President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda has arrested headlines for over a year, but violent riots and a series of fatal shootings have intensified scrutiny over immigration raids in Minneapolis. Earlier this month, 37-year-old Renee Good was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent when she struck the agent with her vehicle after impeding enforcement operations. Just last week, 37-year-old Alex Pretti was shot and killed by U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) agents when he showed up armed to protest immigration enforcement operations and involved himself in a physical altercation with law enforcement. Subsequently, the president deployed Border Czar and former ICE chief Tom Homan to Minneapolis to take control of operations. Here are the latest updates.
‘Noem, Go Home?’
In the wake of the violence in Minneapolis, multiple Democratic legislators have called for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign, threatening to impeach her if she does not leave of her own volition. Now, Republicans are joining Democrats in clamoring for Noem’s ouster. According to Fox News, frequent Trump critics Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) have joined Democrats in calling on the president to fire Noem. “I think the President needs to look at who he has in place as the Secretary of Homeland Security. I would not support her again,” Murkowski said, referring to her vote to confirm Noem, “and I think it probably is time for her to step down.”
Tillis faulted Noem and, more broadly, the Trump administration, especially White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller, for stalling a partly-bipartisan amnesty push for illegal immigrants. “I don’t know if it’s lost yet, but if it is an opportunity lost, I put it squarely on the shoulders of people like Noem and Stephen Miller,” Tillis said. Referring to the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS’s) handling of Pretti’s death, he added, “Those two people told the president, before they even had any incident report whatsoever, that the person who died was a terrorist. I mean, that is amateur hour at its worst.”
Following Pretti’s death, Noem referred to him as a “domestic terrorist” and official DHS channels, citing the handgun and multiple magazines Pretti brought with him when interfering with federal law enforcement, claimed that he sought to “massacre” federal agents. The characterization has been criticized as premature and has reportedly inspired some frustration within DHS’s ranks, particularly among ICE agents, who fear that they are being blamed for some of the more aggressive riot control tactics used by USBP.
The president has asserted that he will not ask Noem to resign, but he did reportedly question his Homeland Security Secretary in a two-hour Oval Office meeting Tuesday. According to The New York Times, Noem and her top advisor, former Trump campaign official Corey Lewandowski, met with the president, who was joined by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, Communications Director Steven Cheung, and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, to discuss the optics surrounding Pretti’s death and Noem’s response. The New York Times reported that no indication was given that either Noem or Lewandowski was at risk of losing their jobs.
Notably absent from the Oval Office meeting was Miller, the chief architect of Trump’s immigration policy over the past decade and one of the president’s closest and longest-serving allies. According to Axios, Noem faults Miller for DHS’s response to Pretti’s death, with the Homeland Security Secretary saying that Miller told her to label Pretti a domestic terrorist and a threat to federal law enforcement personnel. “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done at the direction of the president and Stephen,” Axios quoted Noem as saying. Unnamed sources reported that Miller “heard ‘gun’ and knew what the narrative would be: Pretti came to ‘massacre’ cops,” but that the USBP agents involved in the shooting were quick to shut up and lawyer up, impeding the White House’s fact-finding in the matter.
However, other sources faulted USBP Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino for the miscommunication. “Bovino should be blamed,” one unnamed source told Axios, “not Stephen.” According to Miller and several other sources, Bovino and USBP quickly relayed potentially incorrect or incomplete information immediately following Pretti’s death, resulting in DHS’s controversial messaging. “The initial statement from DHS was based on reports from CBP on the ground,” Miller told the New York Post. “Additionally, the White House provided clear guidance to DHS that the extra personnel that had been sent to Minnesota for force protection should be used for conducting fugitive operations to create a physical barrier between the arrest teams and the disruptors,” he noted. “We are evaluating why the CBP team may not have been following that protocol.”
Not a Pretti Picture
More information is emerging surrounding the controversial shooting of Pretti. A preliminary DHS review of the incident found that Pretti and another rioter were physically obstructing federal agents, despite being told multiple times to move out of the way. Pretti resisted arrest and struggled with USBP agents, when one agent shouted that Pretti had a gun, a loaded Sig Sauer handgun. Shortly afterwards, at least two federal agents began firing at Pretti, discharging roughly a dozen times. It was not until after Pretti had been shot that another agent announced that he had taken Pretti’s weapon from him. USBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility Investigative Operations Directorate also confirmed that the agents involved were wearing bodycams and that footage has been collected.
While many have touted Pretti’s credentials as a Veterans Affairs nurse, CNN reported that Pretti was already “known” to federal agents due to interfering in previous operations, including a physical altercation in which his rib was broken, just a week before he continued inserting himself into law enforcement operations and was killed. According to a Fox News report, Pretti was a member of an anti-ICE organization that used complex communications and tracking networks to plan obstructions to law enforcement operations. Pretti and others were already waiting for federal agents at the site where Pretti was killed. Pretti’s ex-wife confirmed that he had also been involved in the violent riots that rocked Minneapolis in 2020, following the death of George Floyd.
