Massachusetts lawmakers and officials are calling on Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign and for Immigration and Customs Enforcement accountability after a second American citizen was killed by ICE agents.
Gov. Maura Healey demanded Noem’s resignation on Monday following the death of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs hospital, who was killed Saturday during an encounter with federal immigration agents amid a surge of ICE and Border Patrol activity in Minnesota. He was the second U.S. citizen fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis this month; Renee Nicole Good was killed during a separate encounter on Jan. 7. Good’s death has been ruled a homicide.
Healey on Monday escalated her criticism of the administration, calling on Noem to resign and alleging agencies under her purview are “harming public safety.”
“It is just an example of how out of control ICE is,” Healey said. “We have people who are clearly untrained who work for ICE. … So my heart goes out to Alex Pretti, to his co-workers, and I really hope Americans take this in and understand the very sad and dangerous moment we’ve reached in this country.”
Healey referenced an internal ICE memo made public last week that directs agents to use force to enter a residence with only an administrative warrant, which are signed by ICE officials and do not require a judge’s approval.
“That basically said, throw away everything we’ve done for 250 years. Throw away the Fourth Amendment. You have the right to go into someone’s home,” Healey said. “As governor of Massachusetts that infuriates me, because 250 years ago it was a lawyer named James Otis who stood before a court here in the commonwealth and said it is wrong for British soldiers to be able to go into people’s homes without a warrant and ransack their property. That’s what led John Adams to write the Massachusetts Constitution, which said that’s wrong, and people have a right, and that right later appeared in the United States Constitution.”
Federal officials have defended the actions of the U.S. Border Patrol agents involved in Pretti’s death.
The Department of Homeland Security claimed the agents acted in self-defense. Noem said Pretti “approached” officers with a “9mm semi-automatic handgun” and “reacted violently” when they tried to disarm him, prompting an officer to fire “defensive shots.” White House adviser Stephen Miller called Pretti “a would-be assassin” who “tried to murder federal law enforcement.”
However, those assertions have been sharply rejected by Democratic officials in Massachusetts, many of whom cited the video footage of Pretti holding a cellphone, not a gun, in his hand. Pretti had already been disarmed and was on the ground when he was shot roughly 10 times.
“His last act was taking care of a woman who had been pushed to the ground by federal agents,” U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern said in a statement.
“I call on governments and human rights leaders around the world to continue speaking out and sounding the alarm about what is going on in the United States,” McGovern continued. “I call upon all relevant UN bodies, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and global human rights organizations and defenders to forcefully condemn Mr. Pretti’s death and demand an immediate and impartial investigation.”
McGovern also said Pretti was “legally and peacefully” exercising his First and Second Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution. He commended UN Special Rapporteur Mary Lawlor’s characterization of Pretti as “someone actively engaged in human rights defense” by “documenting alleged violations and assisting people who are subjected to them,” as well as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, who stated the United States must ensure that its migration policies and enforcement practices respect human dignity and due process rights.
“The United States should welcome such scrutiny — any government that claims legitimacy must be willing to be judged by the same standards it invokes against others,” McGovern said. “The world is watching what we do now: whether we defend the right to document state power, whether we protect dissent and whether we hold our government accountable for unlawful actions. If America wants to stand for human rights again, we must start by telling the truth — and by making clear that no badge, no agency and no president is above the law.”
U.S. Rep. Richard Neal took to Facebook to air his outrage with ICE agents.
“These untrained, unaccountable officers are wreaking havoc on our communities. Their tactics, and these killings, go against everything our nation stands for,” he wrote. “I have consistently called for reform and accountability within ICE. What more will it take for Republicans to join us and put an end to this?”
U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey tied Pretti’s killing to the fight over the Department of Homeland Security budget.
“Congress must stop the violence by ICE, not bankroll it,” Warren said, arguing that funding for the Department of Homeland Security and ICE should be stripped out of a government spending package and debated as a standalone bill.
Senate Democrats oppose any appropriations legislation that includes Department of Homeland Security funding without significant reforms, a stance that has put pressure on party leaders and raised the prospect of a partial government shutdown when current funding expires at the end of the month.
Democratic opposition has grown even among senators who previously helped avert a shutdown, with several saying they will vote “no” on the Department of Homeland Security funding bill as it stands, leaving the measure unable to garner the 60 votes needed to proceed in the Senate without changes.
Markey called Pretti’s killing “a classic example of excessive use of force” and warned that the country was “descending into authoritarianism day by day.”
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, President Donald Trump declined to directly say whether the Border Patrol agent who shot Pretti did the right thing, saying, “We’re looking, we’re reviewing everything and will come out with a determination.”
He added, “I don’t like any shooting. I don’t like it,” while criticizing Pretti for attending a protest while armed, adding, “But I don’t like it when somebody goes into a protest and he’s got a very powerful, fully loaded gun with two magazines loaded up with bullets also. That doesn’t play good either.”
The president also signaled that immigration enforcement officers would leave Minneapolis “at some point” but offered no timeline, and said his administration was considering how to “review everything” about the incident as it unfolds.
Greenfield Recorder reporter Domenic Poli contributed to this article.