United States President Donald Trump suggested on Wednesday that a “softer touch” may be needed on immigration, as his administration said 700 federal officers would be pulled from Minnesota but that mass deportations would not stop.

The fatal shootings of two protesters by federal officers in Minneapolis last month sparked widespread outrage in the United States and calls for an end to immigration raids in the Midwestern city, but Trump’s administration has been reluctant to shift course.

“I learned that maybe we could use a little bit of a softer touch. But you still have to be tough,” Trump said in an interview with NBC’s “Nightly News” when asked what he had learned from Minneapolis.

Trump’s border chief Tom Homan had earlier announced that 700 federal officers would be withdrawn from Minnesota, but said the contentious deployment would continue, with about 2,000 agents remaining after the drawdown.

And in an interview with Laura Ingraham on Fox News later in the day, he vowed that removals of undocumented migrants would continue.

“Mass deportations are here, they’re coming, we’re already breaking records, and we’re not going to stop,” Homan said.

‘A step in the right direction’

The mayor of Minneapolis and the governor of Minnesota — both Democrats — described the announcement of the pullback from the city as “a step in the right direction,” but called for the federal government to move faster in winding down its immigration operations in the state.

Homan — sent as a replacement to oversee the crackdown in Minneapolis as anger over the fatal shootings and the government’s false accounts of them grew — said the reduction would take effect immediately. He cited increased cooperation with local authorities.

Homan said there are now “more officers taking custody of criminal aliens directly from the jails” rather than detaining them on the streets — efforts that require fewer personnel.

Before the launch of the high-profile crackdown in Minnesota, there were only 150 federal immigration officers in the state, he said.

‘Mass deportations’

Homan also stressed he would stay in Minneapolis — which has become a major flashpoint in Trump’s overall immigration policy — “until we get it all done”.

“President Trump fully intends to achieve mass deportations during this administration, and immigration enforcement actions will continue every day throughout this country,” Homan said.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey welcomed the reduction in federal personnel but said on X that the US immigration operation in Minneapolis — dubbed Metro Surge — must end “immediately.”

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz took a similar stance, calling for a “faster and larger drawdown of forces” and state-led investigations into the killings of the two Minneapolis protesters.

Federal agents shot and killed an unarmed woman, 37-year-old Renee Good, as she attempted to drive away from an encounter with ICE agents last month.

Two weeks later, immigration officers beat and shot dead intensive care nurse Alex Pretti, also 37, as he lay pinned to the ground. Both victims were US citizens.

In the NBC interview, even though Trump said that neither of the victims was an “angel”, he was upset about their deaths.

“I’m not happy with what happened there,” he added. “It should have not happened… To me it was a very sad incident, two incidents.”

At the same time, Trump threw his support behind ICE agents.

“I’m going to always be with our great people of law enforcement, ICE, police, we have to back them. If we don’t back them, we don’t have a country,” the president said.

The killings drew international attention and condemnation over the government’s false accounts of what happened, intensifying public concern about the conduct of federal immigration operations.

Following the outcry over the shootings that drew tens of thousands of demonstrators into the streets, Trump withdrew combative Customs and Border Protection commander Gregory Bovino and replaced him with the more policy-focused Homan, who then pledged to draw down the operation with conditions.