Trump’s border czar says administration will immediately withdraw 700 immigration enforcement officers from Minnesota – live

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As my colleague Pjotr Sauer reports, Ukrainian and Russian negotiators kicked off a second round of US-led peace talks in Abu Dhabi, in an attempt to end the nearly four-year war in Ukraine.

The two-day trilateral talks starting on Wednesday come after Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of exploiting a US-backed energy truce last week to stockpile weapons before launching a record number of ballistic missile attacks at Ukraine on Tuesday.

“Taking advantage of the coldest days of winter to terrorise people is more important to Russia than turning to diplomacy,” Zelenskyy wrote after the attacks, urging western governments to denounce the strikes.

Donald Trump said later on Tuesday that Vladimir Putin had “kept his word” on the ceasefire, adding that Russia’s pause in attacks was only meant to last until Sunday.

US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, have travelled to Abu Dhabi for the negotiations.

When it comes to protests, Homan noted that 158 people have been arrested for “assaulting, impeding, interfering” with immigration officers in Minnesota.

Homan said he’s had “frank, honest discussions” with governor Tim Walz, Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey and attorney general Keith Ellison, while noting they “don’t agree on everything”.

He urged them to “ask for calm in the community and to end the resistance, the impediment, the interference” of federal law enforcement.

As I noted earlier, Homan was deployed to Minneapolis by Donald Trump to replace senior border patrol official Gregory Bovino. Backlash to Bovino’s handling of the immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities spread nationwide – with hundreds of protests in response to the use of deadly force by officers.

Today, Homan tried to mitigate any speculation about his takeover. “I brought a different set of eyes on this. I’ve done this for a long time,” he said. “I’m not going to sit and point fingers at anybody that they failed, because it was a great operation. We took a lot of public safety threats off the street.”

Homan added: “President Trump sent me here to help de-escalate. We’re not walking away from our mission … This is smart law enforcement. Smart law enforcement makes us safer.”

Homan speaks during a press conference at the Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, 4 February 2026. Photograph: Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images

Another note from today’s press conference in Minneapolis, Homan said that all Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officers in Minnesota will integrate with the ICE team on the ground to form “one unified chain of command”.

A reminder that ICE and CBP are separate agencies that fall under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Experts note that CBP officers have a different remit, particularly when carrying out their roles for interior immigration enforcement. They are, by definition, carrying out less targeted operations that are normally focused on profiling people who have made illegal border crossings. ICE, however, generally homes in on specific people in a particular area.

Homan reiterated his threat that while those with criminal convictions are the target of the operation, any undocumented immigrant could be apprehended. “Just because you prioritize public safety threats don’t mean we forget about everybody else,” he said.

Homan says 'around 2000' immigration officers remain in Minnesota

Tom Homan said that “around 2000” immigration officers remain in Minnesota after today’s most recent drawdown announcement.

He added that the pre-operation number was between 100 and 150 officers.

Homan elaborated on his ask of county jails. Namely, asking local officials to notify Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when an undocumented immigrant who has been booked and arrested is released from jail. Homan said this would mean “the need for less law enforcement officers to do this work in a safer environment”.

However, legal experts and immigrant rights advocates told the Guardian that if counties cooperate with ICE, it can erode trust between police and immigrant communities, and lead to fewer people reporting crimes.

Homan says administration is drawing down 700 immigration enforcement officers

Speaking to reporters today, Tom Homan said that the Trump administration will draw down 700 immigration enforcement officers. He said this was as a result of increased coordination between county jails and federal officials.

“This frees up more officers to arrest or remove criminal aliens, more officers taking custody of criminal aliens directly from the jails, means less officers on the street doing criminal operations,” Homan said.

Notably, Homan has not confirmed which sheriffs have agreed to this increased coordination with federal immigration enforcement.

A reminder, the Minnesota Department of Corrections (DOC) already facilitate transfers of people who have completed felony sentences in state prisons, when federal agents are present to take custody. But DOC does not operate county jails – where most immigration encounters occur – and many sheriffs across the state choose not to work with ICE.

