alex pretti

Federal authorities announced an investigation Friday of two immigration officers who appeared to have made untruthful statements under oath about a shooting in Minneapolis last month.

It is among at least five shootings in which initial descriptions by the immigration officials were later contradicted by video evidence. Those included the fatal Minneapolis shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, in which bystander video quickly raised questions about how federal officials initially described the incidents.

The inquiry announced Friday came hours after a federal judge dismissed felony assault charges against two Venezuelan men who were accused of beating an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel on Jan. 14. The officer, who is not named in court filings, fired a single shot from a handgun that struck one of the men, Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, in the thigh.

In an unusual reversal, prosecutors asked to dismiss the cases because they said new video evidence contradicted allegations made against the men in a criminal complaint and at a hearing last month.

Here is a look at how the five shootings were initially described and what was later learned:

Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis

Date and location: Jan. 14, 2026, in Minneapolis.

What federal officials said initially: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the immigration officer was “ambushed” by Sosa-Celis and others, and fired a “defensive shot” out of fear for his life. “What we saw last night in Minneapolis was an attempted murder of federal law enforcement,” she said.

What came out later: Investigators have not released the new evidence that led charges to be dropped, but cracks were already apparent in a Jan. 21 court hearing. The immigration officer’s testimony recounting the moments before the shooting differed significantly from that of the defendants and three eyewitnesses. Available video evidence did not support the officer’s account of being assaulted with a broom and shovel.

Renee Good

Date and location: Jan. 7, 2026, in Minneapolis.

What federal officials said initially: Noem described the incident as an “act of domestic terrorism” carried out against ICE officers by a woman who “attempted to run them over and rammed them with her vehicle.” She said the immigration agent shot “defensively” to protect himself and the people around him. Good died of gunshot wounds to the head.

What came out later: Videos filmed from multiple angles challenged the administration’s narrative. Shortly before the shooting, Good is seen at the wheel of her SUV that is parked diagonally on a street. She tells an immigration officer, “I’m not mad at you.”

Seconds later, another immigration officer grabs at the driver’s side door while Good’s wife urges her to “drive, baby, drive.” It’s unclear in the videos whether the SUV makes contact with ICE officer Jonathan Ross, who shoots while standing near the front of the driver’s side of the SUV and then twice more while quickly moving to the driver’s side as the vehicle pulls forward.

Alex Pretti

Date and location: Jan. 24, 2026, in Minneapolis.

What federal officials said initially: Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Pretti approached Border Patrol officers with a handgun and he “violently resisted” when they tried to disarm him. An agent feared for his life and fired “defensive” shots, she said. Pretti was pronounced dead at the scene. Border Patrol senior official Greg Bovino claimed Pretti intended to “massacre law enforcement,” and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller described him as “a would-be assassin.”

What came out later: None of the half-dozen bystander videos collected by investigators showed Pretti brandishing his gun, which he had a permit to carry. The videos showed Pretti was holding his mobile phone as a masked Border Patrol officer opened fire.

In a tense hearing Thursday in Washington, Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky made leaders tasked with carrying out Trump’s mass deportation agenda watch a video of the shooting while he repeatedly scrutinized the forceful tactics used by immigration agents. Paul argued that Pretti posed no threat to the agents and said it was clear from the video that he was “retreating at every moment.”

Silverio Villegas González

Date and location: Sept. 12, 2025, in suburban Chicago.

What federal officials said initially: Homeland Security officials said federal agents were pursuing a man with a history of reckless driving who entered the country illegally. They alleged that Villegas González drove at officers and dragged one with his car. The Department of Homeland Security said the officer fired because he feared for his life and was hospitalized with “serious injuries.”

What came out later: Body-camera videos from local police contradicted the Trump administration’s account. Footage showed the agent who shot Villegas González walking around afterward and dismissing his own injuries as “nothing major.”

An autopsy made public in November declared Villegas González’s death a homicide. The report showed he was shot at “close range,” with wounds to his neck and fingers.

Marimar Martinez

Date and location: Oct. 14, 2025, in Chicago.

What federal officials said initially: A Homeland Security Department news release asserted that Martinez and the driver of another car involved in a crash with a Border Patrol officer were “domestic terrorists.” An FBI agent said in court documents that she was chasing the Border Patrol vehicle and drove at one of the officers after they got out of the vehicle. The officer was forced to open fire, the FBI agent alleged, striking Martinez seven times. She was treated at a hospital and arrested on felony assault charges.

What came out later: Videos emerged that her attorneys said showed agent Charles Exum steering his SUV into her truck.

In a text message presented during a Nov. 5 hearing, Exum appeared to brag about his marksmanship. “I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys,” the text read.

The case against her was dismissed.

Schoenbaum writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — The leaders of the agencies enforcing President Trump’s immigration crackdown faced tough questioning on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, with one Democratic lawmaker asking the head of ICE if he would apologize to the families of two U.S. citizens killed by federal agents and called domestic terrorists by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

Todd Lyons, acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, declined to apologize to the families of Renee Good and Alex Pretti during the hearing but said he welcomed the opportunity to speak to Good’s family in private.

“I’m not going to speak to any ongoing investigation,” Lyons said.

For the first time since the federal operation in Minneapolis led to the deaths of Good and Pretti, the heads of three immigration agencies testified before the House Homeland Security Committee.

Along with Lyons, the other witnesses were Joseph Edlow, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and Rodney Scott, commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. Their agencies fall under the Department of Homeland Security.

Democrats and some Republicans have called for increased oversight of the Trump administration’s immigration operations since the shootings last month of Good and Pretti, both 37, by federal agents.

In the aftermath of the shootings, the administration replaced Gregory Bovino, a Border Patrol official who led the charge in Minneapolis, with border policy advisor Tom Homan, a former ICE official. Officials also withdrew some agents and began requiring those in Minneapolis to wear body cameras.

“We must take the temperature down and look at the record of enforcement actions through rational eyes,” said the committee’s chair, Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.).

Garbarino asked for commitment from the ICE and CBP leaders to give the committee the full reports and findings of the investigations into the shootings of Good and Pretti once those conclude. Scott and Lyons agreed.

Scott, the CBP commissioner, told the committee members that officers face an unprecedented increase in attacks by people who interfere with law enforcement action. He said these actions are “coordinated and well-funded.”

“This is not peaceful protest,” he said.

Lyons, the ICE leader, told lawmakers that his agency has removed more than 475,000 people from the U.S. and conducted nearly 379,000 arrests since President Trump returned to the White House. He said the agency has hired more than 12,000 officers and agents.

He condemned so-called sanctuary jurisdictions, which limit the collaboration between local law enforcement and ICE, as well as the rhetoric from public officials against ICE.

Lyons testified that 3,000 out of 13,000 ICE agents wear body cameras. Scott estimated that about 10,000 of 20,000 Border Patrol agents wear cameras, adding that “we’re building that program out.”

The agency heads faced intense questioning from Democrats on the committee, including those from California.

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin) asked Lyons about his comment last year that the deportation process should work “like Amazon Prime, but with human beings.”

Lyons said the comment had been taken out of context.

“I did say that we need to be more efficient when it comes to removing individuals from the United States, because ICE doesn’t detain people punitively — we detain to remove,” he said. “I don’t want to see people in custody.”

“Well, speaking of human beings, how many times has Amazon Prime shot a nurse 10 times in the back?” Swalwell responded.

Swalwell asked how many agents have been fired for their conduct under Lyons’ leadership. Lyons said he would get that data.

“Can you tell us if, at least — God, I hope at least one person has been fired for their conduct since these operations have begun,” Swalwell said.

Lyons said he wouldn’t talk about personnel.

Swalwell was the one who asked Lyons if he would apologize to the families of Good and Pretti. He also asked if Lyons would resign from ICE. Lyons declined.

Rep. Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana) questioned Lyons about whether carrying a U.S. passport is enough for people to avoid being detained or deported. An October report by ProPublica identified more than 170 instances of U.S. citizens who were detained at raids or protests.

Lyons said U.S. citizens shouldn’t feel the need to carry their passports.

“No American citizen will be arrested for being an American citizen,” Lyons said.

Correa said a number of U.S. citizens in his district, which is majority Latino, have been detained, some for several days.

Lyons said he wasn’t aware of any cases of detained American citizens.

“Are you surveilling U.S. citizens today?” Correa asked.

Lyons said there is no database for protesters.

“I can assure you there is no database that’s tracking down citizens,” he said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Finneas O’Connell took to social media to defend Billie Eilish and her Grammys acceptance speech from a specific demographic that was angered by her remarks.

“Seeing a lot of very powerful old white men outraged about what my 24 year old sister said during her acceptance speech,” O’Connell wrote Wednesday on Threads. “We can literally see your names in the Epstein files.”

The sibling duo won the Grammy for song of the year Sunday, becoming the first ever three-time winners of the category. The “Wildflower” songwriters were among those wearing “ICE Out” pins at the 2026 Grammy Awards as a statement against the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration-enforcement agency and its tactics after the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota sparked a national outcry.

“No one is illegal on stolen land,” Eilish said while accepting the award. “It’s just really hard to know what to say and what to do right now. I feel really hopeful in this room and like we just need to keep fighting, speaking up and protesting. Our voices really matter.”

While some of her speech was censored during the live broadcast, Eilish was also heard saying “F— ICE,” drawing cheers from those in attendance.

Eilish was one of many artists who used their moment on the Grammys stage to speak out against the Trump administration and the federal immigration raids that have been happening in multiple states, including California. Some, including R&B song and performance winner Kehlani, were just as direct in their language condemning ICE. Other winners, including Bad Bunny and Shaboozey, used their speeches to celebrate immigrant communities.

WASHINGTON — President Trump said Saturday that he has instructed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to tell agents not to intervene in protests occurring in cities led by Democrats unless local authorities ask for federal help amid mounting criticism of his administration’s immigration crackdown.

On his social media site, Trump posted that “under no circumstances are we going to participate in various poorly run Democrat Cities with regard to their Protests and/or Riots unless, and until, they ask us for help.”

He provided no details on how his order would affect operations by Customs and Border Protection personnel or that of other federal agencies, but added: “We will, however, guard, and very powerfully so, any and all Federal Buildings that are being attacked by these highly paid Lunatics, Agitators, and Insurrectionists.”

