In an effort to ease rising tensions in Minneapolis, the White House took decisive action on Wednesday. Meanwhile, a troubling incident unfolded at a town hall meeting where Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was speaking. During the event, a man sprayed Omar with an unidentified liquid from a syringe as she advocated for reducing the Trump administration’s aggressive stance on immigration.

Additionally, the White House is currently scrutinizing whether Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents adhered to established protocols. This comes in the wake of the fatal shooting of nurse Alex Pretti. Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller highlighted the need to assess whether agents failed in maintaining a physical barrier between arrest teams and those causing disruptions.

During the town hall, Omar had been passionately discussing the need to dismantle Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and calling for the resignation or impeachment of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem. At that moment, a man from the front row suddenly approached, made a comment, and sprayed her, prompting security personnel to swiftly intervene.

In a show of defiance, Omar raised her fist and addressed the crowd once more, stating, “Here’s the reality that people like this ugly man don’t understand: We are Minnesota strong. And we will stay resilient in the face of whatever they might throw on us.”

Omar has frequently been a target of President Donald Trump, who has continued to support Noem despite recent controversies involving federal immigration agents. These agents were involved in the shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens earlier this month. Trump has defended Noem, stating she will not step down and commending her performance as “very good.”

But after days of protests following 37-year-old Pretti’s death, Trump told Fox News “we’re going to de-escalate a little bit,” while adding that it was not a “pullback.”

Trump also admitted that Gregory Bovino, a hardline Border Patrol commander who is now expected to leave Minneapolis, was “a pretty out-there kind of a guy” whose presence may not have helped the situation, and sent top US border security official Tom Homan to meet with officials in the city.

Trump told reporters that he rejected the “assassin” label used by a top aide to describe the 37-year-old nurse, adding that he wants “a very honorable and honest investigation.”

But he criticised Pretti for carrying the licensed firearm that was taken off him before he was shot.

“I don’t like that he had a gun, I don’t like that he had two fully loaded magazines,” the president said

Alex Pretti was fatally shot by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis on Saturday. Source: AAP / AP

‘Pretty out there’

After meeting with Homan on Wednesday, Mayor Jacob Frey said in a statement they discussed the “serious negative impacts this operation has had on Minneapolis,” and the city “will not enforce federal immigration laws.”

Just weeks after federal immigration agents shot and killed US citizen Renee Good in Minneapolis, Pretti’s death sparked national outrage and added to a litany of complaints of abusive tactics.

Good, a mother of three, was shot by an agent at point-blank range in her car on 7 January.

The killings capped months of escalating violence in which masked, unidentified, and heavily armed ICE and border patrol agents have grabbed people they accuse of violations off the streets.

Despite multiple videos showing that Pretti posed no threat, Bovino and Noem initially claimed Pretti had intent to kill federal agents, calling him a “domestic terrorist.”

Noem ‘grossly incompetent’

Republican Senator Rand Paul said on Wednesday that agents involved in the shooting should be put on administrative leave, later adding that the immigration enforcement leaders would testify before Congress next month.

Centrist Democratic Senator John Fetterman said “grossly incompetent” Noem should be fired.

The turmoil could even result in a fresh US government shutdown, with Democrats calling for broad reforms to federal immigration operations at DHS and threatening to block approval of it funding, as part of the spending bills that go up for votes in the Senate later this week.

The judicial branch also pushed back on Trump’s actions in Minneapolis on Wednesday, when a US judge blocked the deportation of a five-year-old boy and his father who were detained last week in another incident that went viral.

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