In Minneapolis, for example, Hennepin County does not notify federal immigration authorities when undocumented immigrants are booked or arrested, and is barred under state law from honoring requests to hold someone past their release time so immigration officers can take custody – known as ICE detainers.

Homan, however, said that he was “not requiring jails to hold people past their normal release time for immigration purposes” while addressing reporters today.

Trump’s ‘border czar’ to address reporters in Minneapolis

Tom Homan, the president’s so-called “border czar” is set to speak to reporters in Minneapolis shortly.

A reminder that Homan took over the immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota from senior border official Gregory Bovino, just days after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti and the mounting backlash in the Twin Cities.

Last week, at his first press conference in Minneapolis, Homan appeared conciliatory when addressing the unspecified “improvements” he would be making to the crackdown in Minnesota.

He also acknowledged the operation had not been “perfect”, but didn’t actually mention Pretti or Renee Good – the 37-year-old mother also killed in Minneapolis by a federal immigration officer two weeks prior.

Homan also said that if local officials allowed federal officers into jails (to take custody of undocumented detainees) this could lead to a drawdown of immigration enforcement in Minnesota. On Tuesday, governor Tim Walz said that he remained firm with the “border czar” in their recent conversations.

“It’s my expectation that we will see a dramatic shift in where this is at, for the better,” Walz told reporters.

Donald Trump is in Washington today. Per his official schedule, he has no events that are currently open to the press.

He’ll film an interview with NBC News at 11am ET, and have a policy meeting later. First lady Melania Trump will meet with freed American-Israeli hostage Keith Siegel at the White House this afternoon.

We’ll bring you the latest lines as they happen.

Dharna Noor

Donald Trump’s aggressive rollback of environmental protections directly contradicts the promises of his “make America healthy again” campaign, according to new research.

Helmed by Robert F Kennedy Jr, Trump’s health and human services department has touted pledges to “transform our nation’s food, fitness, air, water, soil and medicine” and “reverse the childhood chronic disease crisis”. But the president’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is pushing the country in the opposite direction, says the new report from the liberal research and advocacy non-profit Center for American Progress (CAP).

An EPA spokesperson called the CAP report “fake news”, saying that EPA is in “lock-step” with Maha and the entire Trump administration.

Under administrator Lee Zeldin, EPA is dismantling dozens of environmental regulations, weakening efforts to limit pollution and has exempted facilities from clean air regulations. These actions will make children more vulnerable to many of the same chronic diseases the Make America Healthy Again (Maha) agenda says it wants to eradicate, including cancers, heart diseases, diabetes, obesity, autism and attention deficit disorder, according to the new report.

“The administration is trying to pull the wool over Americans’ eyes, claiming that they care about our health, that they care about kids’ health, when in reality, they are moving so aggressively to eliminate dozens of safeguards,” said Cathleen Kelly, a senior fellow at CAP and report co-author. “It’s really been heartbreaking to watch.”

The EPA spokesperson said the agency is delivering on its mandate to overturn “wasteful” policies “while also protecting the environment and public health”.

“We have banked environmental win after environmental win, and under president Trump and administrator Zeldin, children and families are safer and healthier than ever,” the person said.

The billionaire investor Ken Griffin has accused Donald Trump’s administration of “enriching” its families, and criticised its interference in American businesses as “distasteful”.

Griffin, who is the chief executive of the hedge fund Citadel and a large Republican donor, rebuked the Trump administration, saying it “has definitely made missteps in choosing decisions or courses that have been very, very enriching to the families of those in the administration”.

“That calls into question, is the public interest being served?” he said at a conference on Tuesday in Florida hosted by the Wall Street Journal.

Griffin is one of the most vocal critics of Trump on Wall Street, although it is the first time he has commented on how the president’s family appear to have made financial gain from their proximity to the White House.

Trump’s eldest sons, Don Jr and Eric, have benefited from the White House’s crypto-friendly policies, and have secured a series of big business deals since their father’s re-election. They have previously insisted there was a “huge wall” between their moneymaking and their father’s position.

Griffin added that most chief executives he was friends with “find it incredibly distasteful” when the “US government starts to engage in corporate America in a way that tastes of favouritism”.