Trump said that, in addition to his instructions to Noem, he had directed “ICE and/or Border Patrol to be very forceful in this protection of Federal Government Property.”

The Trump administration has already deployed the National Guard or federal law enforcement officials in a number of Democratic-led cities, including Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago and Portland, Ore. But Saturday’s order comes as opposition to such tactics has grown, particularly in Minnesota’s Twin Cities region.

Minnesota Atty. Gen. Keith Ellison and the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul have challenged a federal immigration enforcement surge in those cities, arguing that Homeland Security is violating constitutional protections.

A federal judge ruled Saturday that she won’t halt enforcement operations as the lawsuit proceeds. State and local officials had sought a quick order to halt the enforcement action or limit its scope. Justice Department lawyers have called the lawsuit “legally frivolous.”

The state, and particularly Minneapolis, has been on edge after federal officers fatally shot two people in the city: Renee Good on Jan. 7 and Alex Pretti on Jan. 24. Thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest the federal immigration presence in Minnesota and across the country.

Trump’s border advisor, Tom Homan, has suggested the administration could reduce the number of immigration enforcement officers in Minnesota — but only if state and local officials “cooperate.” Trump sent Homan to Minneapolis following the killings of Good and Pretti, seeming to signal a willingness to ease tensions in Minnesota.

Weissert writes for the Associated Press.

Just a few hours after Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a statement that said, without evidence, that the 37-year-old registered nurse “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem would later imply Pretti had been “asked to show up and to continue to resist” by Minnesota’s governor.

Multiple videos from the scene immediately undercut those claims, and there has been no indication in the days since that Pretti threatened or planned to hurt law enforcement.

Several high-profile use-of-force incidents and arrests involving federal immigration agents have involved a similar cycle: Strident statements by Trump administration officials, soon contradicted by video footage or other evidence. Some law enforcement experts believe the repeated falsehoods are harming federal authorities both in the public eye and in the courtroom.

The top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, Bill Essayli, has taken five defendants to trial on charges of assaulting officers — and his office has lost each case. Court records and a Times investigation show grand juries in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles have repeatedly rejected criminal filings from prosecutors in similar cases.

Despite the repeated judicial rebukes, administration officials have continued to push for criminal charges against people at protest scenes, including the controversial arrest of former CNN anchor Don Lemon on Friday.

“When top federal law enforcement leaders in the country push false narratives like this, it leads the public to question everything the government says going forward,” said Peter Carr, a former Justice Department spokesman in Washington who served in Democratic and Republican administrations. “You see that in how judges are reacting. You’re seeing that in how grand juries are reacting. You’re seeing that in how juries are reacting. That trust that has been built up over generations is gone.”

The credibility concerns played out in a downtown L.A. courtroom in September, when Border Patrol Cmdr. Greg Bovino served as the key witness in the assault trial of Brayan Ramos-Brito, who was accused of striking a Border Patrol agent during protests against immigration raids last summer. Video from the scene did not clearly capture the alleged attack, and Bovino was the only Border Patrol official who testified as an eyewitness.

Under questioning from federal public defender Cuauhtémoc Ortega, Bovino initially denied he had been disciplined by Border Patrol for calling undocumented immigrants “scum, filth and trash,” but later admitted he had received a reprimand. The jury came back with an acquittal after deliberating for about an hour. A juror who spoke to The Times outside court said Bovino’s testimony detailing his account of the alleged assault had “no impact” on their decision.

Last year, a Chicago judge ruled Bovino had “lied” in a deposition in a lawsuit over the way agents used force against protesters and journalists.

Spokespersons for Essayli and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.

Essayli’s prosecutors have seen four additional cases involving allegations of assault on a federal officer end in acquittals, a nearly unheard of losing streak. A Pew study found fewer than 1% of federal criminal defendants were acquitted throughout the U.S. in 2022.

“The credibility of the prosecutor’s office and the credibility of the law enforcement officers testifying is key,” said Carley Palmer, a former federal prosecutor in L.A. who is now a partner at Halpern May Ybarra Gelberg. “That is especially true when the only witness to an event is a law enforcement officer.”

Jon Fleischman, a veteran Republican strategist and former spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, said federal law enforcement officials have a responsibility to be the “mature, responsible player in the room” and remain as apolitical as possible. While he is a firm supporter of President Trump’s immigration agenda and said the Biden administration shares some blame for politicizing federal law enforcement, Noem’s handling of Pretti’s killing was problematic.

“What she said really doesn’t bear out in terms of what the facts that are available tell us,” Fleischman said. “I think it undermines the credibility of the justice system.”

Fleischman added that he feared some of the government’s recent missteps could dull approval of the platform that twice carried Trump to the White House.

“One of the main reasons I’ve been so enthusiastic about this president has been his stance on immigration issues,” he said. “When you see unforced errors by the home team that reduce public support for the president’s immigration agenda, it’s demoralizing.”

Another top Trump aide, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, also spoke out after the Minnesota shooting, calling Pretti an “assassin.”

Responding to a Times reporter on X, Miller said recent legal defeats in Los Angeles were the result of “mass judge and jury nullification, deep in blue territory, of slam-dunk assault cases.”

Accounts from inside L.A. courtrooms paint a different picture.

Carol Williams, a jury foreperson in the most recent assault trial which federal prosecutors lost in L.A., said the people she served with steered clear of conversations about the news or ICE raids.

“We didn’t talk about the protests in L.A. and we didn’t talk about the protests that were in Minnesota or anything,” Williams said. “People, I’m sure, probably keep up with the news, but in terms of bringing that into the jury room, we did not.”

Last year, Essayli and Tricia McLaughlin, the chief Homeland Security spokesperson, accused Carlitos Ricardo Parias of ramming immigration agents with his vehicle in South L.A., causing an agent to open fire. Video made public after the assault charges were dismissed last year, however, do not show the vehicle moving when the ICE agent opens fire, injuring Parias and a deputy U.S. marshal.

After being presented with the body-camera footage, McLaughlin reiterated the claim that Parias weaponized his vehicle and said officers “followed their training and fired defensive shots.”

McLaughlin also labeled Keith Porter Jr. — a Los Angeles man shot and killed by an off-duty ICE agent in Northridge on New Year’s Eve — an “active shooter” in initial media comments about the case, using a term that typically refers to a gunman attempting to kill multiple people.

Los Angeles police said nobody else was injured at the scene and have not used the “active shooter” wording in statements about the case.

Porter’s family and advocates have argued that force was not warranted. They said Porter was firing a gun in the air to celebrate the new year, behavior that is illegal and discouraged as dangerous by public officials.

A lawyer for the agent, Brian Palacios, has said there is evidence Porter shot at the agent.

Carr, the former Justice Department spokesman, said the Trump administration has broken with years of cautious norms around press statements that were designed to protect the credibility of federal law enforcement.

“That trust is eroded when they rush to push narratives before any real investigations take place,” he said.

In one case, the refusal of Homeland Security officials to back down may cause video footage that further undercuts their narrative to become public.

Last October, Marimar Martinez was shot five times by a Border Patrol agent in Chicago who alleged she was following him in a car and interfering with an operation. In a statement, McLaughlin accused Martinez of ramming a law enforcement vehicle while armed with a “semiautomatic weapon.”

Federal prosecutors in Chicago dropped the charges, but McLaughlin and others continued to describe Martinez as a “domestic terrorist.” As a result, Martinez filed a motion to revoke a protective order that has kept hidden video of the incident and other evidence.

“While the United States voluntarily dismissed its formal prosecution of her with prejudice … government officials continue to prosecute Ms. Martinez’s character in the court of public opinion,” the motion read.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has opened a federal civil rights investigation into the shooting of Alex Pretti, the Minneapolis resident killed Saturday by Border Patrol officers, federal officials said Friday.

“We’re looking at everything that would shed light on what happened that day and in the days and weeks leading up to what happened,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said during a news conference. “That’s like any investigation that the Department of Justice and the FBI does every day. It means we’re looking at video, talking to witnesses, trying to understand what happened.”

There are thousands of instances every year when someone is shot by law enforcement, Blanche said, but not all are investigated by federal authorities.

“There has to be circumstances or facts or maybe unknown facts, but certainly circumstances, that warrant an investigation,” he added.

The Department of Homeland Security also said Friday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation will lead the federal probe.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem first disclosed the shift in which agency was leading the probe during a Fox News interview Thursday evening. Her department said earlier this week that Homeland Security Investigations, a unit within the department, would be heading the investigation.

“We will continue to follow the investigation that the FBI is leading and giving them all the information that they need to bring that to conclusion, and make sure that the American people know the truth of the situation and how we can go forward and continue to protect the American people,” Noem said, speaking to Fox host Sean Hannity.

Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin confirmed Friday that the FBI will lead the Pretti probe and that HSI will support them. Separately, Customs and Border Protection, which is part of DHS, is doing its own internal investigation into the shooting, during which two officers opened fire on Pretti.

DHS did not immediately respond to questions about when the change was made or why. The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It was also not immediately clear whether the FBI would now share information and evidence with Minnesota state investigators, who have thus far been frozen out of the federal probe.

In the same interview, Noem appeared to distance herself from statements she made shortly after the shooting, claiming Pretti had brandished a handgun and aggressively approached officers.

Multiple videos that emerged of the shooting contradicted that claim, showing the intensive care nurse had only his mobile phone in his hand as officers tackled him to the ground, with one removing a handgun from the back of Pretti’s pants as another officer began firing shots into his back.

Pretti had a state permit to legally carry a concealed firearm. At no point did he appear to reach for it, the videos showed.

“I know you realize that situation was very chaotic, and that we were being relayed information from on the ground from CBP agents and officers that were there,” Noem said during the interview with Hannity on Thursday. “We were using the best information we had at the time, seeking to be transparent with the American people and get them what we knew to be true on the ground.”

The change comes after two other videos emerged Wednesday of an earlier altercation between Pretti and federal immigration officers 11 days before his death.

The Jan. 13 videos show Pretti in a winter coat, yelling at federal vehicles and at one point appearing to spit before kicking out the taillight of one vehicle. A struggle ensues between Pretti and several officers, during which he is forced to the ground. Pretti’s winter coat comes off, and he either breaks free or the officers let him go and he scurries away.

