “When are you going to get down to the original footprint as promised to us?”
Noem: “We’re continuing to work at that.”
Pressed further, Noem said investigators are still in the state to investigate fraud. It was unclear how fraud was in the purview of Noem’s Homeland Security Department. She then muddied the waters by saying the slower-than expected drawdown was in case “things get out of hand.”
Noem. A Trump loyalist and first in his chain of command to run immigration and homeland security affairs. In office 14 months. Projects have included military-style occupation of Minneapolis, Los Angeles and other Democrat-controlled cities.
The imperial Noem
The Senate Judiciary hearing, her second before Congress in two weeks, didn’t go well for Noem. She seemed to conflate fraud and deportation issues, as has Trump. She was confronted at the hearings about her priorities, her management style, and her judgment. She is notorious for multiple daily wardrobe changes for cameras. She flies costly private jets on government business. Recently she fired an aide summarily for leaving her personal blanket on a plane. Her judgment has been questioned about an account in her autographed about shooting a puppy who was rambunctious during a pheasant hunt with people she wanted to impress, this as testimony her decisiveness as a leader but viewed widely as pointless cruelty. This was when shef governor of South Dakota. When asked about her ongoing extramarital with her chief aide, Corey Lewandowksi, which goes back to her South Dakota days, Noem turned angry. Neither confirming nor denying what’s been common knowledge at Homeland Security headquarters and earlier in Pierre, Noem dismissed the issue as not as a matter of her personal judgment but as “tabloid gossip” below her dignity to address. She is 54, he is 52, and the relationship has been disruptive at top levels at Homeland Security. She also was challenged at the hearings for rushing to judgment in calling Renee Good a “domestic terrorist” even before any facts were in abut her being shot and killed by a Homeland agent on a Minneapolis street. Noem bristled. She denied ever calling Wood a “domestic terrorist” but only that Wood had committed an act of “domestic terrorism.” Noem’s distinction came across as pointless word-splitting and lame and another sign of bad judgment.