(AFP) – US President Donald Trump dispatched his top border official Monday to Minnesota in a bid to regain control over an escalating crisis sparked by the second killing of a protester against his administration’s militarized immigration raids. Trump said that Tom Homan, his point man for border security, would arrive in the state later and “will report directly to me.” Minneapolis has become ground zero in the clash between Trump and growing numbers of Americans over his nationwide immigration crackdown. Trump’s deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, described the city on Fox News as a “powder keg.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an agency under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has been transformed under Trump into the United States’ most heavily funded law enforcement body. But polls show growing anger over its frequently brutal tactics. A huge rally took place despite bitter cold in Minneapolis on Friday to protest the raids and the point-blank shooting by an ICE agent of protester Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, on January 7. Then on Saturday, immigration agents gunned down Alex Jeffrey Pretti, also 37, after having already tackled him to the ground. Like Good, the intensive care unit nurse was a US citizen. More rallies erupted after his death in Minneapolis, New York, and other major cities.
Opening a new front in the crisis, a federal judge in Minneapolis was hearing arguments Monday on whether the deployment of federal officers—often masked, heavily armed, and unidentified—violates the state of Minnesota’s sovereignty. And in Congress, Democrats are threatening to hold up funding for the US government unless immigration enforcement agencies are reformed.
Trump has so far dismissed concerns. The 79-year-old Republican’s first reaction to Pretti’s killing was to suggest that the nurse had come intending to shoot at the police. Pretti was carrying a pistol with him at the time but never removed it and had apparently already been disarmed when he was shot multiple times at point-blank range. He was licensed to carry a weapon. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison on Sunday accused Trump of pushing a “flat-out insane” narrative. Trump repeated the insinuation that Pretti was to blame when he told The Wall Street Journal on Sunday: “I don’t like any shooting… but I don’t like it when somebody goes into a protest and he’s got a very powerful, fully loaded gun.”
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt indicated Homan would not focus on Pretti’s killing and instead lead efforts to arrest “criminal illegal aliens” and tackle alleged fraud by Somali immigrants—racially charged claims fueling the crackdown. Blanche told Fox News “it is extraordinarily important that we do not jump to conclusions,” while describing the incident as “a very violent altercation.”
In Monday’s court action, the judge was hearing arguments from state and city lawyers that the federal deployments amount to an occupying force. Also under consideration was a bid to force federal officials to preserve evidence related to Pretti’s killing. The lawsuits highlight the deep rift between local and federal law enforcement over the deployment, dubbed “Operation Metro Surge.” Trump’s immigration raids have focused deliberately on Democratic-run cities, pitting mayors and governors against the president. Local police have repeatedly confronted federal agents, and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has even suggested he could call out the state’s National Guard to push back against Trump’s forces.
Trump will also be watching signs of growing disenchantment from his Republican Party in Congress. The party is usually in lockstep with Trump, but it has only a slender majority. One of the most prominent cautions came from House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer, who signaled Sunday that federal agents should withdraw from Minneapolis—an intervention that would normally be unheard of from a figure considered one of Trump’s staunchest loyalists. Trump told the Journal that the immigration agents would leave Minneapolis “at some point.”
– Roberto Schmidt with Sebastian Smith in Washington
© 2024 AFP
