The murder of Veterans Affairs intensive care nurse Alex Pretti by trigger-happy Border Patrol agents may prove a watershed moment. Out of this tragedy may emerge a national awareness that the danger of out-of-control, heavily armed masked federal agents may be a greater threat to the nation’s security and the rule of law than the illegal immigrants they are hunting down. And a threat to Republican politicians who cheer them on.
Pretti was the second American citizen gunned down by federal agents in two weeks of chaos in the streets of Minneapolis. Both times, the shoot-first-ask-questions-later, blame-the-victim secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, quickly branded the victims “urban terrorists.”
The nation is becoming aware that the real urban terrorists may be her own stormtroopers, with Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino strutting in full tactical gear, personally tossing chemical grenades into crowds, apparently in violation of court orders.
Anti-immigrant crusade gone too far
Even President Donald Trump, though still blaming Democrats for everything and anything, seems to be slowly waking up to the danger that his anti-immigrant crusade may have gone too far. Monday night, he reportedly ordered Bovino to leave Minneapolis. Trump even spoke to the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, and Gov. Tim Walz – two men he has repeatedly cursed, vilified, and ordered investigated by his weaponized Justice Department – about lowering the temperature.
Pictures taken by bystanders from all directions told a starkly different story than the administration has been telling. Pretti’s gun had been removed – from his belt, not his hands – before agents, who had been kicking and beating him, fired 10 shots into him.
Especially worrisome for the president should be the decision of Chris Madel to drop his bid for Republican nomination to be Minnesota’s next governor. He said ICE’s Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis has poisoned politics for Republicans in his state. The impact is also being felt across the country.
Madel, a lawyer advising the ICE officer who fatally shot Renee Good, a US citizen, on January 7, called the federal surge an “unmitigated disaster” and said he “cannot support the national Republicans’ stated retribution on the citizens of our state, nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so,” The Washington Post reported.
Other Republicans are speaking out, albeit timidly lest they incur the wrath of their vindictive president who has a penchant for turning against members of his own party who offend him. And the silence from the Republican leadership – full-fledged disciples of the Trump cult – has been revealing.
Senate Republicans will have a chance this week to show where they stand on what is becoming a national crisis. The result could be a government shutdown.
Concern among Republicans
Trump was elected largely on a promise to deal with the immigration problem that Joe Biden had let slip for too long. But he is finding that his handling of it is hurting him among his own supporters, and that could reverberate in November’s midterm elections.
Funding for the Departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security runs out by midnight Friday. The House passed the bill last week.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer announced that in the wake of the “appalling” shooting in Minneapolis, Democrats “will not provide the votes to proceed to the appropriations bill if the DHS funding bill is included.” The White House opposes removing that portion of the legislation and is demanding an all-or-nothing vote.
In this 53-47 Senate, Republicans can only afford to lose three votes if everyone shows up and the vice president casts a tiebreaker.
Several Republican senators have expressed muted “concern,” even calling for changes in policy and hearings on the Minneapolis shootings, but it remains to be seen whether any will muster the courage to delay or delete the DHS funding. Meanwhile, DHS is investigating the shootings itself and refusing to cooperate with state and local authorities.
Trump is reportedly upset with Noem’s leadership, but her job seems safe while Democrats are calling for her resignation or impeachment.
Consequences for the elections
Polls are showing widespread dissatisfaction with the administration and congressional Republicans, notably among independents who often determine the outcome of many elections. This November, with a closely divided House, the crystal ball gazers say they see a Democratic victory, while the Senate remains iffy.
An editorial in the pro-Trump New York Post warned him that his strategy is “backfiring against Republicans.” It said: “Mr. President, the American people didn’t vote for these scenes, and you can’t continue to order them to not believe their lying eyes.”
Another outcome of the daily pictures of masked, heavily armed federal agents chasing citizens – and presidential threats to invoke the Insurrection Act and order the military into the streets of American cities – could be a near-record voter turnout for off-year elections, which historically are won by the party out of the White House.
Trump has already warned congressional Republicans of his greatest fear: If they lose, the Democrats will impeach him again.
The president, a master of diversion, may decide to try to save himself and his party by tossing Noem overboard along with some of her more thuggish aides. The one he really should fire, though, is the driving force behind his hate-fueled campaign of violent retribution, Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.
Miller immediately branded Alex Pretti an “assassin” who “tried to murder federal agents,” and Noem said he was an “urban terrorist” who came to the anti-ICE demonstrations heavily armed and carrying extra ammunition. It is a crime to take a loaded gun to a demonstration, she wrongly stated.
Those lies infuriated one of Trump’s most loyal constituencies, gun owners, who pointed out that Pretti’s gun was properly registered and legally carried.
Of course, Noem and Miller didn’t feel that way in August 2020 when 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse shot three demonstrators, two fatally, in a Kenosha, Wisconsin, protest of the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Trump and other Republicans hailed him as a hero.
The Senate has a chance this week to find the courage to stand up and say “enough” and block funding Noem’s out-of-control immigration agents, or it can let the government shut down and blame the Democrats.
The risk in surrendering to Trump, as the once-and-former GOP gubernatorial candidate Madel explained, is that ICE’s operations in Minneapolis have poisoned politics for Republicans. And not just in Minnesota.