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Tag: Immigration
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Federal officers involved in Alex Pretti shooting placed on leave, DHS says
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Two federal officers fired their guns during Alex Pretti’s fatal shooting, according to an initial review by the Department of Homeland Security obtained by NBC News.
Both agents were placed on administrative leave, according to DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin. MS Now was first to report that detail.
The preliminary report, from a Customs and Border Protection internal investigation led by the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility, was sent to congressional committees Tuesday, including the House Homeland Security and Judiciary committees, according to three sources.
The DHS report said that during the encounter Jan. 24, an officer yelled “He’s got a gun!” multiple times and then “approximately five seconds later a BPA [Border Patrol agent] discharged his CBP-issued Glock 19 and a CBPO [Customs and Border Protection officer] also discharged his CBP-issued Glock 47 at Pretti.”
It’s unclear from the report whether the bullets from both officers’ guns hit Pretti.
The report also did not make any mention of Pretti attacking officers or brandishing a gun, as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed in the aftermath of the shooting.
Multiple videos recorded by eyewitnesses that were verified and analyzed by NBC News show Pretti did not hold a weapon during the struggle as he was surrounded by agents. One video shows that a federal agent removed a gun from Pretti’s waist area just before he was shot.
The report said that after the shooting, a Border Patrol agent said he had possession of Pretti’s gun, which was then secured in his vehicle.
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to refrain from “destroying or altering evidence” Sunday, after state investigators were denied access to the crime scene.
The report said its findings were based on CBP documents and body-camera from officers on the scene.
It said that officers were “conducting enforcement actions” in Minneapolis on Saturday morning as part of Operation Metro Surge, near the intersection of Nicollet Avenue and 25th Street.
The operation has seen some 3,000 federal officers and agents deployed to Minnesota — Minneapolis Police Department has just 600 officers — as part of President Donald Trump‘s crackdown on migrant communities and what federal officials say is an attempt to stamp out local corruption and fraud.
The surge has been met with strong local opposition and protests, particularly after a local woman, Renee Good, was shot dead by an immigration officer while at the wheel of her car Jan. 7.
“Several civilians were in the area yelling and blowing whistles. BPAs and CBPOs made several verbal requests for the civilians to stay on the sidewalks and out of the roadway,” the report into Pretti’s death said.
An officer was then “confronted” by two women blowing whistles who failed to comply with an order to move out of the road, according to the report. After the officer pushed them both away, it said, one of them ran to a man the report identified as Pretti.
The officer continued to attempt to move the woman and Pretti out of the road before using his pepper spray on them both, the report said.
“CBP personnel attempted to take Pretti into custody. Pretti resisted CBP personnel’s efforts and a struggle ensued. During the struggle, a BPA yelled, ‘He’s got a gun!’ multiple times,” the report said.
Approximately five seconds later, a Border Patrol agent and a CBP officer both fired shots at Pretti, according to the report.
At 9:02 a.m., CBP staff cut Pretti’s clothes and provided first aid including placing chest seals on his wounds, before fire department medics arrived two minutes later, the report said.
He was pronounced dead at Hennepin County Medical Center at approximately 9:32 a.m.
Homeland Security adviser Stephen Miller said Tuesday that the initial statement from DHS — which in the hours after the shooting said Pretti “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement” — was based on reports from CBP staff on the ground.
He said that the White House had provided “clear guidance to DHS that the extra personnel that had been sent to Minnesota for force protection should be used for conducting fugitive operations to create a physical barrier between the arrest teams and the disruptors.”
“We are evaluating why the CBP team may not have been following that protocol,” he said.
A DHS spokesperson said: “The initial statement was based on reports from CBP from a very chaotic scene on the ground. That’s precisely why an investigation is underway and DHS will let the facts lead the investigation.”
Miller’s initial comments prompted a significant backlash, including from many in the Republican Party. The operation in Minnesota has no fixed end date and was already facing criticism following the shooting of Good.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Trump was asked about his staff’s assessment that Pretti was a “domestic terrorist.”
“I haven’t heard that, but certainly he shouldn’t have been carrying a gun,” the president said.
President Donald Trump talked about the killing of Alex Pretti while visting a restaurant in Iowa.
Both DHS and CBP are conducting investigations into the shooting and the results of an autopsy are still to be released by Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office.
A CBP spokesperson said the report was released as per standard procedures and provided only an outline of what took place.
“They provide an initial outline of an event that took place and do not convey any definitive conclusion or investigative findings. They are factual reports – not analytical judgments – and are provided to inform Congress and to promote transparency,” the spokesperson said.
The CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility says it investigates “criminal and serious misconduct or mismanagement allegations.”
Melanie Zanona and Kyle Stewart contributed.
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Frank Thorp V, Patrick Smith and Laura Strickler | NBC News
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Community reflects on one year of federal immigration enforcement
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CLEVELAND — Verónica Martínez and her family first immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico over a decade ago, but she said it’s difficult to not be unsettled by President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
“We come from Mexico [after] living more than 14 years in El Paso, Texas, and we are a traditional Mexican family,” Martínez said. “…We migrated to this state of Ohio precisely to seek an education – better education for our son.”
Martínez said she and thousands of other Cleveland Heights residents witnessed the impact of federal enforcement efforts firsthand a year ago, when six Cilantro Taqueria workers were arrested and detained without a warrant by ICE officers in Coventry Village. The restaurant said most of them have since self-deported.
“Since this raid by the agents, many members of the community felt a deep indignation and disagreement about these processes that they were carrying out,” she said. “Now that we know that they were detained without having a due legal process, overlooking the rights that all the people living here in America have.”
Dozens of community leaders, including Martínez, expressed their support for these workers and other immigrants in Ohio and nationwide, at an “immigration vigil” in Peace Park on Monday. The event was organized by members of grassroots movement Cleveland Heights for Immigrant Rights, which formed after the Cilantro Taqueria arrests.