The president has committed to a thorough investigation of the events surrounding Pretti’s death. “We’re doing a big investigation. I want to see the investigation. I’m going to be watching over it. I want to see it myself,” he told reporters Tuesday. “I love all of our people. I love his family, and it’s a very sad situation,” he continued, advising anti-ICE activists not to bring guns to confrontations with federal law enforcement.
Lives on the Line
Pretti’s armed altercation with federal law enforcement agents and subsequent death comes in the midst of increased violence and threats against ICE personnel and other federal agents. According to a Breitbart News analysis, recent months have seen an 8,000% increase in death threats against ICE agents, including threats against their families, and a 1,300% increase in violent assaults against ICE agents. Breitbart quoted a voice message left on an agent’s phone as an example of the threats made against law enforcement personnel:
“I hope your wife dies. I hope your mom and dad die. I hope everything wrong that could go in your life happens. I hope you have the most miserable life. I hope you get hit by a bus. I hope you’re paralyzed, and your wife leaves you, and starts getting [expletive] by [other men] every day. You are a traitor to the American people, to the values that made our country. You should kill yourself. You’re [expletive] disgusting.”
According to the Washington Examiner, DHS is currently investigating the case of a woman who attempted multiple times to purchase firearms “to protect herself from ICE Agents, and also to kill ICE Agents.” In another instance, Virginia Commonwealth University fired a nurse for a series of social media posts advising anti-ICE activists to use paralytic drugs and poison ivy brews against ICE agents and encouraging single women to use dating apps to meet ICE agents and then poison their drinks.
DHS Assistant Secretary for Communications Tricia McLaughlin partly faulted Democrats for the rise in hostility, citing the dehumanizing rhetoric they use against federal law enforcement officers. “Comparing ICE day in and day out to the Nazi Gestapo, the Secret Police, and slave patrols has consequences,” she warned. “Every day there are more assaults, more vehicle-ramming attacks, more attempts to kill our officers.”
Twin Cities Stalemate?
After having been deployed to Minneapolis this week, Homan has already begun negotiating with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D) and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) to ensure that immigration enforcement operations can continue with as little conflict as possible, pressuring the two Democrats to end their “sanctuary” policies and cooperate with ICE. “We all agree that we need to support our law enforcement officers and get criminals off the streets. While we don’t agree on everything, these meetings were a productive starting point and I look forward to more conversations with key stakeholders in the days ahead,” Homan reported Tuesday evening of his meetings with Walz and Frey. “President Trump has been clear: he wants American cities to be safe and secure for law-abiding residents — and they will be.”
Walz is evidently considering cooperating with the Trump administration, much to the outrage of his constituents. Anti-ICE activists stormed the Minnesota state capitol building Tuesday and staged a mass protest outside Walz’s office, chanting slogans such as, “ICE out now!” and “Do your job!” The governor had met with Homan Tuesday afternoon and had spoken with Trump previously, in what the president characterized as “productive.” He later quipped, “It couldn’t have been a nicer conversation. It’s hard to believe that’s the same guy I watch on TV or the debate not doing so well, because we had a reasonable and good conversation. If you believe it, he’d like to get this over with!”
In an interview following his meeting with Homan, Walz classified the Border Czar as “a professional,” which he said was not his experience of Noem and Bovino. “The tone was different, there was a tone shift,” he said of his talk with the Trump immigration official. While insisting that he would still like to see ICE leave Minnesota altogether, Walz admitted, “It was progress. Look, I never got a call from Bovino or Noem, nothing.” However, the governor still faulted federal operations for unrest in Minneapolis, rather than his own actions and rhetoric. “They started this fire.”
Frey also spoke with Homan, but has continued to reject the administration’s requests to end “sanctuary” policies. “Surprisingly, Mayor Jacob Frey just stated that, ‘Minneapolis does not, and will not, enforce Federal Immigration Laws,’” the president reported in a Truth Social post Wednesday morning. “This is after having had a very good conversation with him. Could somebody in his inner sanctum please explain that this statement is a very serious violation of the Law, and that he is PLAYING WITH FIRE!”
Appearing on “Washington Watch” Tuesday night, Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) stressed the damage done by Democrats’ anti-law enforcement rhetoric, in addition to the importance for Republicans to follow through on the Trump administration’s immigration agenda. “All the other jurisdictions around the country where ICE is doing that job, they have cooperation from local officials, so there are no problems,” Harris observed. “The problems are when you have a governor and a mayor openly telling people in Minnesota to go against the Constitution, go against the ability of the federal government to enforce immigration law,” he continued. “You have a rogue governor and a rogue mayor, that’s the problem in Minnesota.”
“Republicans were elected to the majorities with President Trump to close the border and to begin the deportation of the 10 to 12 million people who crossed the border illegally under the Biden administration. We have to get that done,” Harris emphasized. “Unless you think that the 10 to 12 million people who came in illegally under the Biden administration should be invited to stay forever, you need ICE.”
AUTHOR
S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.
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