When he turns his back to the camera, what appears to be a handgun is visible in his waistband. At no point do the videos show Pretti reaching for the gun, and it is not clear whether federal agents saw it.

Steve Schleicher, a Minneapolis-based attorney representing Pretti’s parents, said Wednesday the earlier altercation in no way justified officers fatally shooting Pretti more than a week later.

In a post on his Truth Social platform early Friday morning, President Trump suggested that the videos of the earlier incident undercut the narrative that Pretti was a peaceful protester when he was shot.

“Agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist, Alex Pretti’s stock has gone way down with the just released video of him screaming and spitting in the face of a very calm and under control ICE Officer, and then crazily kicking in a new and very expensive government vehicle, so hard and violent, in fact, that the taillight broke off in pieces,” Trump’s post said. “It was quite a display of abuse and anger, for all to see, crazed and out of control. The ICE Officer was calm and cool, not an easy thing to be under those circumstances!”

Biesecker and Santana write for the Associated Press. AP reporters Alanna Durkin Richer and Eric Tucker contributed to this report from Washington.

Renee Good and Alex Pretti were shot and killed this month in Minnesota. Silverio Villegas González was shot and killed in September in a Chicago suburb. Keith Porter Jr. was gunned down on New Year’s Eve in front of the Northridge apartment building where he lived.

All of them were slain by ICE agents.

In the past few months alone, America has repeatedly witnessed — from multiple angles and at varying playback speeds — groups of aggressive, twitchy, masked men conduct immigration sweeps on the order of President Trump and his Department of Homeland Security. The scenes are the stuff of nightmares, and even villainy.

After agent Jonathan Ross shot legal observer Good three times, including once in the head, he mumbled the expletives “f— b—” as her SUV drifted into a light post. Two weeks later, at least one ICE agent was seen clapping after Pretti was shot multiple times as he lay pinned on the ground.

If the intention of the Stephen Miller-run White House was to crush the resistance with violence, it has backfired. The number of protests in cities around the nation has grown in size and frequency. And local networks that offer instruction and training for how to legally observe ICE raids are proliferating by the day. In short, as ICE has ramped up its operations, so too has the resistance.

Now, a consortium of various civil rights and advocacy groups is calling for the largest anti-ICE demonstration to date, a national shutdown. “The people of the Twin Cities have shown the way for the whole country — to stop ICE’s reign of terror, we need to SHUT IT DOWN,” reads nationalshutdown.org. “On Friday, January 30, join a nationwide day of no school, no work and no shopping.”

Given the sense of urgency triggered by the invasive and deadly tactics of federal officers over the past few months, Friday’s planned shutdown could be huge. But unlike other major demonstrations, like the “No Kings” marches, it asks folks to take off work, school and stop shopping (yes, even online) in the name of democracy.

Taking time off work is not economically feasible for many Americans, especially given today’s affordability crisis (a concept that Trump believes was invented by Democrats). With that in mind, it may not be the most effective way to show solidarity with Minneapolis, Chicago, L.A. and other cities where a trip to Home Depot might include getting caught in an immigration raid. But it might be the safest option in an otherwise dangerously heated time, when peaceful protests are ending in violent killings.

We’ve been here before, even if the current images of killer goons in mismatched military gear might seem foreign and dystopian. Peaceful Civil Rights-era marches and protests often turned into bloody, brutal and murderous affairs, fueled by inhumane law enforcement tactics and vigilantes operating with impunity. But the majority of Americans — i.e. those who weren’t Black — didn’t see folks who looked like them slain by government agents who also looked like them. The naive notion that America protects its own has remained largely intact, until the current administration declared that anyone who’s not with them is against them.

Today, Washington’s on-high interpretation of Us and Them equals those who are pro-Trump (Us) and those who are not (Them). There are, of course, plenty of racist and bigoted caveats within that lunk-headed quotient, but generally, one side is dispensable while the other is not.

The Trump administration has characterized Pretti, who was carrying a concealed, permitted weapon at the time of his killing, as a domestic terrorist who essentially got what he deserved: “You cannot bring a firearm loaded with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It is that simple,” said FBI Director Kash Patel.

But when then-17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse shot three #BLM protesters, killing two, at a 2020 Kenosha, Wis., demonstration decrying police brutality, he was — and still is —canonized as a hero by Trump and the right.

Historical data shows that when 3.5% of a population is actively involved in peaceful, sustained resistance, they can influence significant political shifts. Those numbers likely don’t differentiate between who makes it out of the peaceful protest alive and who emerges as a martyr for the cause. But one shouldn’t have to choose between exercising their 1st Amendment rights and making it home alive.

Bruce Springsteen released a new protest song Wednesday condemning “King Trump” and the violence perpetrated by his “federal thugs” — referring to immigration officers — in Minnesota.

“I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis,” Springsteen wrote on his social media platforms, sharing his new song, “Streets of Minneapolis.” “It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.”

Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was shot multiple times and killed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer during an immigration raid on Jan. 7. Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse at a VA hospital who had protested President Trump’s immigration crackdown and Good’s killing, was shot and killed by ICE agents on Jan. 24.

Both Minnesotans are memorialized by name in Springsteen’s new rock song, which describes the immigration crackdowns and the protests by those who live there. His scathing lyrics also denounce Trump advisor Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for their statements following the killings, which were contradicted by eyewitness accounts and video.

“Their claim was self-defense, sir / Just don’t believe your eyes,” Springsteen sings with his familiar rasp. “It’s our blood and bones / And these whistles and phones / Against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies.”

Both Miller and Noem justified the shootings in the immediate aftermath. Miller called Pretti “a would-be assassin,” and Noem accused Good of committing “an act of domestic terrorism.” Videos later surfaced contradicting their statements.

Springsteen, who has long been an outspoken critic of President Trump, also calls out immigration officials for their racism and for claiming “they’re here to uphold the law” yet “trample on our rights” in his new song.

In a statement to the New York Times, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said that “the Trump administration is focused on encouraging state and local Democrats to work with federal law enforcement officers on removing dangerous criminal illegal aliens from their communities — not random songs with irrelevant opinions and inaccurate information.”

Multiple celebrities, including Olivia Rodrigo, Pedro Pascal, Billie Eilish and Hannah Einbinder, have also spoken out against ICE and the immigration crackdowns in Minneapolis.

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats reached a deal with the White House late Thursday to prevent a partial government shutdown by moving to temporarily fund the Department of Homeland Security for two weeks, providing more time to negotiate new restrictions for federal immigration agents carrying out President Trump’s deportation campaign.

The deal follows widespread outrage over the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens — Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti — by federal agents in Minneapolis amid an aggressive immigration crackdown led by the Trump administration.

Under the agreement, funding for the Department of Homeland Security will be extended for two weeks, while the Pentagon, the State Department, as well as the health, education, labor and transportation departments, will be funded through Sept. 30, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office confirmed to The Times.

While the Senate could approve the deal as early as Thursday night, it is unclear when the House will vote for the package. To avert a government shutdown, both chambers need to approve the deal by midnight EST Friday.

After the agreement was reached, President Trump wrote on Truth Social that he was “working hard with Congress to ensure that we are able to fully fund the Government without delay.”

“Republicans and Democrats in Congress have come together to get the vast majority of the Government funded until September, while at the same time providing an extension to the Department of Homeland Security (including the very important Coast Guard, which we are expanding and rebuilding like never before),” Trump said.

He added: “Hopefully, both Republicans and Democrats will give a very much needed Bipartisan ‘YES’ Vote.”

The move to temporarily fund DHS is meant to give lawmakers more time to negotiate Democratic demands that include a requirement that federal immigration agents use body cameras, stop using masks during operations and a push to tighten rules around arrests and searches without judicial warrants.

The breakthrough comes after Senate Democrats — and seven Senate Republicans — blocked passage of a spending package that included additional funding for DHS through Sept. 30 but not enough guardrails to muster the 60 votes needed to pass the chamber.

“Republicans in Congress cannot allow this violent status quo to continue,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said after the vote. “We’re ready to fund 96% of the federal government today, but the DHS bill still needs a lot of work.”

Speaking on the Senate floor, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) condemned Democrats for jeopardizing funding for other agencies as they pushed for their demands.

“It would be disastrous to shut down FEMA in the middle of a major winter storm. It’s affecting half the country, and it appears that another storm is along the way,” he said. “A shutdown would mean no paychecks for our troops once again, no money for TSA agents or air traffic controllers.”

The standoff comes after federal ICE agents shot and killed Pretti, an American citizen and nurse who attempted to help a fallen woman during an ICE operation in Minneapolis. Pretti’s death was the second fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen by federal agents in the city in less than two weeks, following the killing of Good earlier this month.

When Melania Trump showed up on movie screens in 2001, it was a joke.

The former fashion model and her spouse, Donald Trump, then only a real estate mogul, played themselves in the Ben Stiller comedy “Zoolander,” about a dimwitted male supermodel. She silently looked on as her husband gushed at an awards show red carpet: “Without Derek Zoolander, male modeling would not be where it is today.”

The cameo offers a glimpse of the couple, who in 2017 would enter the White House as president and first lady. As they move past the first anniversary of their second stint in Washington, D.C., Melania has largely stayed away from the spotlight.

But this week the first lady is preparing for her close-up. She is center stage as star and executive producer in the documentary “Melania” hitting theaters Friday. Positioned as a companion to her best-selling memoir, “Melania” has been shadowed by controversy since its announcement several months ago. The project marks a comeback attempt by Hollywood filmmaker Brett Ratner, the director of the documentary, who was exiled from Hollywood in 2017 following charges of sexual misconduct by multiple women, including actor Olivia Munn. He continues to deny the accusations.

Amazon MGM Studios paid $40 million to license the project, and sources said it is spending around $35 million for marketing and promotion. Melania is skipping the traditional TV talk show circuit, opting for an appearance on Fox News, which featured an exclusive interview with her on Tuesday — her first since returning to the White House. The following day, she rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange.

Trailers for the film have popped up on several networks including CNN, a frequent target of President Trump’s ire, and outdoor advertising has been installed in several major cities, including Los Angeles.

The project, which is slated to stream on Prime Video after a brief theatrical run, arrives as the president confronts sinking approval ratings and the most turbulent phase to date of his second term, which includes controversies over his handling of the economy, international relations, the demolition of the White House’s East Wing for a planned ballroom, and the long-delayed release of the Epstein files.

