Is The Dam Breaking On ICE?

Congressional Republicans, conservative pundits and even Donald Trump appear to realize that ICE and Border Patrol agents have gone too far.

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On Saturday morning, Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse with the Veterans Administration, was killed by ICE agents as he tried to record an immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis.

Several videos of the incident have circulated online. They clearly show that a) Pretti did not instigate a conflict, b) tried to protect a woman who Border Patrol agents had assaulted, c) was lying on the ground getting pummelled by six officers when d) an agent shot him in the back multiple times, ending his life. ICE agents fired ten shots, and several of them came after Pretti was lying motionless and unarmed.

However, as is always the case when Border Patrol/ICE agents act violently and aggressively, the White House and the Department of Homeland Security immediately leapt to their defense … and quickly blamed the victim.

DHS officials claimed that Pretti “brandished” a gun.

He didn’t. In fact, the officers who threw Pretti to the ground and beat him had no way of knowing he had a weapon until one of them pulled it out of his back waistband. That happened seconds before he was killed. Indeed, it appears from the video that as one officer pulled the weapon from Pretti’s person, another officer panicked and opened fire.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said Pretti “impeded a law enforcement operation.” But as the videos show, he was recording the agents, not interfering with them.

She also said, “he became aggressive.”

Nope, that didn’t happen either.

In fact, after Border Patrol agents pepper-sprayed Pretti and threw him down, an agent pulled him up and then hurled him to the ground again.

Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino even claimed that Pretti was intent on massacring law enforcement officers. There is not a scintilla of evidence to back up that assertion. Stephen Miller, in his usual restrained and measured rhetorical style, labeled Pretti an “assassin” and a “ terrorist.”

(I know it is difficult to see this picture … but right now, none of us should look away from what is happening in our country.)

This Time Is Different

In my view, the Renee Good shooting was unambiguously the fault of the ICE officer who killed her — and the other ICE agents who needlessly instigated a confrontation. But there was just enough doubt that team MAGA could make the case that Good was to blame, and congressional Republicans and conservative pundits were willing to go along.

But the Pretti shooting is far less defensible. There’s really no way to watch the videos of Pretti’s killing and conclude that he was the aggressor. And since this latest tragedy came so quickly on the heels of the Good’s death, which most Americans blamed on ICE agents, it created a perfect storm of outrage (also coinciding with a winter storm that kept most Americans at home and on their phones).

By Sunday evening, it had become increasingly clear that the administration’s never-back-down messaging had gone too far, and the dam of public outrage had broken.

A smattering of congressional Republicans began offering tepid criticisms of the shooting. So too did a handful of usually reliable pro-Trump conservative commentators. Sports stars, who have generally been silent about ICE’s behavior, started speaking out. Former Presidents Obama and Clinton put out statements condemning the shooting (both men carefully pick their spots when weighing in on national controversies). Even Fox News began turning on the White House. As I’m writing this late Monday morning, it’s evident that the tide of public opinion has dramatically turned against the White House.

While the dead-enders within the administration, like Noem, Bovino, and Miller, continued besmirching Pretti’s name, even Trump seems to have realized that things had gone too far, and he is now seeking an exit strategy.

President Trump declined to say whether the federal officer who fatally shot a man in Minnesota this weekend had acted appropriately and said the administration was reviewing the incident.

In a five-minute telephone interview with The Wall Street Journal on Sunday, Trump didn’t directly answer when asked twice whether the officer who shot Alex Pretti had done the right thing. Pressed further, the president said, “We’re looking, we’re reviewing everything and will come out with a determination.” Administration officials have publicly defended the officer.

“At some point we will leave. We’ve done, they’ve done a phenomenal job,” he said. Trump didn’t offer a time frame for when agents might depart. Asked if agents would leave soon, he praised what the administration had done already in Minnesota and said, “We’ll leave a different group of people there for the financial fraud.”

And then there is this CNN reporting…

Meanwhile at the Department of Homeland Security, there’s feeling among multiple officials that Secretary Kristi Noem is hurting the department — and putting all federal law enforcement further at risk of reputational harm. Noem has been among the officials publicly blaming Pretti, even as her department is leading the investigation into the incident.

DHS officials expressed frustration and concern Sunday morning as they shared videos among themselves of the shooting, officials told CNN. Some felt that Noem was doing them a disservice and placing federal law enforcement at further risk of harming their reputations.

“The department needs a law enforcement leader, not a sycophant,” one Homeland Security official told CNN.

If folks at DHS are bad-mouthing Noem, she is in a precarious political position, and even the true believers in the administration are tiring of her slavishly pro-Trump performative nonsense.

So, What Happens Next?

Before the Pretti shooting, there were already rumblings that Trump was bothered by the bad press coming out of Minnesota. But with this weekend’s firestorm, I would not be surprised if the White House declares victory and begins winding down the operation in Minneapolis soon. In fact, I expect that to happen.

The more interesting question is whether this leads to a larger shift in ICE and Border Patrol tactics. We know that several top ICE officials are uncomfortable with how agents are being deployed (the Border Patrol, led by Bovino, is less bothered). I wouldn’t necessarily expect the administration to pump the brakes on its mass-deportation fixation, but honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised either. Trump hates bad press, and right now, the press coverage of ICE operations is terrible.

Congressional Republicans are in a tougher spot because now Democrats are threatening to shut down the government to block a DHS funding bill (the government runs out of money on Friday). They are demanding new restrictions on ICE and Border Patrol operations and a thorough investigation of the Pretti shooting. Republicans will likely play hardball, increasing the likelihood of a shutdown, but from a political perspective, do they really want to wage this fight?

A government shutdown over ICE funding feels like a major political loser for Republicans. Even if we get a prolonged shutdown and Democrats eventually cave, it’s hard to see how it’s a good thing for the GOP if they are keeping the government closed to protect immigration enforcement operations that are profoundly unpopular. A shutdown is likely, but I’d be surprised if it lasted as long as the one in September.

It should never have come to this point, but the needless, tragic, and completely avoidable death of Alex Pretti might actually stop the sustained violence of ICE and Border Patrol agents in Minnesota and elsewhere.

Let us hope and pray that his death is not in vain.

One More Thing …

A video is circulating on social media of Pretti, a VA nurse, honoring a veteran who had passed. Please take a moment to watch it.