A crowd gathered in freezing temperatures across the street from Mexican restaurant Cilantro Taqueria in Cleveland Heights. (Spectrum News 1/Tanya Velazquez)
“Several community members began organizing and have worked hard throughout the past year to organize petitions to the City Council and the mayor to request that there be measures that legally support these unprotected and vulnerable people,” Martínez said.
The vigil also paid tribute to Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who were shot and killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis, along with others who’ve died in ICE custody since 2025.
Mariamne Ingalls is one of several artists from the Indivisible NEO Arts Committee that constructed tombstones to display at the vigil. She said each of them include the name, age and details of their death.
“The idea is to bring visibility to what’s going on,” Ingalls said. “More attention so more people can get together and reassert the lawful due process in this country.”
The project was led by Kathleen Russell, Co-leader of the Indivisible NEO Arts Committee, which she said plans to create more installations in the future. (Spectrum News 1/Tanya Velazquez)
Rep. Shontel Brown, D-District 11, stood with northeast Ohioans at Monday’s vigil to mourn “over 39 deaths across the country” under the Trump administration.
“But, as it relates to Ohio, I get calls from constituents who are in in great fear,” Brown said. “…People are afraid to go to work. They’re afraid to go to school. They’re afraid to church.”
The Trump administration’s immigration enforcement campaign has divided Americans, according to polling from the New York Times and Siena released Friday, with more than 60% of voters saying ICE tactics have “gone too far.”
Several Republicans have criticized the Trump administration response ICE to the fatal Minneapolis shootings, and has raised questions about state powers and trust in the federal government.
Trump said he wants to de-escalate state tensions in Minnesota, after writing on social media that Americans should “LET OUR ICE PATRIOTS DO THEIR JOB!” earlier this week.
Martínez said she and others will continue showing up in the community with the hopes of sending a message.
“Above all we want to communicate that we are alert, we are active and we are attentive, observing all the actions that are being carried out in all parts of the country,” she said. “And we also want to tell our local, state and federal authorities that we are a people that is organizing, that is organizing to follow the legal paths to be able to recover democracy in our country.”
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Tanya Velazquez
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The Cruel Conditions of ICE’s Mojave Desert Detention Center
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In November, Prison Law Office joined the firm of Keker, Van Nest & Peters, the A.C.L.U., and the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice in filing a class-action lawsuit against ICE and the Department of Homeland Security on behalf of those detained at California City. As noted in the filing, detainees refer to C.C.D.F. as a “torture chamber” and “hell on Earth.” In fact, Borden says, the conditions at the facility are so terrible that detainees are resigning themselves to self-deportation, instead of pursuing asylum and other immigration cases, and that “people are also trying to take their own lives.”
In April, 2025, as deportations ramped up nationwide, the for-profit prison company CoreCivic repurposed a decommissioned prison in California City into an immigration detention center after signing a contract with ICE. The company already owned the prison, which had sat unused since 2023, so the contract, which is worth an estimated a hundred and thirty million dollars annually, was a valuable source of revenue for CoreCivic. Additionally, the CoreCivic property has helped address ICE’s growing need for detention space in a state where the agency has turbocharged its immigration-enforcement activities. If fully occupied, C.C.D.F. will be the largest detention center on the West Coast—and one of its most remote.
C.C.D.F. is situated two hours north of Los Angeles, deep in the Mojave Desert, and about sixty miles from the edge of Death Valley National Park. Temperatures can be below freezing in the winter, and well over a hundred degrees in the summer. “It’s hard for attorneys to get out there,” Mario Valenzuela, a lawyer who represents multiple clients at C.C.D.F, told me. It is a three-hour round trip from Valenzuela’s office in Bakersfield out to California City, and the detention center is so desolate that he often can’t find cell service. He told me, “There’s nothing around, just barren desert, then all of a sudden you come across this facility.”
The closest town to C.C.D.F. is California City, about five miles away, where about a quarter of residents live below the poverty line, and roughly eighteen per cent are unemployed. As of 2024, CoreCivic is one of the town’s largest employers. But, despite signing a contract with ICE, ongoing litigation alleges that the company has not secured a business license or the proper conditional-use permit for the facility with the municipal government of California City. Since it opened, C.C.D.F. has allegedly been operating in direct violation of A.B. 103, a state law that requires a hundred-and-eighty-day waiting period and two public hearings before a private corporation may repurpose a facility as an immigration detention center. An active lawsuit is currently deciding these claims, but, even if the courts side with CoreCivic, the company seems to have acted in a legal gray zone when opening C.C.D.F.
On August 27th, CoreCivic began receiving detainees at C.C.D.F. In September, a federally authorized monitor visit by Disability Rights California raised “serious concerns” about the facility’s significant disrepair, caused by the period it sat vacant and the subsequent “rush to open.” That month, five hundred migrants were believed to have been transferred to C.C.D.F. In November, Prison Law Office estimated that eight hundred detainees were being held at the facility, and by mid-January the count was fourteen hundred. C.C.D.F. is projected to reach its full capacity of two thousand five hundred and sixty people in the first quarter of 2026.
“Any claims there are inhumane conditions at the California City Correctional Facility are FALSE,” the D.H.S. assistant secretary for public affairs, Tricia McLaughlin, said in an e-mail, adding that “ICE is regularly audited and inspected by external agencies” to insure its facilities comply with “national detention standards.” With regard to medical treatment, McLaughlin said that the agency provides “comprehensive medical care.” A representative for CoreCivic added that the company has “submitted all required information for a business license and [continues] to maintain open lines of communication with city officials.”