More pointedly, the lead-up to the official premiere, slated for Thursday at the Kennedy Center in Washington, has collided with an unexpected juggernaut: national outrage over the deadly shootings of two Minneapolis residents by federal officers carrying out his aggressive anti-immigration campaign.

The continuing protests over the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, as well as the backlash after Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller labeled them as domestic terrorists, has placed even more uncertainty over how “Melania” will fare with moviegoers.

Industry forecasters were divided on whether the film will be a hit or a bomb. Firms specializing in box office projections estimate the opening weekend will fall within the $5 million range.

“It’s very hard to predict whether people will show up, given the unique nature of the film and the marketplace,” said one veteran box office analyst who asked not to be identified.

On Wednesday, the film was pulled from theaters in South Africa, where it was slated to open on Friday, after the distributor announced it would no longer release the title, citing “recent developments,” according to a New York Times report.

Domestically, “Melania” is competing in a crowded movie weekend against the highly anticipated survival thriller “Send Help” from veteran filmmaker Sam Raimi (“Drag Me to Hell”), the horror film “Iron Lung” from popular YouTuber Markiplier (Mark Edward Fischbach), and “Shelter,” with action star Jason Statham.

President Trump kisses his wife, First Lady Melania Trump, during the presidential inauguration in 2025. The documentary will highlight the lead-up to the event.

(Julia Demaree Nikhinson / Associated Press)

Adding to the uncertainty on the film’s performance, the analyst said, is whether fans of Ratner, whose resume features several blockbusters including the “Rush Hour” trilogy, will show up for a documentary about the first lady. According to press notes, “Melania” follows the first lady in the 20 days leading up to the 2025 presidential inauguration as she orchestrates plans for the event and the family’s move back to the White House. The film’s trailer, released last month, does not offer much more insight.

During both of Trump’s terms in the White House, his wife has been described as mysterious and sphinx-like. Some Washington watchers have praised her for what they call her independence and individualism, while others say her accomplishments fall short of previous first ladies such as Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton and Nancy Reagan.

Anita B. McBride, director of the First Ladies Initiative at American University, said that the position of first lady has been defined in distinct ways by every woman who has served in that capacity.

She said in an interview that the current first lady has exhibited a confident persona “that has never been defined by expectations. She now has the benefit of experience after operating during her first term in a very hostile environment. She is sure-footed with a staff that supports her, and she has made it clear that she is in control.”

The White House on Saturday hosted a VIP black-tie preview of “Melania,” with a guest list that included Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, former boxer Mike Tyson and Apple CEO Tim Cook, who this week criticized the shootings of Good and Pretti, calling for de-escalation in Minneapolis.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York was among the politicians blasting the event, which took place hours after Pretti was killed.

“Today DHS assassinated a VA nurse in the street, [Atty. Gen.] Bondi is attempting to extort voter files, and half the country is bracing on the eve of a potentially crippling ice storm with FEMA gutted,” she wrote in a post on X. “So what is the President up to? Having a movie night at the White House. He’s unfit.”

In the interview on Fox News a few days later to promote the film, the first lady was asked about the controversy in Minneapolis.

“I’m against the violence, so please if you protest, protest in peace,” she said. “We need to unify in these times.”

For months, Gregory Bovino has been the public face of President Trump’s sweeping immigration raids across U.S. cities.

When the brash Border Patrol commander charged into Los Angeles last summer with the stated mission of arresting thousands of immigrants, he was unapologetic as agents smashed car windows, concealed their identities with masks, seized brown-skinned Angelenos off the streets, and descended on MacArthur Park on horseback.

In Minneapolis, when a federal officer shot and killed U.S. citizen Renee Good on Jan. 7, Bovino’s response to Fox News’ Sean Hannity was, “Hats off to that ICE agent.”

And when a Border Patrol agent shot Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse, on Saturday, Bovino again defended the killing. Pretti, he said, looked like someone who “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”

But as public outrage has swelled against the Trump administration’s aggressive tactics, Bovino’s future is in limbo. On Monday, Trump deployed border advisor Tom Homan to Minnesota, with Bovino reportedly set to depart the region.

Now, the question remains: will Bovino’s departure really change the Trump playbook?

Ariel G. Ruiz Soto — a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank — said Bovino’s exit, if true, could represent a pivotal moment in immigration enforcement in the nation’s interior.

“I think it signals that the tensions have risen so significantly that there’s beginning to be ruptures and fragments within the Trump administration to try to figure out how to do this enforcement more efficiently, but also with more accountability,” Ruiz Soto said.

Other immigration experts, however, question the significance of sidelining Bovino.

“I think it’s a grave mistake to think the change in the personnel on the ground constitutes a change in policy,” said Lucas Guttentag, a professor of law at Stanford University who specializes in immigration. “Because the policy remains the same: to terrorize immigrant communities and intimidate peaceful protesters.”

Even if Bovino is ousted or given a lesser role, Guttentag said, national immigration policy is still shaped by Stephen Miller — the White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security advisor who has embraced hardline enforcement tactics.

“They’re still threatening to use military action,” Guttentag said. “They still want to keep the National Guard on call. All of those fundamental policies, as well as deporting people who had legal status, sending people to third world countries without any due process, adopting detention rules that deprive people of hearings to be eligible for release, all of that’s continuing.”

“Simply changing from Bovino to Homan,” he added, “doesn’t signal anything significant in terms of policy.”

::

So far, the Department of Homeland Security has remained publicly tight-lipped about what’s next for Bovino, and did not respond this week to inquiries from The Times.

However, the Associated Press reported Monday that Bovino and some federal agents were expected to leave Minneapolis as early as Tuesday. The Atlantic, citing DHS sources, reported that Bovino had been demoted from his role of Border Patrol commander at large and would return to his former job in El Centro, Calif.

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin disputed that Monday, saying on X that Bovino “has NOT been relieved of his duties.” White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt described him as a “wonderful person” and “a great professional” who would “continue to lead Customs and Border Patrol throughout and across the country.”

There has been mounting criticism of and public protest against the administration’s activities since the launch of Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota last month. Trump said he sent Homan to Minnesota “to de-escalate a little bit.”

“Bovino is very good, but he’s a pretty out-there kind of a guy,” Trump said Tuesday during an interview on Fox News’ “The Will Cain Show.” “And in some cases that’s good. Maybe it wasn’t good here.”

::

A pugnacious 55-year-old who was born in California but raised in North Carolina, Bovino’s muscle-bound physique, green military greatcoat and gel-spiked hair seemed straight out of MAGA central casting.

Barreling into Los Angeles in June to command the Trump administration’s mass immigration raids, he seemed to relish confrontation as protests erupted and troops were deployed across the city.
“All over … the Los Angeles region, we’re going to turn and burn to that next target and the next and the next and the next, and we’re not going to stop,” Bovino told the Associated Press last summer. “We’re not going to stop until there’s not a problem here.”

When Bovino met legal setbacks, he was defiant.

In August, an appeals court upheld a temporary restraining order blocking his agents from targeting people in Southern and Central California based on race, language or vocation without reasonable suspicion they are in the U.S. illegally.

Bovino responded by posting a video on X that first showed L.A. Mayor Karen Bass telling reporters that “this experiment that was practiced on the city of Los Angeles failed” before cutting to himself grinning. As a frenetic mix of drums and bass kicked in, the video transitioned to footage of federal agents jumping out of a van to chase people down.

“When you’re faced with opposition to law and order, what do you do?” Bovino wrote. “Improvise, adapt, and overcome!”

After Bovino led agents in Los Angeles, he pivoted to Chicago to serve as the commander of Operation Midway Blitz. Then, he went to New Orleans before heading to Minnesota to lead what officials called Homeland Security’s “largest immigration operation ever.”

The fatal shootings of Good and Pretti by federal agents this month sparked outrage and protests, both in Minneapolis and around the nation.

Ruiz Soto said that the controversy over the Trump immigration policy was no longer just about immigrants.

“It’s about constitutional rights and it’s about U.S. citizens,” Ruiz Soto said. “For the broader public, it’s now much more immersive. It’s now much more in their face.”

After Border Patrol agents tackled Pretti to the ground and shot him, many Americans were outraged to hear Bovino and other senior Trump administration officials make false statements regarding the incident.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that Pretti approached federal officers on the street with a 9-millimeter semiautomatic handgun and “violently resisted” when officers tried to disarm him.

But according to videos taken on the scene, Pretti was holding a phone, not a handgun, when he stepped in front of a federal agent who had shoved a woman to the ground. The agent shoved and pepper-sprayed him and then multiple agents forced him to the ground. In the middle of the scrum, an agent secured a handgun. Less than a second later, the first shot was fired.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem asserted without evidence that Pretti had committed “an act of domestic terrorism,” and said her agency would lead the investigation into his killing.

Federal officials also denied Minnesota state investigators access to the shooting scene in south Minneapolis, prompting local and state officials to accuse the Homeland Security agency of mishandling evidence.

In the days since the shooting, Democrats in Congress have called for Noem to be removed from office.

“The country is disgusted by what the Department of Homeland Security has done,” Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Tuesday in a joint statement. “Kristi Noem should be fired immediately or we will commence impeachment proceedings in the House.”

When asked by reporters Tuesday whether Noem would step down, Trump said: “No.”

By sidelining Bovino, Ruiz Soto said the Trump administration appears to be sending a larger message.

“They’re going to try to restrict or home in the Border Patrol’s authority or at least the way they participate in operations and are going to now go back,” he said. “Or at least try to emulate more of the prior ICE model.”

Guttentag, however, said that while the public is seeing a tactical retreat on the part of the Trump administration, the problems went beyond Bovino’s leadership.

“So it’s not just the leadership, it’s the lack of training,” Guttentag said. “It’s the message that we’re getting from the very top, the statements from the vice president and others, that they have legal immunity. It’s the instructions to be as aggressive as they can be, and it’s also the lack of quality in the hiring and training process. All of that continues regardless of who the person on the ground is.”

Drawing on decades of experience after having dealt with the beating of Rodney King, the killing of George Floyd and more, American law enforcement leaders, civil rights advocates and other legal experts have honed best practices for officers making street arrests, conducting crowd control and maintaining public safety amid mass protests.