“Most CEOs just don’t want to find themselves in the business of having to, in some sense, suck up to one administration after another to succeed in running their business,” he said.

Griffin is a longtime Republican donor, giving millions of dollars to conservative groups during the 2024 election cycle. He did not fund Trump’s re-election campaign, but after Trump won, he gave $1m to the president’s inaugural committee.

The power to enforce immigration law rests with the federal government. But Trump adviser, Stephen Miller, has a vision for states working in coordination with federal immigration officials, and he’s attempting to test it out in Tennessee.

Earlier this month, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported that Miller had been meeting in Washington DC with Tennessee speaker of the house, Cameron Sexton, to craft model legislation for states around the country.

A few weeks later, the speaker announced a suite of eight bills that would turn state and local police officers, judges, teachers, social workers and others into an auxiliary extension of the federal immigration system. It makes the presence of an undocumented person with a final deportation order a state crime in Tennessee. And it mandates that officials report the presence of undocumented persons to ICE, while criminalizing disclosure of information about immigration enforcement activities to the public.

“The president’s behind us,” said Knoxville-area representative and deputy speaker, Jason Zachary, on a video taken from a talk with a conservative group, describing Sexton’s contact with Miller. “The president has promised his support on social media for us, and we are being told Tennessee will go first.”

Epstein messaged with former CIA director Bill Burns, files show

Aram Roston

A new tranche of documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein revealed several communications with William J Burns, a career diplomat who would go on to become the central intelligence director under Joe Biden.

The documents describe the planning for meetings between Burns and Epstein, two of which occurred, and show Epstein texting with Burns and recommending that other people in his orbit meet with him. The meetings and correspondence occurred after Epstein had pleaded guilty to prostitution-related charges in Florida in 2008, including solicitation of prostitution with a minor under the age of 18.

A spokesperson for Burns told the Guardian that the two men had “no relationship”, and that Burns “did not know anything about him, other than that he was introduced as an expert in the financial services sector”. The spokesperson said Burns “deeply regrets ever meeting with him”. Burns has never been accused of any wrongdoing related to Epstein’s crimes.

Burns has decades of diplomatic experience under both Republican and Democratic administrations. During his confirmation hearing to become CIA director in 2021, even Trump-partisan senator Lindsey Graham called him an “outstanding choice”.

Judge to hear arguments in Trump's bid to erase hush-money conviction

A federal judge is set to hear arguments Wednesday after an appeals court directed him to take a fresh look at president Donald Trump’s bid to erase his hush money conviction.

The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in November ordered US district judge Alvin K Hellerstein to reconsider his decision to keep the case in state court instead of moving it to federal court, where Trump can seek to have it thrown out on presidential immunity grounds, AP reported.

A three-judge panel ruled that Hellerstein erred by failing to consider “important issues relevant” to Trump’s request to move the New York case to federal court. They said they “express no view” on how he should rule.

Trump, a Republican, is not expected to attend Wednesday’s arguments in federal court in New York City, which were preceded by lengthy written submissions from Trump’s lawyers and the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted the case and wants it to remain in state court.

Hellerstein, who was nominated by Democratic president Bill Clinton, has twice denied Trump’s requests to move the case.

Democrats on Capitol Hill offered apologies and promises of accountability on Tuesday amid often harrowing testimony from people who had experienced violent encounters with federal agents engaged in Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

With Republicans conspicuously absent, the forum of senators and representatives heard from Luke and Brent Ganger, the brothers of Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, who was shot dead by an Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (ICE) officer in Minneapolis on 7 January as she tried to drive away from agents.

Luke Ganger said he and his brother were there “to ask for you help” and suggested the sense of loss his family felt had been deepened by subsequent events in Minneapolis, where a protester, Alex Pretti, also aged 37, was shot dead by two border patrol agents on 24 January.

“The deep distress our family feels at Renee’s loss in such a violent and unnecessary way is complicated by feelings of disbelief, distress and desperation,” he said.

“In the last few weeks, our family took some consolation, thinking that perhaps Nee’s death would bring about change in our country. It has not. The completely surreal scenes taking place are beyond explanation.