Still, as detainee numbers have surged, staffing and basic infrastructure have clearly not kept up. In a letter sent to D.H.S. last month, California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, warned that “the facility does not have enough medical doctors for its detainee population size,” and the staff it does have “appear to be inexperienced and lack basic understanding of civil detention management principles.” On January 20th, Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff toured the facility and spoke with the warden as part of an oversight visit. “Far and away, the biggest concerns were about lack of medical attention,” Senator Padilla told me by phone after his visit. He compared the facility’s conditions to what he saw during a tour of migrant detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay last year, explaining that it can take “weeks or months” for a detainee to receive care, “even for matters that, in my mind, seem pretty urgent.”
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Oren Peleg
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Sacramento City Council updates immigration platform to protect residents from ICE
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Sacramento’s City Council unanimously voted to update its immigration platform on Tuesday night, aiming to better protect residents from federal immigration agents after hours of public comment.The city first adopted this immigration platform in 2017, outlining its commitment to embracing and protecting immigrant and refugee communities. City leaders believe the updated platform will enhance protections for those living in Sacramento from ICE operations.In a packed chamber, hundreds of residents voiced their opinions to the council. One speaker emphasized the importance of standing up for neighbors and communities under attack by ICE. “Even though it was a unanimous vote, it was four and a half hours of public comment because that’s how angry people feel about what’s happening in Minnesota and what the federal government is doing,” said Ethan Julian Zamora.The updated platform aims to align with state laws passed since 2017 and directs the city on how to respond to issues, including free speech and the use of municipal resources. “The policy platform directs the city on how to respond to issues. Clearly, issues of free speech, also making sure that municipal resources, our own city tax dollars, are used for city resources and not for the federal government,” said councilmember Eric Guerra.Sacramento has been a sanctuary city since 1985, choosing not to assist in federal immigration enforcement efforts. Other councilmembers, including Karina Talamantes, are working to further protect immigrants by drafting a resolution to ban immigration enforcement on city-owned properties.”That’s what the community is looking for. The Sacramento Police Department does not give information to ICE, and does not work with them. But people want to know what the Sacramento Police Department will do when they encounter someone who refuses to identify themselves, who is masked up, trying to kidnap someone,” said Talamantes.The separate resolution regarding city property will first need to be reviewed by the Law and Legislation Committee before returning to the full council at a later date.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel
SACRAMENTO, Calif. —Sacramento’s City Council unanimously voted to update its immigration platform on Tuesday night, aiming to better protect residents from federal immigration agents after hours of public comment.
The city first adopted this immigration platform in 2017, outlining its commitment to embracing and protecting immigrant and refugee communities. City leaders believe the updated platform will enhance protections for those living in Sacramento from ICE operations.
In a packed chamber, hundreds of residents voiced their opinions to the council. One speaker emphasized the importance of standing up for neighbors and communities under attack by ICE.
“Even though it was a unanimous vote, it was four and a half hours of public comment because that’s how angry people feel about what’s happening in Minnesota and what the federal government is doing,” said Ethan Julian Zamora.
The updated platform aims to align with state laws passed since 2017 and directs the city on how to respond to issues, including free speech and the use of municipal resources.
“The policy platform directs the city on how to respond to issues. Clearly, issues of free speech, also making sure that municipal resources, our own city tax dollars, are used for city resources and not for the federal government,” said councilmember Eric Guerra.
Sacramento has been a sanctuary city since 1985, choosing not to assist in federal immigration enforcement efforts.
Other councilmembers, including Karina Talamantes, are working to further protect immigrants by drafting a resolution to ban immigration enforcement on city-owned properties.
“That’s what the community is looking for. The Sacramento Police Department does not give information to ICE, and does not work with them. But people want to know what the Sacramento Police Department will do when they encounter someone who refuses to identify themselves, who is masked up, trying to kidnap someone,” said Talamantes.
The separate resolution regarding city property will first need to be reviewed by the Law and Legislation Committee before returning to the full council at a later date.
See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel
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Graham pushes back on Tillis’ criticism of Noem, Miller for labeling man killed by Border Patrol a ‘terrorist’
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Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on Tuesday defended Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller after Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., criticized the pair for labeling the U.S. citizen killed by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis as a “domestic terrorist.”
Tillis was the first Senate Republican to call for Noem to be fired after the killing of Alex Pretti, 37, who was shot by federal agents as he was recording immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis over the weekend.
“What she’s done in Minnesota should be disqualifying. She should be out of a job,” Tillis told reporters earlier on Tuesday. “It’s just amateur-ish. It’s terrible. It’s making the president look bad on policy that he won on. [President Donald Trump] won on a strong message on immigration. Now, nobody’s talking about that. … They’re talking about the incompetence of the leader of Homeland Security.”
Noem and Miller “told the president before they even had an incident report whatsoever that the person who died was a terrorist. That is amateur hour at its worst,” Tillis added.
SENATE GOP CRITICS SAY NOEM ‘NEEDS TO GO’ AMID FALLOUT FROM MINNEAPOLIS SHOOTINGS
Sen. Lindsey Graham defended Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Responding to Tillis, Graham said someone “must have a very high opinion of themselves” if they believe they can get President Donald Trump to distance himself from Miller.
“I’ve known Stephen Miller for a very long time. We have our differences, but we have more in common. When the clock strikes midnight for President Trump, there will be very few by his side. One will be Stephen Miller. If you don’t get that, you’ve missed a lot. No one has helped Trump more than Stephen Miller,” Graham told Fox News’ Chad Pergram.
“To convince yourself that you can get Trump to distance himself from Stephen Miller, you must have a very high opinion of themselves,” he continued.
The South Carolina lawmaker added: “To my Republican colleagues, you need to understand that the President’s confidence in Stephen Miller has been rock solid and unshakable. And Miller is part of that group.”
