Trump’s Agents: Out of Control
Immigration agents shoot and kill a second protester in Minneapolis, making it clear they consider themselves above the law.
The confrontation between Donald Trump’s government and its own citizens fell to a new level of darkness on Saturday with the shooting death of Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, in Minneapolis at the hands of immigration enforcement agents. Federal agents fired multiple shots at Pretti after subduing him, and grappling with him on the ground. Pretti was participating in a protest against the presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement squads in Minneapolis. He was a U.S. citizen and a Minneapolis resident who worked as an intensive care nurse at Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Medical Center. His alleged murder in broad daylight by a force acting with no limits as to violence is poised to become a symbol of the fight against the Trump administration’s brutal immigration crackdown.
Pretti’s death comes two weeks after agents from the same ICE unit, also in Minneapolis, killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old American woman protesting against ICE agents from her car. The authorities rushed to blame the victims, despite the fact that videos filmed by witnesses prove otherwise. In Pretti’s case, the same narrative dynamic was repeated within the early hours of the commotion.
A wave of outrage is sweeping across U.S. cities, predominantly in progressive environments where the contribution of immigrants is valued, given the human, social and economic consequences of an unprecedented level of police violence that White House zealots are calling “the largest deportation operation in American history.” Public opposition has become especially intense in Minnesota, where this federal police force has been deployed since the end of last year, after a YouTuber posted a video accusing Minnesota’s Somali community, which has been settled there for decades, of a multimillion dollar fraud involving public funds.
Some 3,000 immigration agents have since conducted indiscriminate raids, the brutality of which has been criticized by governors and mayors across the country. Their methods masking up and employing military tactics, are aimed more at creating a spectacle of cruelty than adhering to the idea of public safety. In the case of any excess, they can count on the complete support of the White House. As happened in the case of Good’s death, the Trump administration accuses victims of waging domestic terrorism and provoking ICE agents.
Unfortunately, law enforcement agencies in the U.S. have always acted with similar impunity. This reality is especially painful in Minneapolis, the city where a local police officer suffocated and killed George Floyd, a Black U.S. citizen, in 2020. This event gave rise to massive Black Lives Matter protests across the country. But today that country had seemed more peaceful. Before Trump took office, ICE was a marginal law enforcement agency dedicated to detaining immigrants with deportation orders. The current administration has turned it into a force that occupies the streets. No one knows how far the tension will escalate in a country with hundreds of millions firearms in private hands, a situation that transcends ideology. Public safety isn’t a marketing tool at Trump’s disposal. A sinister path has opened up for U.S. democracy in Minneapolis.
The confrontation between Donald Trump’s government and its own citizens fell to a new level of darkness on Saturday with the shooting death of Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, in Minneapolis at the hands of immigration enforcement agents. Federal agents fired multiple shots at Pretti after subduing him, and grappling with him on the ground. Pretti was participating in a protest against the presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement squads in Minneapolis. He was a U.S. citizen and a Minneapolis resident who worked as an intensive care nurse at Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Medical Center. His alleged murder in broad daylight by a force acting with no limits as to violence is poised to become a symbol of the fight against the Trump administration’s brutal immigration crackdown.
Pretti’s death comes two weeks after agents from the same ICE unit, also in Minneapolis, killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old American woman protesting against ICE agents from her car. The authorities rushed to blame the victims, despite the fact that videos filmed by witnesses prove otherwise. In Pretti’s case, the same narrative dynamic was repeated within the early hours of the commotion.
A wave of outrage is sweeping across U.S. cities, predominantly in progressive environments where the contribution of immigrants is valued, given the human, social and economic consequences of an unprecedented level of police violence that White House zealots are calling “the largest deportation operation in American history.” Public opposition has become especially intense in Minnesota, where this federal police force has been deployed since the end of last year, after a YouTuber posted a video accusing Minnesota’s Somali community, which has been settled there for decades, of a multimillion dollar fraud involving public funds.
Some 3,000 immigration agents have since conducted indiscriminate raids, the brutality of which has been criticized by governors and mayors across the country. Their methods masking up and employing military tactics, are aimed more at creating a spectacle of cruelty than adhering to the idea of public safety. In the case of any excess, they can count on the complete support of the White House. As happened in the case of Good’s death, the Trump administration accuses victims of waging domestic terrorism and provoking ICE agents.
Unfortunately, law enforcement agencies in the U.S. have always acted with similar impunity. This reality is especially painful in Minneapolis, the city where a local police officer suffocated and killed George Floyd, a Black U.S. citizen, in 2020. This event gave rise to massive Black Lives Matter protests across the country. But today that country had seemed more peaceful. Before Trump took office, ICE was a marginal law enforcement agency dedicated to detaining immigrants with deportation orders. The current administration has turned it into a force that occupies the streets. No one knows how far the tension will escalate in a country with hundreds of millions firearms in private hands, a situation that transcends ideology. Public safety isn’t a marketing tool at Trump’s disposal. A sinister path has opened up for U.S. democracy in Minneapolis.
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