Amid Minneapolis Tensions, Republicans Continue to Back ICE

Despite widespread outrage over the ongoing federal immigration crackdown in Minneapolis and growing criticism of the methods applied by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, the vast majority of Republicans continue to back ICE. In a survey conducted by YouGov on January 25, that is a day after the killing of Alex Pretti, 51 percent of Republican respondents said they strongly approved of the job ICE is doing while another 26 percent said they somewhat approved of ICE’s actions. Conversely, 83 percent of Democrats strongly disapproved of what the agency is doing with more than 60 percent of Independents also somewhat or strongly disapproving of ICE.

Tensions in Minneapolis came to a boil on the weekend after ICE agents on Saturday shot and killed Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse who was apparently helping fellow protesters while filming with his phone, in the second such killing in less than three weeks. Like the fatal shooting of Renee Good on January 7, Pretti’s killing and the events leading up to it were also well documented on video by bystanders – a fact that didn’t stop government officials to spin a narrative seemingly contradicted by the footage of the incident.

Both ICE commander Greg Bovino and Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, went on record saying that Mr. Pretti had the intention to kill law enforcement officials and was seeking “maximum damage” – none of which was supported by the evidence available to the public. While video footage analyzed by the New York Times suggests that Pretti was carrying a gun, at no point in the confrontation did he pull the weapon that he legally carried. Instead, video footage suggests that an ICE agent had already removed Pretti’s gun at the time that two of his colleagues fired at least 10 shots at Mr. Pretti.