Sen. Thom Tillis was the first Senate Republican to call for DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to be fired after the killing of Alex Pretti. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Alex Pretti, 37, was shot and killed on Saturday by Border Patrol agents while recording federal immigration operations in Minneapolis. An ICU nurse, Pretti appeared to be attempting to attend to a woman agents knocked down when he was sprayed with an irritant, pushed to the ground and beaten. An agent was seen pulling Pretti’s lawfully owned gun from his waistband before other agents fired several shots and killed him.
Noem was quick to label Pretti a “domestic terrorist,” and Miller characterized him as things such as a “would-be assassin,” both of which are unsubstantiated claims that sparked bipartisan pushback.
The White House has sought to distance itself from the comments by Noem and Miller, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying she has “not heard the president characterize” Pretti that way.
But despite calls from Democrat and Republican lawmakers to oust Noem over her response to Pretti’s killing, Trump expressed confidence in the secretary to continue leading DHS.
President Donald Trump expressed confidence in DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to continue leading the department. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
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“I think she’s doing a very good job. The border is totally secure. You know, you forget we had a border that I inherited where millions of people were coming through. Now we have a border where no one is coming through. They come into our country only legally,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday.
Asked if he agreed with Noem and Miller labeling Pretti as a “domestic terrorist” and an “assassin,” the president said he had not heard those remarks.
“Well, I haven’t heard that. He shouldn’t have been carrying a gun,” Trump said.
Trump also said the shooting was a “very sad situation” and he wants a “very honorable and honest investigation” that he wants to see for himself.
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Detainees to testify about legal access at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’
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FORT MYERS, Fla. — Former detainees planned to testify Wednesday about conditions at an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” as a federal judge considers during a two-day hearing whether they are getting sufficient access to the legal system.
Civil rights attorneys representing the detainees were seeking a temporary injunction from U.S. District Judge Sheri Polster Chappell in Fort Myers that would ensure that detainees at the state-run Everglades facility get the same access to their attorneys as they do at federally-run detention centers. The Everglades facility was built last summer at a remote airstrip by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration.
The detainees’ lawsuit claims that their First Amendment rights are being violated. They say their attorneys have to make an appointment to visit three days in advance, unlike at other immigration detention facilities where lawyers can just show up during visiting hours; that detainees often are transferred to other facilities after their attorneys had made an appointment to see them; and that scheduling delays have been so lengthy that detainees were unable to meet with attorneys before key deadlines.
“Access to counsel at Alligator Alcatraz is dramatically more restrictive than at other immigration facilities and runs afoul of the requirements that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has in place for detention facilities,” the civil rights attorneys wrote in their request for an injunction.
State officials who are defendants in the lawsuit denied restricting the detainees’ access to their attorneys and said any protocols were in place for security reasons and to make sure there was sufficient staffing. Federal officials who also are defendants said that no First Amendment rights were being violated.
“Moreover, any Alligator Alcatraz policy regarding attorney-detainee communications is valid so long as it reasonably relates to legitimate penological interest,” they wrote.
Among those expected to testify Wednesday was Juan Lopez Vega, deputy field office director of ICE’s enforcement and removal operations in Miami, who unsuccessfully tried to quash a subpoena compelling him to show up in court on Wednesday.
The case over access to the legal system was one of three federal lawsuits challenging practices at the immigration detention center. Another lawsuit brought by detainees in federal court in Fort Myers argued that immigration was a federal issue, and Florida agencies and private contractors hired by the state had no authority to operate the facility under federal law. That lawsuit ended earlier this month after the immigrant detainee who filed the case agreed to be removed from the United States.
In the third lawsuit, a federal judge in Miami last summer ordered the facility to wind down operations over two months because officials had failed to do a review of the detention center’s environmental impact. But an appellate court panel put that decision on hold for the time being, allowing the facility to stay open.
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Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social.
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Nuggets’ David Adelman reacts to Minneapolis unrest, shooting of Alex Pretti: ‘Let’s not shoot each other’
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David Adelman couldn’t make sense of what he was watching, but he could make out the neighborhood. Minneapolis was his first NBA home. He knew the city well. Just not in this ravaged state.
“That’s a great community of people,” the first-year head coach of the Nuggets said. “I lived there for five years. And it was just so weird to see exactly where it was in the city, because I knew exactly where it was. And from the drone shot, it looked like a war zone. And that’s the country we live in.”
Before the Nuggets hosted the Pistons on Tuesday night, Adelman took a moment to reflect on the unrest in Minneapolis and the death of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse who was fatally shot by federal agents last Saturday.
“Just as a human being, that’s really hard to watch,” he said. “I’d say beyond that, if you want to look at this in layers, how do you explain it to your kids? It’s tough. My kids are of an age where they know what’s going on. Watching that video and trying to explain it to them makes you realize that I don’t know what the hell is going on either.”
The NBA postponed last Saturday’s game between the Timberwolves and Warriors “to prioritize the safety and security of the Minneapolis community” after the shooting of Pretti, according to a statement from the league.
The game was made up on Sunday, with anti-ICE chants echoing through Target Center at the end of a pregame moment of silence for Pretti. The day before Pretti’s death, mass protests had been held in Minneapolis speaking out against the federal government’s deployment of ICE to enforce Donald Trump’s immigration policy. Renee Good was shot and killed on Jan. 7 in Minneapolis amid the crackdown.
“For the second time in less than three weeks, we’ve lost another beloved member of our community in the most unimaginable way,” Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said through tears on Sunday. “As an organization, we are heartbroken for what we are having to witness and endure and watch. We just want to extend our thoughts, prayers and concern for Mr. Pretti, family, all the loved ones and everyone involved in such an unconscionable situation in a community that we really love, full of people who are, by nature, peaceful and prideful. We just stand in support of our great community here.”
Adelman, 44, was an assistant coach for the Timberwolves under his father, Naismith Hall of Famer Rick Adelman, from 2011-16. It was his first job in the NBA in a career that eventually led him to Denver, where he replaced Michael Malone as the Nuggets’ head coach in April.
