Americans recoiled. Now we need a true immigration reset.

The outcry of a nation that no longer recognized itself was heard.

It took the death of two Minneapolis protesters, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, to make President Donald Trump realize he was losing public support for his administration’s terror-based campaign to expel those here illegally. His response, most likely, is political calculation that can shift again, but it’s an important recognition that flooding a city with an undisciplined paramilitary force was a step too far.

The de-escalation was announced Thursday by “border czar” Tom Homan who said immigration enforcement will now be “safe, more efficient, by the book” and agents will not engage with those protesting their actions. The new instructions to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are that “all targets must have a criminal nexus.” On Friday, a glimmer of accountability for the Border Patrol agents involved in the Pretti shooting emerged as the Justice Department announced that the FBI is now investigating, a reversal of the prior position.

The intense reaction to the fatal shootings also coalesced a majority of senators, including eight Republicans to align with Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in demanding restrictions on Department of Homeland Security enforcement actions in exchange for approving funding. The details will be negotiated in the coming weeks but the deal must include significant congressional oversight as well as an end to masked agents, accountability for those who misbehave, and the requirement of a judicial warrant before entering a home.

In addition to the tragic shootings, the now ended “Operation Metro Surge” provided other indelible images that further fueled the outrage. ChongLy “Scott” Thao, 56, dressed only in shorts and Crocs, was forced out of his St. Paul home at gunpoint by 10 masked federal agents who did not have a warrant. Thao has been a citizen for decades after he was brought here in a relocation program for ethnic Hmong. His stepmother had worked as nurse for the CIA in Laos, part of the clandestine U.S. war against the North Vietnamese.

5-YEAR-OLD DETAINED

More wrenching are the photos of frightened Liam Conejo Ramos, the 5-year-old boy wearing a bunny hat and a Spider-Man backpack who was detained on his way home from preschool. ICE contended his father was here illegally. But the family, from Ecuador, had properly sought asylum at the Texas border, according to their lawyer who said they are here legally until the claim is adjudicated. A federal judge has temporarily blocked their deportations, but Ramos and his father are still at a family detention facility in Texas.

Internal polling last week by the White House and Senate Democrats and multiple public polls are all in alignment. Americans clearly support a tight border and the removal of those here illegally who have criminal convictions — getting rid of the “worst of the worst” as the White House promised. And, at the start of the crackdown in the first few months of 2025, only 13% of those arrested didn’t have a criminal conviction. Most of those initially deported were taken out of jails and prisons where they were serving time. It was easy to follow the rules.

Now, at the start of Trump’s second year, the number of those arrested or detained who don’t have a criminal record has skyrocketed to 73%, according to the Deportation Data Project which analyzed ICE records. Those targeted may have overstayed visas, have pending asylum claims or lost their Temporary Protected Status. They are not seen as the worst but the best in their communities — hardworking immigrants, raising families and reaching for the promise of a better life, being stopped in the streets and disappearing into unmarked vans.

ACTIONS ‘ UNACCEPTABLE’

Many being rounded up are being stopped on the streets because of the color of their skin or the language they speak, a practice that 72% of Americans say is unacceptable according to a Pew Research Center poll released Thursday.

The turning point came in the last few weeks with videos from Minnesota of heavily armed agents, their faces hidden, acting with impunity in the streets — even spraying those monitoring their activities with tear gas. The intimidating behavior, part of political theater that deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller is driving with his high arrest quotas, made much of the nation recoil. A new poll by Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson, who has been tracking immigration sentiment, found only 36% approve of ICE’s tactics compared with 63% who disapprove.

ICE is now the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency in the country. The Republican-controlled Congress that passed the One Big Beautiful Bill last year allocated it $75 billion over four years with no strings attached. That includes $45 billion to be used to build new detention complexes around the nation. How much is too much? The Government Accountability Office disclosed last week that the 2025 deployment of National Guard troops to U.S. cities cost taxpayers at least $496 million. The Congressional Budget Office estimates it will cost $93 million a month this year for similar National Guard deployments; all of that money comes out of yet another pot of dramatically increased funding for the Department of Homeland Security.

ICE has deported close to 540,000 people so far in Trump’s second term. Even if that pace can be sustained, most of the estimated 12 million migrants living here illegally cannot be reached.

It’s hard to frame the issue better than Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt did: “Americans are asking themselves, ‘What is the endgame?’  ”

This reset cannot just be crisis management or a cynical calculation for this year’s midterm elections. There needs to be a true recalibration of Trump’s immigration crackdown that keeps a secure border and a focus on removing the “worst,” combined with a demand that Congress finally, comprehensively update the nation’s immigration laws.