“This is not just a bad day or a rough week or isolated incidents. These encounters with federal agents are changing the community and changing many lives, including ours. I still don’t know how to explain to my four-year-old what these agents are doing when we pass by.”

His daughter, Ganger added, “knows that her aunt died and that somebody caused it to happen”.

Democrats are launching an aggressive campaign to win back voters they lost, not to Donald Trump, but to the proverbial “couch,” as they look to regain support ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

On Wednesday, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) rolled out a new initiative called Local Listeners with the goal of targeting over one million “infrequent” voters in key battleground districts. Seeking to build on the party’s string of off-year election victories, which extended into 2026 with an upset in Texas last weekend, the DNC is betting that early, localized outreach will be crucial in winning back these voters’ trust – and their ballots – this time around.

“If we want to keep earning back the trust and support of voters, we have to listen to them,” DNC chair Ken Martin said in a statement, shared in advance with the Guardian. “This program modernizes the way we are talking to and hearing from the voters that we need to win elections now and for years to come. The Democratic Party is done with waiting until the last minute to engage voters – these conversations need to happen early and often.”

The program marks the DNC’s most ambitious early voter outreach effort for a midterm cycle, according to the organization. More than 2,000 volunteers have already signed up to participate in what the groups says is a sign, of “renewed grassroots energy” for the party.

Volunteers will undergo a seven-week training program on how to better engage these voters, including sessions on “active listening” and “having difficult conversations about politics”.

The goal is to engage voters who cast ballots for Joe Biden in 2020 but sat out in 2024, with volunteers aiming to conduct at least 250,000 phone conversations and host more than 50 grassroots events in key congressional districts by the end of March.

Trump calls for Americans to 'move on' from Epstein files

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

President Donald Trump has made a fresh plea for Americans to move on from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, even as it left a prominent British politician facing a criminal probe.

Former British ambassador to Washington Peter Mandelson has resigned from the upper house of UK parliament amid allegations he passed market sensitive information to the late sex offender Epstein while in government.

The fallout from the latest release of millions of documents linked to Epstein continued in the US too, where former president Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary will testify in Congress later this month.

Trump insisted once again that he had been cleared by the latest trove of files as he faced renewed questions at the White House over the disgraced financier, AFP reported.

“Nothing came out about me other than it was a conspiracy against me, literally, by Epstein and other people. But I think it’s time now for the country to maybe get on to something else like health care or something that people care about,” Trump said.

Trump added that it was “not a Republican, it’s a Democrat problem,” in a bid to turn the issue back to the Clintons, and away from the mention in the files of allies including his commerce secretary Howard Lutnick and billionaire Elon Musk.

In other developments:

• Donald Trump suggested on a conservative podcast released on Monday that Republican state officials “take over” and “nationalize” elections in 15 states to protect the party from being voted out of office. Trump framed the issue as a means to prevent undocumented immigrants from voting. Claims that noncitizens are voting in numbers that can affect an election are a lie. But it raises concerns about potential efforts by the president to rig the November midterm elections.

• A message from Donald Trump celebrating the 19th-century US invasion of its southern neighbour – and the subsequent loss of more than half its territory – has touched a historical nerve in Mexico, with some seeing it as a veiled threat of future incursions. Reacting to the US president’s statement, which described the invasion as “a legendary victory”, Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s president, said during her morning news conference on Tuesday: “We must always defend our sovereignty.”

• Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, is running her own review into the 2020 election with Donald Trump’s approval, working separately from a justice department investigation even as she joined an FBI raid of an election center in Georgia last week.

• The US military says it shot down an Iranian drone that “aggressively” approached the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea. The Iranian Shahed-139 drone was flying toward the carrier “with unclear intent” when an F-35 fighter jet shot it down, US Central Command said on Tuesday.

• Donald Trump has announced that his administration is seeking $1bn in damages from Harvard University, the latest step in a long-running battle with the university over allegations of antisemitism. In a Truth Social post late on Monday, Trump accused the Ivy League school of being “strongly antisemitic”, adding that Harvard president Alan Garber “has done a terrible job of rectifying a very bad situation for his institution and, more importantly, America itself”.