In Denver, protesters held a rally against ICE and the Trump administration’s immigration policy on Sunday at the Capitol.
“It’s not about politics,” Adelman said. “It’s about human beings just taking care of each other, even if you don’t agree with each other. So yeah, extremely hard to watch. … I just hope we can figure it out. It’s supposed to be a bipartisan country. Hopefully, we can do that, come together. Whatever your main political views are, let’s not shoot each other.”
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Bennett Durando
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Letters: One-time wealth tax won’t provide a long-term fix
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Submit your letter to the editor via this form. Read more Letters to the Editor.
One-time tax won’t provide long-term fix
Re: “High-stakes wealth tax proposal roils uber rich” (Page A1, Jan. 25).
The proposed Billionaire Tax Act, imposing a one-time 5% tax on the total wealth of Californians whose net worth is $1 billion or more, needs reconsideration.
Certainly, anyone with $1 billion (or more) has more than enough to live very comfortably, but there is an approach that would be less onerous to the billionaires and more helpful to the state.
A one-time 5% tax would bring in a windfall for the state — once. And since it would be a one-off, it would likely just get spent on one-off types of things, providing no long-term benefit.
Far better would be an annual wealth tax of, say, 0.5%. That’s just pulling a number out of the air, but the point is that it would generate a steady source of income — and not come as a jolt, one-time though it might be, to those being taxed.
James Bangsund
San JoseWealth tax wouldn’t cost state billionaires
Re: “High-stakes wealth tax proposal roils uber rich” (Page A1, Jan. 25).
Once again, we hear billionaires are fleeing California because of the possibility of a one-time 5% tax, but billionaires aren’t moving to buggy, high-humidity states. They are moving their LLCs to Nevada for “more flexible tax planning.” Buying a house in Florida doesn’t mean moving your life there. It means counting days to be able to pretend you don’t reside in California.
They pay lawyers and accountants to avoid paying taxes even if paying the taxes would be cheaper. Zero tax is the goal. California taxes income, not unrealized wealth, which is why so much billionaire wealth escapes taxation. A temporary tax won’t start an exodus.
So no, California won’t lose the billionaires. They aren’t making California weather anywhere else. I don’t care whether they enact this law or not — it won’t make any difference.
Diane Brauch
Los Altos HillsCompetition would boost state education
Re: “School district to cut dozens of jobs amid outcry” (Page A1, Jan. 26).
It’s clear that our government schools need competition. Denying the most important demographic in our country the opportunity to participate, along with their parents, in a competitive system denies them the chance to do well. The government schools are failing our students.
More tax money, more government and more unions won’t help. Parents and students need to be able to choose the school that will serve them the best. Competition benefits the consumer. This may be a new concept to some, but it’s a very important one. Politicians and school officials can talk all they want about insufficient taxes, but money alone won’t fix the problem.
Thomas Baker
San JoseSchools must provide classroom supplies
Teachers have to request basic classroom supplies through donation sites or fundraisers instead of receiving them from the school.
This is happening at schools in Cupertino Union School District, such as Miller Middle and Warren E. Hyde Middle, where teachers post projects asking for items such as art supplies, books and classroom tools. Teachers should have the materials they need without having to rely on donations.
I believe the school district should ensure that every classroom has all the basic supplies required. If the district provided these resources, teachers could focus fully on teaching, and students at Miller and other nearby schools would benefit. This issue affects not only our schools, but schools around the world.
I am writing this letter to encourage the government to make sure classrooms are properly supported.
Adithi Nimmagadda
San JoseWhat is Trump’s endgame with ICE?
I closely watch the news. I mostly watch MS NOW, or whatever NBC cable calls itself today. I’d watch right-wingers like Fox or Newsmax too, but can’t get past 30 seconds without hearing Trump-inspired lies.
What is striking is that no one, even the left, is connecting all the dots to expose Donald Trump’s goal of imposing military rule by provoking insurrection. He isn’t about migrants, deportation or even protest control. He doesn’t care who his thugs shoot. He only cares if they shoot back. This is what he’s waiting for. Once he gets the Army and Marines on your nearest corner, he has them where he needs them to control access to polling places later this year.
Mark my words: the pressure will remain until someone shoots and kills a Trump ICE agent. A nationwide Insurrection Act declaration will follow before the body is even cold.
Robert Wahler
San JoseTrump is given rope that will hang us all
Clay Bennett’s cartoon, pointing out the relationship between the Epstein file redactions and the flurry of new dramas, while not “funny,” does make chilling sense.
What I don’t understand is why our constitutional guardrails haven’t kicked in. Greenland, Venezuela, Iran, Minneapolis, plus our health care and pocketbooks, have created a world of chaos.
When Joe Biden demonstrated age-related decline at the debate, the nation was quick to anger and dump him. Now we have a president who repeatedly lies, insults people worldwide, is obviously in poor physical health and also shows age-related mental decline, and he is allowed to paint it all over in gold.
As I protest, lawfully, I hope I don’t get shot.
Lura Halbert
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Letters To The Editor
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Newsom Opens TikTok Censorship Investigation After Complaints
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The inquiry comes less than a week after a coalition of Trump-aligned investors took control of the platform’s U.S. operations
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is launching an investigation into TikTok’s censorship practices after users reported being unable to post content critical of the Trump administration.
The inquiry comes less than a week after TikTok struck a deal with a group of non-Chinese investors to create a U.S. TikTok, ending a six-year legal saga that saw Congress ban the popular social media app over national security concerns.
U.S. TikTok’s new owners feature several Trump-aligned companies, including Oracle, run by longtime Trump ally Larry Ellison, and MGX, an Emirati investment firm, heightening concerns about censorship.
It’s time to investigate.
