Friends,
If you’re like me, you’re outraged and sickened by what happened in Minneapolis last weekend. Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse at a Veterans Affairs hospital, was shot and killed by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents after he moved to help a woman who had been pushed to the ground by agents.
He wasn’t “brandishing” a gun, as Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem stated.
He wasn’t an “assassin” who was trying to “murder federal agents,” as Trump immigration advisor Stephen Miller stated, a claim later reposted by Vice President Vance.
And he wasn’t trying to do “maximum damage” to law enforcement, as ex-Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino stated.
No—Alex Pretti was exercising his constitutional rights to observe and film CBP agents to protect the constitutional rights of his fellow community members in Minneapolis.
Pretti’s selfless act of coming to the aid of a woman who had been shoved to the ground by cowardly, masked CBP agents, encapsulates two competing visions for America.
And I know which America I want.
Do you approve of the Trump Administration’s immigration policies?
But this isn’t just about Alex Pretti. This is about Renee Good being gunned down in her car after trying to leave an area where ICE was operating.
This is about Americans being tear gassed and threatened for peacefully protesting and filming agents’ actions.
None of this is making our communities safer. This isn’t the sort of immigration enforcement Americans want to see.
Americans want a secure border, the deportation of violent criminals, a more efficient asylum process, and rigorous but fair pathways to legal status for undocumented immigrants who are otherwise law-abiding and who perform essential work that benefits our communities.
And the American people want concrete reforms to ICE and CBP that put an end to their lawless conduct that is taking American lives and sowing chaos in our communities.
Trump’s current immigration policies must change.
Sincerely,
Jim