Officers are trained to not stand in front of or reach into moving vehicles, to never pull their firearms unless it is absolutely necessary, and to use force only in proportion to a corresponding threat. They are trained to clearly identify themselves, de-escalate tensions, respect the sanctity of life and quickly render aid to anyone they wound.

When police shootings occur, leaders are trained to carefully protect evidence and immediately launch an investigation — or multiple ones — in order to assure the community that any potential wrongdoing by officers will be fairly assessed.

According to many of those same leaders and experts, it has become increasingly clear in recent days that those standards have been disregarded — if not entirely tossed aside — by the federal immigration agents swarming into American cities on the orders of President Trump and administration officials tasked with overseeing the operations.

In both small, increasingly routine ways and sudden, stunning bursts — such as the fatal shootings of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis — agents have badly breached those standards, the experts said, and without any apparent concern or investigative oversight from the administration.

Agents are entering homes without warrants, swarming moving vehicles in the street and escalating standoffs with protesters using excessive force, while department leaders and administration officials justify their actions with simple, brash rhetoric rather than careful, sophisticated investigations.

“It’s a terrible disappointment,” said former Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore. “These tactics — if you call them that — are far and away out of touch with contemporary policing standards.”

“This isn’t law enforcement, this is terror enforcement,” said Connie Rice, a longtime civil rights attorney who has worked on LAPD reforms for decades. “They’re not following any laws, any training. This is just thuggery.”

“They use excessive force against suspects and protesters, they detain and arrest people without legal cause, they violate the 1st Amendment rights of protesters and observers,” said Georgetown law professor Paul Butler, a former federal prosecutor.

“These types of tactics end up hurting all of law enforcement, not just federal law enforcement, even though state and locals didn’t ask for these types of tactics, and, frankly, have been moving away from them for years out of a recognition that they undermine trust in communities and ultimately hurt their public safety mission,” said Vanita Gupta, associate attorney general under President Biden and head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division under President Obama.

The White House said Trump does not “want any Americans to lose their lives in the streets,” believes what happened to Pretti was “a tragedy” and has called for an “honorable and honest investigation.” But administration officials also have defended the immigration crackdown and the federal agents involved, blaming protesters for interfering with law enforcement operations and accusing critics of endangering agents. However, many of those critics said it is the tactics that are endangering officers.

Gupta said Trump’s immigration surge “deeply strains the critical partnerships” that local, state and federal law enforcement agencies typically have with one another, and puts local leaders in an “incredibly challenging position” in their communities.

“State and local chiefs have to spend 365 days of the year building trust in their community and establishing legitimacy … and in comes this surge of federal agents who are acting out of control in their communities and creating very unsafe conditions on the ground,” Gupta said. “That is why you’re seeing more and more chiefs and former chiefs speaking out.”

Moore said the tactics are “unnecessarily exposing those agents to harm, physical harm, as well as driving an emotional response and losing legitimacy with the very public that, as an agency, they are saying they are there to protect.”

Issues on the ground

Good was fatally shot as she tried to drive away from a chaotic scene involving federal agents. The Trump administration said the officer who shot her was in danger of being run over. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, without evidence, accused Good, 37, of being a “domestic terrorist.”

Experts questioned why the group of agents swarmed Good’s vehicle, why the officer who fired positioned himself in front of it, and whether the officer was in fact in danger of being hit given Good was turning her wheel away from him. They especially questioned his later shots into the vehicle as it was passing him.

Under best practices for policing, officers are never to shoot into moving vehicles except in exigent circumstances, and are trained to avoid placing themselves in harm’s way. “You don’t put yourself in that position because you have the option to just take down the license plate number and go arrest them later if you think they’ve violated the law,” said Carol Sobel, a Los Angeles civil rights attorney who has driven police reform for decades.

Moore said he was trained in the 1980s to avoid engaging with moving vehicles, yet “40 years later, you see not just one occasion but multiple occasions of those tactics” from immigration agents.

Pretti was fatally shot after trying to protect a woman who was violently shoved to the ground by an immigration agent also spraying chemical irritant. The Trump administration said that Pretti had a gun, and that the officers had acted in self-defense. Without evidence, Noem alleged Pretti, also 37, was “attacking” agents and “brandishing” the gun, while White House advisor Stephen Miller alleged that Pretti “tried to murder federal agents.”

Experts questioned why the agents were being so aggressive with the woman Pretti was trying to help, and why they reacted so violently — with a burst of gunfire — when he was surrounded by agents, on the ground and already disarmed.

Moore said that the officer who shoved the woman appeared to be using “brute force rather than efforts to create de-escalation,” and that spraying irritants is never suitable for dealing with “passive resistance,” which appeared to be what the woman and Pretti were involved in.

In both shootings, experts also questioned why the agents were wearing masks and failed to render aid, and lamented the immediate rush to judgment by Trump administration officials.

Gupta said the immigration agents’ tactics were “out of line” with local, state and federal policing standards and “offensive to all of that work that has been done” to establish those standards.

Bernard Parks, another former chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, said that videos from the two incidents and other recent immigration operations make it clear the agents are “totally untrained” for the operation, which he called “poorly designed, poorly trained,” with a “total lack of common sense and decency.”

Ed Obayashi, an expert in police use of force, said that although the agents’ actions in the two shootings are under investigation, it is “obvious” that Trump administration officials have not followed best practices for conducting those inquiries.

“The scenes have been contaminated, I haven’t seen any evidence or any what you would call standard investigative protocols, like freezing the scene, witness checks, canvassing the neighborhood, supervisors responding to try to determine what happened,” he said.

The path forward

Last week, California joined other Democrat-led states in challenging the crackdown in Minneapolis in court, arguing that Noem’s department “has set in motion an extraordinary campaign of recklessness and disregard for norms of constitutional policing and the sanctity of life.”

On Sunday, the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police, which has played a central role in establishing modern policing standards in the U.S., said it believes that “effective public safety depends on comprehensive training, investigative integrity, adherence to the rule of law, and strong coordination among federal, state, and local partners,” and called on the White House to convene those partners for “policy-level discussions aimed at identifying a constructive path forward.”

On Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta reminded California law enforcement that they have the right to investigate federal agents for violating state law.

Gupta said the Trump administration failing to investigate fatal shootings by federal agents while “boxing out” local and state officials suggests “impunity” for the agents and “puts the country in a very dangerous place” — and state investigators must allowed in to investigate.

Butler said that the situation would definitely be improved if agents started adhering to modern policing standards, but that problems will persist as long as Trump continues to demand that immigration agents arrest thousands of people per day.

“There’s just no kind and gentle way,” he said, “to take thousands of people off the streets every day.”

SACRAMENTO — Two of the top Democratic candidates in the race for California governor are taking heat for their past votes to fund and support federal immigration enforcement as the backlash against the Trump administration’s actions in Minnesota intensifies after the shooting death of Alex Pretti.

Fellow Democratic candidates are criticizing Rep. Eric Swalwell and former Rep. Katie Porter for voting — in Swalwell’s case, as recently as June — to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and support its agents’ work.

Swalwell (D-Dublin) last year voted in favor of a Republican-sponsored resolution condemning an attack that injured at least eight people demonstrating in support of Israeli hostages, one of whom later died, in Boulder, Colo., and expressing “gratitude to law enforcement officers, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel, for protecting the homeland.”

He was one of 75 Democrats, including nine from California, to cross the aisle and vote in favor of the resolution.

“The fact that Eric Swalwell stood with MAGA Republicans in Washington to thank ICE while in California masked ICE agents terrorized our communities — despite Swalwell’s notorious and chronic record of absenteeism from Congress, is shamefully hypocritical,” former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a rival Democrat running for governor, said in a statement.

Swalwell’s campaign dismissed the attack as a “political ploy” by “a desperate campaign” polling in single-digits.

“What Eric voted for was a resolution to condemn a horrific antisemitic attack in Boulder, CO that killed Karen Diamond, an 82-year old grandmother,” a campaign spokesman said in a statement. “The truth is no one has been more critical of ICE than Eric Swalwell.”

The exchange comes as Villaraigosa, Swalwell and other Democrats running to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is serving his final year in office, struggle to differentiate themselves in a tight race that lacks a clear front-runner.

In a poll released in December by the Public Policy Institute of California, Porter led the field with support from 21% of likely California voters. She was slightly ahead of former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra and conservative commentator Steve Hilton but had far from a commanding lead.

With the June 2 primary election fast approaching, the sparring among the candidates — especially in the crowded field of Democrats — is expected to intensify, with those leading in the polls fielding the brunt of the attacks.

The Trump administration’s immigration tactics face mounting political scrutiny after federal agents fatally shot Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse from Minneapolis, during a protest over the weekend.

Pretti was the second U.S. citizen in Minneapolis to be killed by immigration officers in recent weeks. Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother, was shot in the head by an ICE officer Jan. 7. Federal officials have alleged it was an act of self-defense when Good drove her vehicle toward an officer — an assertion under dispute.

In recent days, Swalwell said that if elected, he would revoke the driver licenses of ICE agents who mask their faces, block them from state employment and aggressively prosecute agents for crimes such as kidnapping, assault and murder.

Tony Thurmond, another Democrat currently serving as California’s top education official, in an online political ad criticized Swalwell’s vote as well as several by Porter for bills to fund ICE and Trump’s border wall during the president’s first term.

Porter and Swalwell joined majorities of Democratic House members to support various spending packages in Congress, which included billions for a border wall and in at least one case, avoided a government shutdown.

“When others have stayed quiet, Katie has boldly spoken out against ICE’s lawlessness and demanded accountability,” said Porter campaign spokesman Peter Opitz.

Thurmond’s video touted his own background as a child of immigrants and support for a new law that attempts to keep federal immigration agents out of schools, hospitals and other spaces.

Tom Steyer, a billionaire Democrat also running for governor, said Tuesday that he supports abolishing ICE “as it exists today” and replacing it with a “lawful, accountable immigration system rooted in due process and public safety.”

Republicans blame Democrats and protesters

The two most formidable Republicans running for governor have generally supported Trump’s immigration strategy but have not commented directly on Pretti’s killing over the weekend.

Hilton, a former Fox News host, wrote in an email that “every sane person is horrified by the scenes of chaos and lawlessness in Minneapolis, and most of all that people are getting killed.”