I am launching a review into whether TikTok is violating state law by censoring Trump-critical content. https://t.co/AZ2mWW68xa
— Governor Gavin Newsom (@CAgovernor) January 27, 2026
Some TikTok users reported being unable to mention Jeffrey Epstein in direct messages, while others, including Hacks star Megan Stalter and singer-songwriter Billie Eilish, said content criticizing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was barred on the platform.
“TikTok is under new ownership and we are being completely censored and monitored,” Stalter wrote. “I’m unable to upload anything about 🧊 even after I tried to trick the page by making it look like a comedy video.”
Stalter has since deleted her TikTok account and encouraged her followers to delete the app in protest.
Journalist David Leavitt wrote on X that “TikTok had begun censoring anti-Trump and anti-ICE content,” sharing a screenshot of videos on his profile that had been flagged as “Ineligible for Recommendation.”
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Another user saw his comments on videos removed for expressing anti-Nazi rhetoric and pro-Palestine viewpoints.
None of the users’ claims could be independently verified by Los Angeles Magazine.
I know this is out of character for me, but I’m speaking up.
I made this post (left) on my TikTok story.
Less than an hour later, it was replaced with a black screen (right).
TikTok is now fully censored by the U.S. government. pic.twitter.com/yc21BQZ49e
— BarleyTheBurr (@BarleyTheBurr) January 25, 2026
Conversations surrounding social media censorship have risen in prominence since Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022 and rebranded the platform as X.
Musk, a self-described “free speech absolutist,” fired the platform’s content moderation team soon after taking control of the company, accusing the department of silencing conservative voices.
“For Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally,” Musk wrote on the platform shortly after the acquisition.
Despite the tech billionaire’s claims of transforming X into a “free speech app,” Musk has been accused of “silencing his critics” on the site by banning journalists and political commentators while tweaking the platform’s algorithm to promote conservative viewpoints.
Many Democrats fear Oracle and MGX could reshape TikTok in ways similar to Elon Musk’s changes at X.
“I know it’s hard to track all the threats to democracy out there right now, but this is at the top of the list,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) wrote on X.
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This is an AI-manipulated image of Alex Pretti
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Despite video evidence that Minneapolis nurse Alex Pretti was holding his phone before immigration officers shot and killed him, an image spreading on social media appears to show him wielding a handgun.
The Department of Homeland Security said Border Patrol officers shot the 37 year old in self-defense after Pretti approached them with “a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun.”
Retired U.S. Gen. Raymond A. “Tony” Thomas III, shared the purported image of Pretti holding a gun on X. The image shows Pretti holding something resembling a handgun in his right hand. The account shared the photo without a caption in response to Jan. 25 statements about the incident from Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Facebook, Instagram and Threads users also shared the image.
But it’s AI-generated.
(Screenshot of the AI-generated image)
Video evidence of the shooting shows Pretti holding his phone, not his handgun, before agents tackled him and removed his weapon. Multiple videos show different angles of the incident where Pretti is holding a phone.
The AI version is similar to footage showing Pretti held by agents; the manipulated version may have stemmed from a user asking an AI tool to “enhance” a screenshot of the footage. (Users also enhanced images after a federal immigration agent shot Renee Good. Users asked X’s artificial intelligence, Grok, to reveal the face of the agent, creating the image of a completely different person. ) AI often distorts images in response to user requests to enhance them.
PolitiFact uploaded the image to Gemini, Google’s AI tool. It found the image contains the SynthID watermark for images created or edited by the tool. It’s not visible looking at the image, but Google’s technology can detect it.
Oren Etzioni, founder of TrueMedia, an organization that focuses on detecting false or manipulated AI content, said the image has many signs of AI manipulation.
They include:
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The kneeling officer is missing a head.
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The hands and fingers of the people in the image are distorted and disproportionate.
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Knees, arms and torsos appear dislocated.
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The clothing textures and shadows don’t fully align with the lighting direction.
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The rifle on the kneeling officer appears partially embedded into the ground.
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The granular asphalt doesn’t match videos of the scene that show a paved road layered with dirt and snow.
The New York Times and other news outlets reported that authenticated footage shows an agent removed Pretti’s gun from his belt holster. The Times also said witnesses corroborated the details in the videos.
We rate claims the image shared on X is a real photo of Pretti False.
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Lawmakers call for change in federal response in Minneapolis
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Changes are coming to federal immigration enforcement in Minnesota.
Days after the shooting death of Alex Pretti by federal agents, the Trump administration pulled back Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino from the state and brought in border czar Tom Homan instead.
Some have suggested the move sidelines Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, but President Donald Trump has said he still supports her in that role.
“She absolutely should be fired by the president,” said Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Massachusetts.
President Donald Trump talked about the killing of Alex Pretti while visting a restaurant in Iowa.
Democrats believe this is a critical moment. Moulton traveled to Minneapolis on Tuesday and spoke with NBC10 Boston shortly after landing, applauding the president’s most recent steps, but couching that praise with a stark reminder.
“I guess there’s a little bit of hope in some of the actions that the administration is taking, but let’s be clear, they’re only taking these actions because two American patriots are dead on the streets of Minneapolis,” he said.
The congressman is in Minnesota in an official capacity carrying out Congressional oversight duties.
“This could be coming to Massachusetts next, so we need to be prepared, and there’s no better way to prepare for Massachusetts than to understand what’s going on in Minneapolis,” Moulton said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said President Trump has not labeled Alex Pretti a domestic terrorist and will let the investigation determine the facts.
Others, like fellow Democratic Rep. Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts, are calling on Congress to act.
“The president is starting to buckle,” said Auchincloss. “Which means that those of us who support the Constitution and civil rights and due process need to press even harder.”
The White House has faced similar criticism from Republicans in the wake of this weekend’s shooting. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, both Republicans, joined a chorus of Democratic lawmakers calling for Noem’s resignation, NBC News reported Tuesday.
