(AFP) – Donald Trump’s “border czar” met with officials in Minneapolis on Tuesday as the US president struggled with damage control after the fatal shootings of two civilians fueled a storm of criticism over his signature immigration crackdown. Some federal agents — including Gregory Bovino, a Border Patrol official famed for reveling in aggressive, televised immigration crackdowns — were expected to leave Minneapolis.
Trump said that Tom 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. “I hear things are going very nicely,” Trump said. The US president told reporters that he rejected the “assassin” label used by a top aide to describe 37-year-old protester Alex Pretti, who was shot at point-blank range over the weekend. “I’m going to be watching over it and I want a very honorable and honest investigation,” he said. But Trump also said people could not go to protests with guns — a reference to Pretti 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 told reporters.
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 “does not and will not enforce federal immigration laws.” Walz said he called for “impartial investigations” into shootings by federal agents in the city as well as a “significant reduction in the number of federal forces in Minnesota,” according to a statement to US media.
– Betrayal of ‘basic values’ –
Pretti’s death has sparked outrage nationwide. Former Democratic president Joe Biden on Tuesday said the situation “betrays our most basic values as Americans.” Former 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 for 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. The roving units are the spearhead for Trump’s vow to deport hundreds of thousands of people who are in the country illegally. But while the policy was initially popular, the chaotic and violent implementation is causing uproar. Despite multiple videos showing that Pretti posed no threat, top officials initially claimed he had been intending to kill federal agents and described him as a “domestic terrorist.” Trump himself amplified the conspiracy theory on social media before retreating with a more conciliatory message.
– ‘Sickened’ –
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 Pretti shooting should immediately be put on administrative leave, later adding that the heads of ICE, Border Patrol, and Citizenship and Immigration Services would testify before the Homeland Security Committee next month. Centrist Democratic Senator John Fetterman said “grossly incompetent” Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem should be fired.
The turmoil could even result in the suspension of wide swaths of US government funding, 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.”
– Roberto Schmidt with Sebastian Smith in Washington
© 2024 AFP