But he linked violence to sanctuary policies in Democratic-run states and cities, including California, which prohibit local law enforcement from coordinating or assisting with federal immigration enforcement.

“The only places we’ve seen this kind of chaos are ‘sanctuary’ cities and states, where Democrat politicians are whipping people up into a frenzy of anti-law enforcement hate, and directly putting their constituents in harm’s way by telling them — from behind the safety of their own security details — to disrupt the enforcement of federal law,” Hilton said.

The conservative pundit said the “worst offender” is Newsom, whom Hilton accused of using “disgustingly inflammatory language designed to rile up his base in pursuit of his presidential ambitions.”

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco’s campaign did not respond to questions about events in Minnesota. Bianco has repeatedly criticized California’s sanctuary state policy but affirmed last year that his department would not assist with federal immigration raids.

On Sunday, Bianco posted on X that “Celebrities and talking heads think they understand what it’s like to put on a uniform and make life or death decisions,” an apparent reference to the encounter that resulted in Pretti’s death.

Hollywood heavyweights are joining a mounting wave of resistance against Immigration and Customs Enforcement after federal agents on Saturday fatally shot intensive care nurse and U.S. citizen Alex Pretti.

The shooting occurred in Minneapolis, where protests erupted over the weekend after an ICE agent earlier this month shot and killed another Minnesota resident, Renee Nicole Good, 37, during an enforcement operation. Similar demonstrations started cropping up in weeks prior as the Department of Homeland Security launched a sweeping immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities.

Although government officials have claimed that Good and Pretti were both aggressors in their altercations, footage captured by bystanders appeared to contradict those claims.

Olivia Rodrigo, Pedro Pascal and other film, television and music industry notables condemned ICE on social media in the wake of its operations in Minnesota and across the country. (Likewise, attendees at the Sundance Film Festival, including Edward Norton and Olivia Wilde, criticized ICE’s actions and lauded the public for protesting them.)

Here is a list of celebrities who have spoken out.

Olivia Rodrigo

The pop rock singer slammed ICE in an Instagram story on Sunday, writing that the agency’s “actions are unconscionable, but we are not powerless.”

“Our actions matter,” Rodrigo continued. “I stand with Minnesota.”

The “Vampire” songstress also reposted a call to action by political commentator and digital creator Ben Sheehan, which called ICE a “murderous federal agency terrorizing an American city.”

“If you support this, you’re on the wrongest side of history you could possibly be on,” Sheehan wrote, urging social media users to call their senators and encourage them to filibuster an upcoming Homeland Security appropriations bill that would keep ICE funded at $10 billion for the rest of the fiscal year.

Pedro Pascal

“The Last of Us” star has shared several anti-ICE posts to his Instagram feed and stories. Earlier this month, Pascal described immigration enforcement activities as “unspeakable s— after unspeakable s—.”

Following Pretti’s shooting death, the actor wrote on Instagram, “Truth is a line of demarcation between a democratic government and authoritarian regime. Mr. Pretti and Rene Good are dead. The American people deserve to know what happened.”

Jamie Lee Curtis

The Academy Award winner has repeatedly condemned ICE’s actions in Minnesota, writing Saturday on Instagram, “Let the ICE storm of resistance ring loudly.”

Curtis also shared a statement from Pretti’s parents, which pleaded with readers to “get the truth out about our son.”

“The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting,” the statement said.

“Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately he will not be with us to see his impact.”

Katy Perry

The pop singer in a Monday Instagram post encouraged her followers to “turn anger into action” by calling their senators.

“The power is in your hands,” the post read, followed by a script encouraging senators to block the DHS funding bill.

Billie Eilish

The “Birds of a Feather” singer this week called out her industry peers’ silence on the immigration crackdown. Eilish herself has regularly reposted anti-ICE statements on her Instagram story.

“Hey my fellow celebrities u gonna speak up?” she wrote in an Instagram story Monday.

Eilish also shared a video from her brother and frequent collaborator, Finneas, in which he called the government hypocritical for allegedly shooting Pretti because he had a gun despite yearslong defense of gun owners’ rights.

“You’ve spent 30 years straight telling us that children have to die so that we’re allowed to legally carry weapons everywhere in the United States,” the artist-producer said. “This guy was being beaten to a pulp on the ground, he didn’t draw his weapon. He had a weapon on him legally.”

Eilish also spoke out against immigration enforcement earlier this month while receiving the 2026 MLK Jr. Beloved Community Environmental Justice Award.

“We’re seeing our neighbors being kidnapped, peaceful protesters being assaulted and murdered, our civil rights being stripped, resources to fight the climate crisis being cut for fossil fuels and animal agriculture destroying our planet, and people’s access to food and health care becoming a privilege for the wealthy instead of a new basic human right for all Americans,” the singer said.

“It is very clear that protecting our planet and our communities is not a priority for this administration,” she continued. “And it’s really hard to celebrate that when we no longer feel safe in our own homes or in our streets.”

Florence Pugh

The “Thunderbolts” star in a Monday Instagram story reshared a post from NBC News listing the people who have been fatally shot by DHS since September.

“1 person being murdered is harrowing enough. 12? Killed by masked people with guns,” Pugh wrote. “Morals. Even that seems too light a word to use when it’s actually ‘are you okay with people being killed or not’?”

“No matter which way you voted, what you politically believe, is death truly the option that you support?” she wrote.

Mark Ruffalo

In a pair of Bluesky posts, Ruffalo called Pretti a “hero.”

“Cold blooded murder in the streets of the USA by an occupying military gang, creating havoc,” the actor-activist wrote. “We have fought wars in other countries for less than this.”

Lin-Manuel Miranda

The “Hamilton” creator on Sunday collaborated with his parents, Luz Towns-Miranda and Luis A. Miranda Jr., on an Instagram post translating Pretti’s parents’ statement into Spanish.

“This cowardly violence cannot remain silent. We share his parents’ words en español because they deserve to be understood by everyone. Alex was a hero. And we demand justice,” the caption reads.

Glenn Close

The veteran actor in a Sunday Instagram post said she is “outraged and sickened” by the Trump administration’s actions: “The sickening hypocrisy, the blatant manipulation of facts and now the cold-blooded murder of American citizens.”

“I have felt for a long time that there are thousands and thousands of American citizens with cellars full of guns,” Close said. “I fear that ICE is giving them the excuse to pull the trigger.”

The “Fatal Attraction” star said the country is “waking up” to the threats posed to American democracy: “Mark my words: there will be hell to pay.”

Kerry Washington

The “Scandal” alum in a Monday Instagram post encouraged viewers to call their senators as she modeled the behavior on camera.

“The time to take action is now,” Washington captioned her video. “Let’s do it together. Because if you think what’s happening in Minneapolis cannot happen in your city or your state, it can.”

Cynthia Nixon

The “Sex and the City” star on Saturday claimed that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was spreading “morally reprehensible and disgusting lies” about Pretti and his killing.

Nixon also shared the statement from Pretti’s parents and encouraged viewers to do the same.

Busy Philipps

Philipps in a Saturday Instagram post reshared statements demanding justice for Pretti as well as the defunding of ICE.

“They will just keep murdering people and lying as long as they can,” the “Girls5eva” actor said, encouraging her followers to “take to the streets” and “boycott the businesses and people that support this.”

Martha Stewart

The television personality shared Monday on Instagram that her 14-year-old granddaughter — who is “sensitive to what is going on in our country as we all should be” — over the weekend messaged her, “I’m not sure it’s excusable to not be speaking up right now.”

Stewart said she took the sentiment to heart, writing, “I am disheartened and sad each and every day that we cannot demonstrate our sympathy for the beleaguered, that we are told immigrants, which most of us are or descended from, are unwelcome, that we cannot show our frustration in peaceful demonstrations and that we can be attacked and even killed by federal troops.”

“Things must and have to change quickly and peacefully,” she wrote.

Hannah Einbinder

The “Hacks” star in a Tuesday Instagram story said, “I’ve been trying to put my finger on why I have such a deep seated resentment towards people who haven’t used their platform to speak up against ICE.”

“I think it’s because, as a Jewish American in the diaspora, my entire life has been in the shadow of the Holocaust. I was given an in-depth education of exactly how a thing like that happens,” Einbinder wrote.

“I am watching the beginning of what took place in Germany before the Holocaust here in America and I take it incredibly personally when I see people with massive platforms refrain from using their voice to organize and rally their followers to try and stop it,” she continued, encouraging her industry peers and followers alike to stand up for immigrants.

The Chicks

“It’s happening right in front of us. They are killing Americans, disappearing human beings, and breaking up families,” country band the Chicks captioned a photo of a protest sign referencing their song “Not Ready to Make Nice.” (The group penned the ballad after lead singer Natalie Maines was widely slammed for criticizing then-President George W. Bush during a concert.)

“We cannot stand by and watch democracy disintegrate,” the band wrote. “Human decency isn’t Republican or Democrat. It’s American.”

Jonathan Van Ness

The “Queer Eye” star in a Saturday post on Threads wrote, “They charged tax payers $85 BILLION for ice to terrorize America. Tear gassing, beating, detaining innocent protestors / people, and they just killed another human being.”

Kristen Schaal

In an X post thanking fans for birthday well wishes, the comedian and “Bob’s Burgers” voice actor wrote, “I will remember this birthday as the day that Alex Pretti was held down on the street by 6 ICE agents and murdered. Shot to death. After he was sprayed in the face.”

Schaal continued: “I will remember @realDonaldTrump & everyone who works for & worships him saying this didn’t happen.”

Matt Rogers

The “Las Culturistas” co-host in a Monday Instagram story called for the abolishment of ICE: “This is too much collective pain for us to handle. It must stop.”

“Stop the terror and violence now,” Rogers wrote.

Kate Berlant

Berlant, who has previously spoken against ICE action in her native L.A., in a Tuesday Instagram story encouraged her followers to boycott the federal agency’s corporate collaborators, including Amazon, Whole Foods and Palantir.

Walton Goggins

“The White Lotus” star shared several anti-ICE posts over the weekend, writing in one Instagram story, “Alex Pretti was murdered. Renee Good was MURDERED. This isn’t about what political party any of us are affiliated with. This is about Humanity… this is … wrong.”

