Abbott Says ICE Needs Recalibration
of Image So Agents Get More Respect
Capitol Inside
January 26, 2026
Governor Greg Abbott offered a highly-unusual piece of constructive criticism for President Donald Trump on Monday when he suggested that the administration has a public relations problem with immigration enforcement policy that needs to be refined in the wake of a demonstrator's shooting death in Minneapolis.
But Abbott also used a talk show on Dallas radio as a platform for blaming Democratic state and local officials in Minnesota for the violence in the streets that has caused the public to hold agents for the federal government in such low regard.
"In general, we need to have respect for law enforcement officers in the country," Abbott told Davis before referring specifically to agents in the field for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "They are law enforcement officers. And so they - being the White House - need to recalibrate on what needs to be done to make sure that respect is going to be re-instilled."
Abbott volunteered the guidance to the president before Trump announced a major shake up with the removal of the nation's top Border Patrol official Greg Bovino and agents in his command from the traumatized Minnesota city where he ordered Tom Homan to take charge as the nation's official border czar. The Trump administration not only yanked Bovino from Minneapolis but had the Department of Homeland Security block his access to social media accounts - according to a source for CNN.
Trump changed his tune decidedly on Minnesota on Monday amid the personnel juggling and a massive backlash that the administration has encountered since repeating false claims that Border Patrol agents shot ICU nurse Alex Pretti to death on Saturday after drawing a gun on them. But videos show that agents pulled a gun from the back of his pants before he was shot 10 times at point blank range after being beaten and kicked by BP agents after being wrestled to the ground.
Federal officials fueled a rapidly-growing backlash by throwing up roadblocks to investigations into Pretti's killing at the state or local levels - and they sparked a furor among Second Amendment defenders with an attempt to justify the agents' actions by attacking the dead protester for having a weapon that he was licenced to carry.
Illinois' Democratic Governor JB Pritzker echoed mounting speculation on Monday when he predicted that Homeland Security Kristi Noem would be the next head to roll as a consequence of the agency's tactics in Minnesota and bogus claims she has made about Pretti in the fatal shooting's immediate aftermath.
Abbott sought to turn the potential liability that the uproar over Minnesota poses for the GOP into a public service message about the success he says Texas is having in the arena of immigration enforcement.
"Texas actually ranks number one for ICE removals, and yet we don’t have fighting and protests like that," Abbott said in the radio interview. "And that’s because we have leaders - whether it be the governor or local mayors, or other local leaders - no one's trying to incite violence here in the state of Texas. And so, this is truly the problem in Minnesota, is more about the lack of leadership and the lack of calming and order by the governor, by the mayor."
The Texas governor's recommendations to the Trump administration on the need for image repair that ensures that law enforcement officers receive the respect they deserve may have been a day too late based on the president's maneuvering on Minneapolis today. Trump met with Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Walz on Monday and agreed to consider putting the brakes on the surge of federal law enforcement there.
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