Local GOP strategists say the recent pivot in Minnesota is warranted.
“I think the president, taking the initiative to understand that tensions are probably higher than anybody anticipated it becoming, I think he did the right thing,” said Republican strategist Ozzie Palomo.
Even so, Trump maintains immigration enforcement is needed in Minnesota and beyond. “We can’t lose sight of the fact,” he told reporters before departing the White House.
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DHS Secretary Kristi Noem under scrutiny as Bovino exits Minnesota
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Minneapolis mayor, police chief meet with border czar
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Police Chief Brian O’Hara met Tuesday morning with Border Czar Tom Homan, according to the mayor’s office.
The meeting came just hours after Homan met with Gov. Tim Walz.
In a statement Tuesday afternoon, Frey said he “appreciated” the conversation, noting he pressed Homan on the urgent need to end Operation Metro Surge, and stressed the toll its taken on his city’s officers, residents and the entire Twin Cities community.
“I also made it clear that Minneapolis does not and will not enforce federal immigration laws, and that we will remain focused on keeping our neighbors and streets safe,” Frey said. “City leaders will continue to stay in conversation with Mr. Homan and his team.”
Walz said earlier Tuesday he and Homan “agreed on the need for an ongoing dialogue and will continue working toward” goals the governor said he discussed Monday in a phone call with President Trump.
Sources tell WCCO that the meetings between Homan, Walz and Frey were purposefully low profile with no press or pictures as part of an overall effort by local officials and the Trump administration to bring down tensions.
Homan is known as an immigration and deportation hardliner but in an interview earlier this month with CBS News Anchor Tony Dokoupil, he took a more measured response to the Renee Good shooting, which had happened earlier that day.
“It would be unprofessional to comment on what I think happened in that situation. Let the investigation play out and hold people accountable based on the investigation,” he said on Jan. 7.
Judge blocks ICE from deporting or transferring 5-year-old boy and his father
A federal judge has blocked ICE from deporting 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father or transferring them away from the Texas region where they’re currently held.
Liam and his father were taken into custody in Minnesota earlier this month as part of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation captured on videos and photos that went viral and sparked outrage.
Liam and his father are currently detained at the Dilley ICE detention center for families with underage children.
We exclusively reported last week that the government could not legally deport the family for now, because they have pending immigration court cases.The Columbia Heights Public School District says 5-year-old Liam Ramos was taken with his father while in their driveway after just arriving home from his preschool classroom. School officials claimed the child was used by agents to knock on the door and ask to be let in, letting officers see if anyone else was home.
As community outrage grew, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin claimed that “ICE did NOT target a child,” and said he was instead abandoned by his father. They say his father fled federal agents as they approached his vehicle, leaving the child.
DHS officials allege that the father, whom they described as an illegal immigrant from Ecuador, was taken into custody as other ICE officers stayed with the child.
Border Patrol involved in shooting in Arizona; person in critical condition
A person was in critical condition after a shooting involving the U.S. Border Patrol in Arizona on Tuesday, CBS affiliate KOLD-TV reported.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department said on social media it was responding to the shooting in Arivaca, an unincorporated community about 60 miles south of Tucson, close to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Details are limited.
Heads of ICE, CBP and USCIS set to testify at House hearing on Feb. 10
Leaders of three immigration enforcement agencies are set to testify before the House Homeland Security Committee next month following a pair of deadly shootings by federal agents in Minneapolis, the panel announced on Tuesday.
Chairman Andrew Garbarino, a New York Republican, said that Todd Lyons, the acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, had agreed to testify, along with Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow. The hearing is scheduled for Feb. 10.
Jeffries says House Democrats will move to impeach Noem if Trump doesn’t fire her
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Tuesday that Democrats will move to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem if she is not fired, marking a shift in how party leadership is handling the effort to confront the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
“Kristi Noem should be fired immediately, or we will commence impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives,” the New York Democrat said in a statement. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
The statement was released with Democratic Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar of California.
Democratic Rep. Robin Kelly of Illinois introduced an impeachment resolution on Jan. 14, a week after Renee Good was shot and killed by an ICE officer in Minneapolis. The impeachment effort has picked up steam since Border Patrol agents fatally shot Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday.
ICE and CBP would keep operating during a shutdown, despite DHS funding fight
Senate Democrats are threatening to block a package to fund major parts of the government this week, including the Department of Homeland Security, following the deadly shooting of a man by federal agents in Minneapolis.
But a partial government shutdown would likely have little impact on the administration’s ongoing immigration enforcement operations, since the relevant DHS agencies received a massive funding infusion in President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year. The immigration enforcement agencies would have the funds to continue operating uninterrupted, even if other parts of the government shut down.
Gov. Tim Walz meets with border czar Tom Homan
Gov. Tim Walz’s office confirmed late Tuesday morning that he has met with border czar Tom Homan.
President Trump on Monday announced that Homan will go to Minneapolis following the fatal shooting of ICU nurse Alex Pretti.
“He has not been involved in that area, but knows and likes many of the people there,” Mr. Trump said. “Tom is tough but fair, and will report directly to me.”
Walz’s office released the following statement on the visit with Homan:
“Governor Walz met with Tom Homan this morning and reiterated Minnesota’s priorities: impartial investigations into the Minneapolis shootings involving federal agents, a swift, significant reduction in the number of federal forces in Minnesota, and an end to the campaign of retribution against Minnesota.
“The Governor and Homan agreed on the need for an ongoing dialogue and will continue working toward those goals, which the President also agreed to yesterday. The Governor tasked the Minnesota Department of Public Safety as the primary liaison to Homan to ensure these goals are met.”
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey also said he will be meeting with Homan to discuss next steps.
Alex Pretti’s sister releases statement: “When does this end?”