Mandy Moore

The “This Is Us” actor reshared media coverage of the events in Minnesota, writing, “We have eyeballs. We’ve seen the video. They executed someone else. I’m not sure how this ends. This is terrifying territory.”

Others including Ariana Grande, Jennifer Aniston, Amanda Seyfried, Hilary Swank and Justin Theroux have reshared anti-ICE content and resources for protesters on social media.

Prominent Republicans and gun rights advocates helped elicit a White House turnabout this week after bristling over the administration’s characterization of Alex Pretti, the second person killed this month by a federal officer in Minneapolis, as being responsible for his own death because he lawfully possessed a weapon.

The death produced no clear shifts in U.S. gun politics or policies, even as President Trump shuffles the lieutenants in charge of his militarized immigration crackdown. But important voices in Trump’s coalition have called for a thorough investigation of Pretti’s death while also criticizing inconsistencies in some Republicans’ 2nd Amendment stances.

If the dynamic persists, it could give Republicans problems as Trump heads into a midterm election year with voters already growing skeptical of his overall immigration approach. The concern is acute enough that Trump’s top spokeswoman sought Monday to reassert his brand as a staunch gun rights supporter.

“The president supports the 2nd Amendment rights of law-abiding American citizens, absolutely,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.

Leavitt qualified that “when you are bearing arms and confronted by law enforcement, you are raising … the risk of force being used against you.”

Videos contradict early statements from administration

That still marked a retreat from the administration’s previous messages about the shooting of Pretti. It came the same day the president dispatched border advisor Tom Homan to Minnesota, seemingly elevating him over Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino, who had been in charge in Minneapolis.

Within hours of Pretti’s death on Saturday, Bovino suggested Pretti “wanted to … massacre law enforcement,” and Noem said Pretti was “brandishing” a weapon and acted “violently” toward officers.

“I don’t know of any peaceful protester that shows up with a gun and ammunition rather than a sign,” Noem said.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, an architect of Trump’s mass deportation effort, went further on X, declaring Pretti “an assassin.”

Bystander videos contradicted each claim, instead showing Pretti holding a cellphone and helping a woman who had been pepper-sprayed by a federal officer. Within seconds, Pretti was sprayed too and taken to the ground by multiple officers. No video disclosed thus far has shown him unholstering his concealed weapon, which he had a Minnesota permit to carry. It appeared that one officer took Pretti’s gun and walked away with it just before shots began.

As multiple videos went viral online and on television, Vice President JD Vance reposted Miller’s assessment, while Trump shared an alleged photo of “the gunman’s gun, loaded (with two additional full magazines!).”

On Tuesday, Trump was asked whether he agreed with Miller’s comment describing Pretti as an “assassin” and answered “no.” But he added that protesters “can’t have guns” and said he wants the death investigated.

“You can’t walk in with guns, you just can’t,” Trump told reporters on the White House lawn before departing for a trip to Iowa.

Swift reactions from gun rights advocates

The National Rifle Assn., which has backed Trump three times, released a statement that began by casting blame on Minnesota Democrats it accused of stoking protests. But the group lashed out after a federal prosecutor in California said on X, “If you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you.”

That analysis, the NRA said, is “dangerous and wrong.”

FBI Director Kash Patel magnified the blowback Sunday on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo.” No one, Patel said, can “bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple.”

Erich Pratt, vice president of Gun Owners of America, was incredulous.

“I have attended protest rallies while armed, and no one got injured,” he said on CNN.

Conservative officials around the country made the same connection between the 1st and 2nd amendments.

“Showing up at a protest is very American. Showing up with a weapon is very American,” state Rep. Jeremy Faison, who leads the GOP caucus in Tennessee, said on X.

Trump’s first-term vice president, Mike Pence, called for a “full and transparent investigation of this officer involved shooting.”

A different response from the past

Liberals, conservatives and nonpartisan experts noted how the administration’s response differed from past conservative positions involving protests and weapons.

Multiple Trump supporters were found to have weapons during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump issued blanket pardons to all of them.

Republicans were critical in 2020 when Mark and Patricia McCloskey had to pay fines after pointing guns at protesters who marched through their St. Louis neighborhood after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. And then there’s Kyle Rittenhouse, a counterprotester acquitted after fatally shooting two men and injuring a third in Kenosha, Wis., during the post-Floyd protests.

“You remember Kyle Rittenhouse and how he was made a hero on the right,” Trey Gowdy, a Republican former congressman and attorney for Trump during one of his first-term impeachments. “Alex Pretti’s firearm was being lawfully carried. … He never brandished it.”

Adam Winkler, a UCLA law professor who has studied the history of the gun debate, said the fallout “shows how tribal we’ve become.” Republicans spent years talking about the 2nd Amendment as a means to fight government tyranny, he said.

“The moment someone who’s thought to be from the left, they abandon that principled stance,” Winkler said.

Meanwhile, Democrats who have criticized open and concealed carry laws for years, Winkler added, are not amplifying that position after Pretti’s death.

Uncertain effects in an election year

The blowback against the administration from core Trump supporters comes as Republicans are trying to protect their threadbare majority in the U.S. House and face several competitive Senate races.

Perhaps reflecting the stakes, GOP staff and campaign aides were hesitant Monday to talk about the issue at all.

The House Republican campaign chairman, Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, is sponsoring the GOP’s most significant gun legislation of this congressional term, a proposal to make state concealed-carry permits reciprocal across all states.

The bill cleared the House Judiciary Committee in the fall. Asked Monday whether Pretti’s death and the Minneapolis protests might affect debate, an aide to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) did not offer any update on the bill’s prospects.

Gun rights advocates have notched many legislative victories in Republican-controlled statehouses in recent decades, including rolling back gun-free zones around schools and churches and expanding gun possession rights in schools, on university campuses and in other public spaces.

William Sack, legal director of the Second Amendment Foundation, said he was surprised and disappointed by the administration’s initial statements after the Pretti shooting. Trump’s vacillating, he said, is “very likely to cost them dearly with the core of a constituency they count on.”

Barrow and Riccardi write for the Associated Press. AP writers Josh Boak in Washington and Kimberlee Kruesi in Providence, R.I., contributed to this report.

DES MOINES, Iowa — President Trump is headed to Iowa on Tuesday as part of the White House’s midterm year pivot toward affordability, even as his administration remains mired in the fallout in Minneapolis over a second fatal shooting by federal immigration officers this month.

While in Iowa, the Republican president will make a stop at a local business and then deliver a speech on affordability, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. The remarks will be at the Horizon Events Center in Clive, a suburb of Des Moines.

The trip is expected to also highlight energy policy, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said last week. It’s part of the White House’s strategy to have Trump travel out of Washington once a week ahead of the midterm elections to focus on affordability issues facing everyday Americans — an effort that keeps getting diverted by crisis.

The latest comes as the Trump administration is grappling with the weekend shooting death of Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse killed by federal agents in the neighboring state of Minnesota. Pretti had participated in protests following the Jan. 7 killing of Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer. Even as some top administration officials moved quickly to malign Pretti, the White House said Monday that Trump was waiting until an investigation into the shooting was complete.

Trump calls Pretti killing ‘sad situation’

As Trump left the White House on Tuesday to head to Iowa, he was repeatedly questioned by reporters about Pretti’s killing. Trump disputed language used by his own deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, who on social media described Pretti as an “assassin” who “tried to murder federal agents.” Vice President JD Vance shared the post.

Trump, when asked Tuesday if he believed Pretti was an assassin, said, “No.”

When asked if he thought Pretti’s killing was justified, Trump called it “a very sad situation” and said a “big investigation” was underway.

“I’m going to be watching over it, and I want a very honorable and honest investigation. I have to see it myself,” he said.

He also said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who was quick to cast Pretti as a violent instigator, would not be resigning.

Republicans want to switch the subject to affordability

Trump was last in Iowa ahead of the July 4 holiday to kick off the United States’ upcoming 250th anniversary, which morphed largely into a celebration of his major spending and tax cut package hours after Congress had approved it.

Republicans are hoping that Trump’s visit to the state on Tuesday draws focus back to that tax bill, which will be a key part of their pitch as they ask voters to keep them in power in November.

“I invited President Trump back to Iowa to highlight the real progress we’ve made: delivering tax relief for working families, securing the border, and growing our economy,” Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, said in a statement in advance of his trip. “Now we’ve got to keep that momentum going and pass my affordable housing bill, deliver for Iowa’s energy producers, and bring down costs for working families.”

Trump’s affordability tour has taken him to Michigan, Pennsylvania and North Carolina as the White House tries to marshal the president’s political power to appeal to voters in key swing states.

But Trump’s penchant for going off-script has sometimes taken the focus off cost-of-living issues and his administration’s plans for how to combat it. In Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, Trump insisted that inflation was no longer a problem and that Democrats were using the term affordability as a “hoax” to hurt him. At that event, Trump also griped that immigrants arriving to the U.S. from “filthy” countries got more attention than his pledges to fight inflation.

Competitive races in Iowa

Although it was a swing state just a little more than a decade ago, Iowa in recent years has been reliably Republican in national and statewide elections. Trump won Iowa by 13 percentage points in 2024 against Democrat Kamala Harris.

Still, two of Iowa’s four congressional districts have been among the most competitive in the country and are expected to be again in this year’s midterm elections. Trump already has endorsed Republican Reps. Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks. Democrats, who landed three of Iowa’s four House seats in the 2018 midterm elections during Trump’s first term, see a prime opportunity to unseat Iowa incumbents.

This election will be the first since 1968 with open seats for both governor and U.S. senator at the top of the ticket after Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds and Republican U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst opted out of reelection bids. The political shake-ups have rippled throughout the state, with Republican Reps. Randy Feenstra and Ashley Hinson seeking new offices for governor and for U.S. senator, respectively.

Democrats hope Rob Sand, the lone Democrat in statewide office who is running for governor, will make the entire state more competitive with his appeal to moderate and conservative voters and his $13 million in cash on hand.

Kim and Fingerhut write for the Associated Press. Kim reported from Washington. AP writer Michelle L. Price in Washington contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — The killing of a second U.S. citizen by federal agents in Minneapolis is sharply complicating efforts to avert another government shutdown in Washington as Democrats — and some Republicans — view the episode as a tipping point in the debate over the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies.

Senate Democrats have pledged to block funding for the Department of Homeland Security unless changes are made to rein in the federal agency’s operations following the killing of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse.

