Two Americans have now been killed by border-enforcement officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Earlier this month, Renee Good, a mother of three, was shot dead in her car by an agent from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Last Saturday, Alex Pretti, an intensive-care nurse, was fatally shot while on the ground by a Border Patrol officer who was supporting an ICE operation. Even amid sub-zero temperatures, thousands have taken to the streets of Minneapolis – to protest not only against what appear to be unjust killings, but also against ICE’s very existence.
Senior figures in the Trump administration, from the vice-president downwards, had initially been bullish in defending ICE’s conduct. Good’s body was barely cold before JD Vance branded her ‘a deranged leftist’. Department of Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem was similarly quick to denounce both those killed as ‘domestic terrorists’. She even accused Pretti, in the moments before his death, of ‘brandishing’ a weapon, resisting arrest and attacking law enforcement. Homeland security adviser Stephen Miller branded him an ‘assassin’ who ‘tried to murder federal agents’. Although a fuller picture and more context may emerge with a full investigation, the video evidence currently circulating online suggests nothing of the sort.
The Trump administration is now beating a hasty retreat. Border Patrol commander Gregorgy Bovino, who had been overseeing immigration raids in Minneapolis, is due to be withdrawn from the area, as are an unspecified number of ICE agents. Noem has also been marginalised. On Monday, the White House sent its border tsar, Tom Homan, to take control of the operations in the city. Trump has also reportedly held favourable phone calls with local Democratic leaders, including Minnesota governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey. De-escalation – or perhaps damage limitation – is now the administration’s watchword.
After all, it is not just ‘deranged leftists’ who are uneasy about ICE’s behaviour. Following the killings of Good and Pretti, most US voters would now like to see the entire institution abolished. According to YouGov’s polling tracker, the proportion saying ICE’s tactics are ‘too forceful’ has climbed enormously over the past month. Republican lawmakers also have strong reservations, even if, as Politico reports, they are reluctant to raise them with the president directly.
The crisis in Minneapolis presents the most serious challenge to Trump’s domestic agenda yet. Although many Democrats and liberal pundits might like to claim otherwise, there is a solid majority in favour of arresting and deporting illegal migrants – especially after Joe Biden opened the US border to at least 12million illegal migrants in a single four-year term. Yet the aggressiveness, recklessness and seeming lawlessness of border agents has led public support to sour on an otherwise popular aspect of Trump’s programme.
It’s not hard to see why. Voters want the law enforced, fairly and consistently. They want criminal elements removed from their communities. But when it appears, fairly or not, that agencies like ICE have themselves become sources of disorder or lawlessness, it is entirely understandable that public opinion will turn.
The killings of two citizens have not been the only outrages. In Minnesota this past month, immigration officers have arrested a five-year-old child, and were filmed pepper spraying a man they had already detained. Last week, they wrongfully arrested a US citizen at gunpoint, searched his house without a warrant, and led him out on to the streets in his underwear, in sub-zero conditions. This aggressive, confrontational approach – by masked-up heavies – may appeal to the diehards, but it shocks ordinary folk who would otherwise support robust border control.
The Democrats and anti-ICE protesters must bear their own share of the blame for tensions boiling over. Many blue cities like Minneapolis have declared themselves ‘sanctuary cities’ – places where local law enforcement refuses to cooperate with federal immigration officials. This means that, even when illegal migrants are released from jail or prison, they are sent back into the community rather than ICE custody. The result is more arrests having to be conducted by border officials, and more potential flashpoints and clashes with protesters and activists.
As a Wall Street Journal columnist puts it, the sanctuary-city policy sends up a flair for ‘angry people’ – that is, a vocal minority of activists – ‘to adjudicate immigration policy on the streets instead of in court or congress’. It allows certain cities to opt out of laws that have been agreed on nationally and democratically. It subverts migration rules that have majority, popular support.
While everyone has a right to voice displeasure at any policy they please, impeding law enforcement is another matter entirely. We should leave it to investigators to determine which side of this line Pretti and Good were on before they were tragically killed, but there is no doubt that some anti-ICE activists are actively impeding the law. In doing so, they are not only placing themselves in potential danger, they are also endangering their fellow citizens by aiding and abetting criminals. After all, among the 3,000 illegal migrants captured by ICE in Minnesota since December are people convicted of murder, assault, domestic abuse and other crimes. It is not for nothing that the majority of Americans want these people deported, even if they are increasingly uneasy about the methods being deployed.
Americans are hardly alone in wanting their borders controlled, against the wishes of liberal, globalist elites. The parties around the world who have looked to Trump for inspiration should also heed the warnings of the past few weeks. Two dead citizens and a broader culture of lawlessness cannot be dismissed as collateral damage – and risk discrediting the populist cause.
