(AFP) – US President Donald Trump said Tuesday he would “de-escalate a little bit” in Minneapolis after the fatal shootings of two civilians fueled a storm of criticism over his signature immigration crackdown. Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan met with officials in the city as the Republican attempted damage control after the killing by immigration agents of 37-year-old nurse Alex Pretti on Saturday.
The president also admitted that Gregory Bovino, a hardline Border Patrol commander who is now expected to leave Minneapolis, was “a pretty out-there kind of a guy” whose presence may not have helped the situation. “We’re going to de-escalate a little bit,” Trump told Fox News after days of tensions following the shooting of Pretti, while adding that it was not a “pullback.” Trump said that Homan — the top US border security official, who brings a less confrontational communication style — met with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey Tuesday.
The US president told reporters that he rejected the “assassin” label used by a top aide to describe protester Pretti. “I want a very honorable and honest investigation,” he said. Yet Trump did not hold back from criticizing Pretti for carrying a licensed firearm that was taken off him before he was shot. “I don’t like that he had a gun, I don’t like that he had two fully loaded magazines,” the president said.
Mayor Frey said in a statement after meeting Homan that he discussed the “serious negative impacts this operation has had on Minneapolis,” and that the city “will not enforce federal immigration laws.” Former Democratic vice presidential candidate Walz said he called for “impartial investigations” into shootings by federal agents in the city as well as a “significant reduction” in federal forces in the state.
Pretti’s death has sparked outrage nationwide. Democratic former president Joe Biden on Tuesday said the situation “betrays our most basic values as Americans.” Ex-presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have also spoken out. Pretti, shot multiple times after being knocked to the ground, was the second US citizen killed by immigration officers in Minneapolis this month, turning the city into ground zero of national tensions over Trump’s mass deportation policies.
Protester Renee Good, a mother of three, was shot by an agent at point-blank range in her car on January 7. The killings capped months of escalating violence in which masked, unidentified, and heavily armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol agents have grabbed people suspected of violating immigration laws off the streets. Despite multiple videos showing that Pretti posed no threat, top officials initially claimed he had been intending to kill federal agents.
Trump backed his under-fire Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem, who described Pretti as a “domestic terrorist,” saying she would not step down and was doing a “very good job.” But he was less supportive of Bovino, a Border Patrol official famed for reveling in aggressive, televised immigration crackdowns who had also played up the narrative that Pretti had posed a threat. “Bovino’s very good, but he’s a pretty out-there kind of a guy. And in some cases, that’s good, maybe it wasn’t good here,” Trump told Fox.
Concern over the violence and the attempt to blame Pretti for his death quickly spread to Washington. Republican Senator Rand Paul said Tuesday that agents involved in the shooting should be put on administrative leave, later adding that the heads of ICE, Border Patrol, and Citizenship and Immigration Services would testify before Congress next month. Centrist Democratic Senator John Fetterman said “grossly incompetent” Noem should be fired.
The turmoil could even result in a fresh US government shutdown, with Democrats threatening to block approval of routine spending bills up for votes in the Senate later this week. “The whole community is just sickened by all this,” said 68-year-old retiree Stephen McLaughlin in Minneapolis. “The aim of the government is to terrorize citizens, it’s really frightening.”
burs-dk/sms – Roberto Schmidt with Danny Kemp in Washington
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