Members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation and other Democratic leaders are calling for U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign or be removed from office after a second U.S. citizen was killed by immigration agents in Minnesota over the weekend.
U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan issued a statement Monday afternoon saying Noem “has fundamentally broken” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and “destroyed the trust of the American people that the agency is acting in the best interest of our country.”
“The brutal murders of two American citizens in Minneapolis made clear that the communities ICE enters are less safe than they were before,” said Trahan. “This is the direct result of reckless leadership, politicized enforcement, and a complete disregard for public safety and civil rights.”
She continued, “First and foremost, Kristi Noem must be removed from office. She must be investigated for credible allegations of corruption and for any illegal directives issued to immigration agents. If Donald Trump refuses to fire Noem, then Congress has a responsibility to remove her.”
Trahan also called for Congress to undo the $170 billion “ICE slush fund” passed by congressional Republicans last year, and for every ICE agent hired and deployed since then to face a reevaluation “to determine whether they are qualified, properly trained, and free of any history of violating the constitutional rights guaranteed to every person on American soil.”
“This has to include swift, thorough, and independent investigations into the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good,” said Trahan.
Good and Pretti were two Minnesota residents and U.S. citizens who were shot multiple times and killed by federal immigration officers in separate incidents caught on video from multiple angles this month. Good was killed by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis on Jan. 7 while behind the wheel of her vehicle, and Pretti was killed by unidentified Border Patrol agents Saturday after a scuffle where he was pepper sprayed and knocked to the ground by multiple agents.
Trahan urged congressional Democrats to oppose any further funding for DHS until “meaningful guardrails are put in place outlining how an immigration enforcement agency can be rebuilt with the trust of the American people.”
“ICE does not have that trust today, and it cannot continue as it currently exists without it,” said Trahan.
U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton posted a video on social media Saturday after news of Pretti’s killing had spread, calling the incident “an outright murder,” and the involved agents “absolute cowards.”
“I am a Marine veteran standing here, telling you to your face they are unprofessional, pathetic cowards,” said Moulton in the video Saturday. “If a Marine, an 18-year-old Marine, did that in Iraq, in the middle of a war zone, he would be court-martialed, because it is murder, and you pathetic little cowards, who have to wear face masks because you’re so damn scared, couldn’t wrestle a guy to the ground. So you needed to shoot him?
“ICE needs to be prosecuted,” Moulton continued. “Yeah, I voted to defund it, but ICE, you need to be prosecuted, and Director [Todd Lyons] who is running ICE right now, I hope you’re hearing this from this Marine to you, you guys are criminal thugs, you need to be held accountable to law if you think you can enforce it.”
Gov. Maura Healey joined the calls for Noem to resign Monday, saying DHS and its agencies are “harming public safety.”
“It is just an example of how out of control ICE is,” Healey said Monday. “We have people who are clearly untrained who work for ICE … So my heart goes out to Alex Pretti, to his co-workers, and I really hope Americans take this in and understand the very sad and dangerous moment we’ve reached in this country.”
Speaking about Pretti’s death over the weekend, Noem said the involved immigration agents acted in self defense, and that Pretti first approached the federal officers with “a 9mm semi-automatic handgun.”
White House adviser Stephen Miller called Pretti “a would-be assassin” who “tried to murder federal law enforcement and the official Democrat account sides with the terrorists.”
In a video on social media Sunday, U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern said he was “just so goddamn angry and mad” about the killing of Pretti.
“And I am pissed at Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller trying to refer to the man who was murdered, Alex Pretti, as a domestic terrorist,” said McGovern. “Alex Pretti was an ICU nurse at the VA. He took care of sick veterans … He was at a protest because he was disgusted at what ICE was doing to his community, and he came to the aid of a woman who had been pushed to the ground.”
McGovern continued, “He did not brandish a firearm and threaten ICE agents. He just was doing what he has every right to do in this country, and that is to dissent, to protest, and he was executed.”
McGovern called for Noem to be impeached.
“We ought to make sure those who murdered him are held to account to the fullest extent of the law,” said McGovern, adding later that the Senate should block any further ICE funding.
Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino, who has been the face of ICE’s presence in Minneapolis since the federal crackdown began there, is expected to leave Minneapolis with some ICE agents as soon as Tuesday, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. At the same time, President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, is being sent to Minnesota to take charge of ICE operations there.
On Monday a federal judge was hearing arguments in a lawsuit filed by the state of Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, intended to halt the federal immigration surge in the state.
“Donald Trump and Kristi Noem think they can tell you what to believe. They think you will believe them instead of your own eyes. Don’t roll over for a lie. These lies have to stop,” U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in a YouTube video posted Monday.
Warren said it is “time to rein in the federal agents who think they can swagger through our streets, throw people to the ground, shoot American citizens and then count of protection from Trump and Noem.
“We need a full, independent investigation, and all wrongdoing held to account to the fullest extent of the law. The victims of this violence deserve justice,” said Warren. “Kristi Noem should resign, and if she doesn’t Congress should impeach her and remove her from office.”
Speaking at a press conference Saturday after the shooting, U.S. Sen. Ed Markey called the incident a “classic example of how ICE and other federal agencies are hurting our communities.”
“It is yet another example of how our country is descending into authoritarianism day by day,” said Markey. “We’re not talking about rogue agents, this is about an all out assault on American life. This is about the Fourth Amendment, this is about due process, this is about the United States Constitution. That is what is now being jeopardized by Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem and all these other agents of an authoritarian president every single day.”
Markey called for ICE to “immediately withdraw from Minneapolis,” and for DHS funding to be stopped.
Alongside Markey was Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan, who called for peaceful protest over the events in Minneapolis, and for local officials to lead the investigations there.
“A bedrock of American government is that local officials who are accountable to local voters should run those investigations,” said Ryan. “There should be not what we have heard so far today, which is that the local authorities are being blocked from the scene and being prohibited from taking evidence.
“We cannot have an investigation that is result driven,” Ryan said later. “True investigations follow the facts and the evidence to the conclusion, not the other way around.”
Material from State House News Service was used in this report.
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