The Trump administration’s unchecked abuses in Minnesota

On Saturday, a Border Patrol agent in Minneapolis shot and killed Alex Jeffrey Pretti at close range after Pretti had been pepper-sprayed, beaten, and forced onto his knees by other agents. 

Pretti, 37, was a US citizen and reportedly in the area to observe agents’ actions. He was also a registered nurse and a legal gun owner with a permit to carry a weapon — one that he was no longer in possession of when he was shot to death.

Pretti’s death is at least the third shooting by immigration agents in the Minneapolis area this year, and the second where the person who was shot died.

The shootings have understandably attracted the most attention nationwide. But since the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis began in early January, there have been widespread abuses of power US by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents, including use of chemical crowd control like pepper spray and tear gas; brutality against protesters, bystanders, and immigrants; and baseless and often inflammatory arrests and detentions. 

The first ICE shooting

On January 7, just days into an immigration crackdown targeting the Minneapolis area that Trump officials heralded as “largest immigration operation ever,” an ICE agent, Jonathan Ross, shot and killed Renee Good as she attempted to drive away. 

The White House, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and other federal officials quickly backed Ross to the hilt, describing Good as a domestic terrorist and describing the shooting as justified, despite video evidence to the contrary.

Since then, the message behind the administration’s support for Ross and the shooting seems to have been clearly received by ICE agents in Minnesota, who have behaved much more like an occupying force than a law enforcement operation: Not only have local officials pleaded with them to leave the state, they are also operating from behind masks and with militarized force, including tactical gear, riot control agents, and assault weapons.

They have even pitted themselves against local police: A Minneapolis-area police chief said this earlier week that some of his off-duty officers have been harassed and racially profiled by immigration agents.

In multiple cases, federal agents have been documented using Good’s killing as a threat against other observers documenting their actions, asking one woman, “Have y’all not learned?” before grabbing her phone and detaining her.

What immigration agents have been doing in Minneapolis

Other incidents are too numerous to tally in full, but several stand out. 

Last week, federal agents violently detained two Target employees, both of whom a Minnesota state representative said were US citizens and who were later released. At least one of the employees was left in a nearby parking lot with injuries. 

In another incident, a US citizen was dragged from her car by federal agents after she was stopped on the way to a doctor’s appointment; agents broke the windows of her vehicle and carried her hanging face down by her arms and legs. And federal agents have been recorded pepper-spraying an already-detained man in the face at close range.

A Minneapolis family was also caught up and brutalized by federal agents last week: On the way home from a basketball game, a family of eight — including a 6-month-old and five other children — was tear-gassed inside their vehicle by federal agents. All survived, but the 6-month-old required CPR.

The second of three shootings by federal immigration agents in the Minneapolis area was also a case of mistaken identity: ICE agents shot a Venezuelan man in the leg, wounding him, even though he was not their original target.

More recently, ChongLy “Scott” Thao, also a US citizen, was detained in his home at gunpoint by federal agents and taken away in sub-freezing temperatures wearing only his underwear, sandals, and a blanket. Thao was arrested without a warrant and ultimately released hours later — without an apology for his detention or for the damage to his home, Thao said.

Thao’s detention is part of a larger pattern in Minneapolis, where ICE agents are increasingly acting in violation of the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. As my colleague Eric Levitz wrote on Friday, ICE has decided, according to a closely held internal memo first obtained by the Associated Press, that it can enter homes with only an administrative warrant, rather than a judicial warrant. Such administrative warrants do not require a judge’s approval and can be issued by ICE agents themselves. 

ICE’s crackdown has also swept up children in the Minneapolis area, including an incident this week where agents attempted to use a 5-year-old child as “bait” to detain others by having him knock on the door of his home after taking his father into custody, according to officials at a Minneapolis-area school district. They also detained a 2-year-old and her father on Thursday and temporarily removed both of them to Texas.

Local publications like the Minneapolis Star-Tribune — and bystanders filming interactions, as Pretti appeared to have been doing before he was shot and killed on Saturday — have created a more comprehensive record of ICE and CBP’s actions in the state. But even this relatively limited number of incidents shows a clear pattern of unchecked aggression and ongoing escalation by agents.

“How many more residents, how many more Americans need to die or get badly hurt for this operation to end?” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey asked on Saturday. But for the Trump administration, it’s not clear those deaths are very much of a problem at all.