The Democratic defections now threaten to derail passage of a broad spending package that also includes funding for the State Department and the Pentagon, as well as education, health, labor and transportation agencies.

The standoff has also revealed fractures among GOP lawmakers, who have called for a federal and state investigation into the shooting and congressional hearings for federal officials to explain their tactics — demands that have put unusual pressure on the Trump administration.

Senate Republicans must secure 60 votes to advance the spending measure in the chamber — a threshold they cannot reach on their own with their 53 seats. The job is further complicated by a time crunch: Lawmakers have until midnight Friday to reach a compromise or face a partial government shutdown.

Senate Democrats had already expressed reservations about supporting the Department of Homeland Security funding after Renee Good, a mother of three, was shot and killed this month by federal agents in Minneapolis. But Pretti’s killing has led Democrats to be more forceful in their opposition.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Sunday he would oppose funding for the agencies involved in the Minneapolis operations.

“I’m not giving ICE or Border Patrol another dime given how these agencies are operating. Democrats are not going to fund that,” he said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I think anyone who votes to give them more money to do this will share in the responsibility and see more Americans die in our cities as a result.”

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said in a statement last week that he would not “give more money to [Customs and Border Protection] and ICE to continue terrorizing our communities and breaking the law.” He reiterated his stance hours after Pretti’s killing.

“I will vote against any additional funding for Trump’s ICE and CBP while they act with such reckless disregard for life, safety and the Constitution,” Padilla wrote in a post on X.

While Senate Republicans largely intend to support the funding measure, some are publicly raising concerns about the Trump administration’s training requirements for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and calling for congressional oversight hearings.

“A comprehensive, independent investigation of the shooting must be conducted in order to rebuild trust and Congressional committees need to hold hearings and do their oversight work,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) wrote in a post on X. “ICE agents do not have carte blanche in carrying out their duties.”

Similar demands are being made by House Republicans.

Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.), the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has formally sought testimony from leaders at ICE, Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, saying his “top priority remains keeping Americans safe.”

Homeland Security has not yet provided a public confirmation that it will attend the hearing, though Garbarino told reporters Saturday that he has been “in touch with the department” and anticipates a full investigation.

Many Republican lawmakers expressed concern over federal officials’ saying Pretti’s killing was in part due to him having a loaded firearm on his person at the time of the encounter. Pretti had a permit to carry, according to the Minneapolis police chief, and videos show him holding a cellphone, not brandishing a gun before officers pushed him down to the ground.

“Carrying a firearm is not a death sentence, it’s a constitutionally protected God-given right, and if you don’t understand this you have no business in law enforcement of government,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) wrote on X.

Following the pushback from the GOP, President Trump appears to be seeking ways to tone down the tensions. The president said Monday he had a “very good call” with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat he has clashed with in recent weeks, and that they “seemed to be on a similar wavelength” on next steps.

If Democrats are successful in striking down the Homeland Security spending package, some hinted at comprehensive immigration reforms to follow.

California Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) detailed the plan in a social media post over the weekend, calling on Congress to repeal the $75 billion in supplemental funding flagged for ICE in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” last year. The allocation roughly tripled the budget for immigration enforcement.

The shooting came as a slate of progressives renewed demands to “abolish ICE” and replace it with an agency that has congressional oversight.

“[Congress must] tear down and replace ICE with an agency that has oversight,” Khanna said. “We owe that to nurse Pretti and the hundreds of thousands on the streets risking their lives to stand up for our freedoms.

Democrats are also focusing on removing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Earlier this month, Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.) introduced a measure to impeach Noem, saying she has brought about a “reign of terror to Minneapolis.” At least 120 House Democrats have supported the measure, according to Kelly’s office.

Democrats also urged a stop to controversial “Kavanaugh stops,” which allow agents to detain people based on perceived race, and have set their sites on the reversal of qualified immunity protections, which shield agents from misconduct lawsuits.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) backed the agenda and called for ICE and Border Patrol agents to “leave Minnesota immediately.”

“Voting NO on the DHS funding bill is the bare minimum. Backing Kristi Noem’s impeachment is the bare minimum. Holding law-breaking ICE agents legally accountable is the bare minimum. ICE is beyond reform. Abolish it,” she wrote in a Sunday post on X.

As federal immigration tactics face mounting legal and political scrutiny after a U.S. Border Patrol agent fatally shot a Minneapolis man over the weekend, Donald Trump announced Monday he was dispatching his border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota.

Until now, Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino has overseen the federal government’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota. But as the Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security faces widespread criticism for its aggressive tactics since it launched Operation Metro Surge in December, Trump signaled Monday that he could be shifting strategy as he deploys Homan to the region.

“He has not been involved in that area, but knows and likes many of the people there,” Trump said of Homan on TruthSocial. “Tom is tough but fair, and will report directly to me.”

Trump’s deployment of Homan comes as a federal judge hears arguments Monday on whether to temporarily halt the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement in Minnesota. Meanwhile, Democratic senators plan to oppose a funding bill for DHS, raising the possibility of a partial government shutdown, and a small but growing number of Republicans have joined Democratic calls for a thorough investigation into the killing of Alex Pretti

The Department of Homeland Security said Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse, approached federal officers on the street Saturday morning with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun and “violently resisted” when officers tried to disarm him. But cellphone videos recorded by eye witnesses contradict that account.

According to videos taken on the scene, Pretti was holding a phone, not a handgun, when he stepped in front of a federal agent who was targeting a woman with pepper spray. Federal agents pulled him to the ground and shot him.

Pretti is the second U.S. citizen in Minneapolis to be killed by immigration officers this month. On Jan. 7, Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother, was shot in the head by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem raised criticism this weekend when she said that her agency would lead the investigation into Pretti’s killing.

After federal officials denied Minnesota state investigators access to the shooting scene in South Minneapolis, local and state officials in Minnesota accused DHS of mishandling evidence. Late Saturday, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension asked a federal court to block Homeland Security and Justice Department officials from destroying or concealing evidence.

It is not immediately clear how Bovino’s role could change as Homan arrives in Minneapolis.

Noem, who has backed Bovino’s aggressive tactics, said Monday it was “good news” that Homan was going to Minneapolis.

“I have worked closely with Tom over the last year and he has been a major asset to our team,” Noem wrote on X. Homan’s “experience and insight,” she said, would “help us to remove even more public safety threats and violent criminal illegal aliens” off Minneapolis streets.

But some Democrats in Minnesota oppose sending Homan to Minnesota. Minneapolis City Council member Soren Stevenson said the move would only aggravate tension.

“They are losing the battle in people’s minds,” Stevenson told CNN, noting that people could see video evidence contradict federal accounts of border patrol agents’ actions.

“They’re losing this narrative battle, and so he’s sending in his top guard,” Stevenson added. “And really, it’s escalating, because we just want to be left alone. The chaos in our community is coming from ICE. It’s coming from this invasion that we’re under … and it’s got to stop.”

In a short interview with The Wall Street Journal Sunday, Trump criticized Pretti for carrying a gun during protest activity.

“I don’t like any shooting. I don’t like it,” Trump said. “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 declined to comment on whether the agent who shot Pretti had done the right thing. “We’re looking,” Trump said when pressed. “We’re reviewing everything and will come out with a determination.”

Democratic officials, including Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, have called on federal immigration officers to leave Minneapolis. On Sunday, Trump suggested they could withdraw, but he did not give a timeline.

“At some point we will leave,” the president said. “They’ve done a phenomenal job.”

MINNEAPOLIS — A federal judge will hear arguments Monday on whether she should at least temporarily halt the immigration crackdown in Minnesota that has led to the fatal shootings of two people by government officers.

The state of Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul sued the Department of Homeland Security earlier this month, five days after Renee Good was shot by an Immigration and Customs officer. The shooting of Alex Pretti by a Border Patrol officer on Saturday has only added urgency to the case.

On Monday, President Trump said he is sending border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota. The president’s statement comes after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, who had become the public face of the administration’s crackdown, answered questions at news conferences over the weekend about Pretti’s shooting. Trump posted on social media that Homan will report directly to him.

Since the original court filing, the state and cities have substantially added to their original request in an effort to restore the order that existed before the Trump administration launched Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota on Dec. 1.

Democratic Minnesota Atty. Gen. Keith Ellison said he plans to attend.

The lawsuit asks U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez to order a reduction in the number of federal law enforcement officers and agents in Minnesota back to the level before the surge and to limit the scope of the enforcement operation.

Justice Department attorneys have called the lawsuit “legally frivolous” and said “Minnesota wants a veto over federal law enforcement.” They asked the judge to reject the request or to at least stay her order pending an anticipated appeal.

Ellison said during a news conference Sunday that the lawsuit is needed because of “the unprecedented nature of this surge. It is a novel abuse of the Constitution that we’re looking at right now. No one can remember a time when we’ve seen something like this.”

It is unclear when the judge might rule.

The case has implications for other states that have been or could become targets of ramped-up federal immigration enforcement operations. Attorneys general from 19 states plus the District of Columbia, led by California, filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Minnesota.

“If left unchecked, the federal government will no doubt be emboldened to continue its unlawful conduct in Minnesota and to repeat it elsewhere,” the attorneys general wrote.

Menendez ruled in a separate case on Jan. 16 that federal officers in Minnesota can’t detain or tear gas peaceful protesters who aren’t obstructing authorities, including people who follow and observe agents.

An appeals court temporarily suspended that ruling three days before Saturday’s shooting. But the plaintiffs in that case, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, asked the appeals court late Saturday for an emergency order lifting the stay in light of Pretti’s killing. The Justice Department argued in a reply filed Sunday that the stay should remain in place, calling the injunction unworkable and overly broad.

In yet another case, a different federal judge, Eric Tostrud, issued an order late Saturday blocking the Trump administration from “destroying or altering evidence” related to Saturday’s shooting. Ellison and Hennepin County Atty. Mary Moriarty asked for the order to try to preserve evidence collected by federal officials that state authorities have not yet been able to inspect. A hearing in that case is scheduled for Monday afternoon in federal court in St. Paul.

“The fact that anyone would ever think that an agent of the federal government might even think about doing such a thing was completely unforeseeable only a few weeks ago,” Ellison told reporters. “But now, this is what we have to do.”

Karnowski writes for the Associated Press.