CBS News obtained the following statement from Alex Pretti’s sister, Micayla Pretti:
“Alex was kind, generous, and had a way of lighting up every room he walked into. He was incredibly intelligent and deeply passionate, and he made people feel safe. But most importantly, he was my brother. I had the privilege of being his little sister for 32 years. I will never be able to hug him, laugh with him, or cry to him again because of those thugs—and that is a pain no words can fully capture.
“Alex always wanted to make a difference in this world, and it’s devastating that he won’t be here to witness the impact he was making. Through his work at the VA caring for the sickest patients, and passion to advance cancer research, he touched more lives than he probably ever realized. All Alex ever wanted was to help someone—anyone. Even in his very last moments on this earth, he was simply trying to do just that.
“I want to thank everyone who has reached out to my family and me, whether you knew Alex personally or not. The messages, posts, and overwhelming positivity shared about him truly reflect his character, work ethic, and passions. My brother is, and always will be, my hero.
“When does this end? How many more innocent lives must be lost before we say enough? Hearing disgusting lies spread about my brother is absolutely gut-wrenching, and my family is deeply grateful so many people have stood up and helped tell his truth. He would be very proud.”
Milan mayor calls ICE “a militia that kills,” says agents not welcome as part of U.S. Olympic security
The mayor of Milan, Giuseppe Sala, spoke out Tuesday amid reports that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents would have a security role during the upcoming Winter Olympic Games, which are set to begin in Milan on Feb. 6.
“This is a militia that kills,” Sala said in an interview with Italian media. “It’s a militia that enters people’s homes by signing permits for themselves. … It’s clear that they’re not welcome in Milan, there’s no doubt about that.”
Minnesota judge orders ICE chief to appear in court, warns of possible contempt proceedings
The chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Minnesota ordered the acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to appear in his courtroom in-person on Friday and explain why he should not be held in contempt of court for violating an earlier order.
Judge Patrick Schiltz wrote in a brief three-page order that the Trump administration has failed to comply with “dozens” of court orders in recent weeks, which has resulted in “significant hardship” to immigrants who have been arrested and detained as part of Operation Metro Surge.
Georgia Sen. Warnock to visit Alex Pretti memorial, meet with faith leaders
Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock plans to travel to Minneapolis Tuesday to visit a memorial for Alex Pretti and meet with faith leaders, CBS News has confirmed. The trip comes days after Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse at the Department of Veterans Affairs, was shot and killed Saturday in south Minneapolis by a U.S. Border Patrol agent.
Federal judge again declines to grant restraining order against DHS in Minnesota
A federal judge on Monday declined to issue a decision in Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s bid to end to Operation Metro Surge.
The state of Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul are seeking a temporary restraining order in their lawsuit against Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other Trump administration officials, arguing the influx of thousands of immigration agents to the state has caused “tremendous damage.”
Tricia McLaughlin, U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s assistant secretary, previously called the suit “baseless.”
Judge Kate Menendez, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, said at the end of Monday’s hearing she is going to take the time “to do everything I can to get it right” on whatever final decision she makes.
Sales surge at Minneapolis bookstore after resonating photo of owner at protest
Greg Ketter has spent nearly five decades selling comic books and science fiction novels at DreamHaven Books and Comics in Minneapolis. This week, his phone hasn’t stopped ringing.
Ketter said his store has seen a surge of online orders and messages of support after a photo of him at a recent protest circulated widely on social media. The image appears to show Ketter moving through a cloud of tear gas during a demonstration following the killing of Alex Pretti, which happened just minutes away from his store.
Ketter said he went to the protest after learning about Pretti’s death.
Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus president analyzes fatal shooting of Alex Pretti
There are several angles of the deadly shooting of Alex Pretti online.
Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse who was killed in Minneapolis on Saturday, had a permit to carry. WCCO talked with Rob Doar, a firearms instructor and president of the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, about the incident.
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Anti-ICE agitators arrested outside Minnesota hotel as police declare unlawful assembly: ‘No longer peaceful’
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Police in Minnesota began arresting anti-ICE agitators outside a hotel Monday after authorities said the demonstration escalated and was “no longer considered peaceful,” prompting officers to declare an unlawful assembly.
The demonstrators were outside the SpringHill Suites by Marriott in Maple Grove, Minnesota, where they believed U.S. Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino was staying.
President Donald Trump announced Bovino and many of his agents would be leaving Minneapolis as part of a reshuffling of leadership in carrying out his immigration crackdown amid bipartisan scrutiny over the immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis that intensified after agents killed an American recording Border Patrol activity over the weekend.
Border Czar Tom Homan is expected to now lead the effort in the state.
Demonstrators stand against law enforcement officers during a protest outside SpringHill Suites and Residence Inn by Marriott hotels on Monday, Jan. 26, 2026, in Maple Grove, Minnesota. (AP)
Maple Grove police said officers responded on Monday to reports of a protest at the hotel and that the protest escalated when agitators allegedly began throwing objects at officers and damaging property.
After police declared an unlawful assembly and issued a dispersal order, several people who refused to leave were arrested, authorities said.
“The Maple Grove Police Department respects and upholds the First Amendment rights of individuals to peacefully assemble and express their views. Our priority remains the safety and security of all residents, visitors, and property within our community,” a spokesperson for the police department said in a statement to KSTP.
“At that point, the activity was no longer considered peaceful. Individuals participating in criminal acts are not protected under the First Amendment and were subject to arrest,” the spokesperson added.
Maple Grove police officers stand during a protest outside SpringHill Suites and Residence Inn by Marriott hotels on Monday, Jan. 26, 2026, in Maple Grove, Minnesota. (AP)
The Minnesota State Patrol, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office and Hennepin Public Order Group all responded to the scene to assist Maple Grove officers.
The move to pull Bovino from Minneapolis came after he had faced backlash over his unsubstantiated claims that Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old U.S. citizen killed by Border Patrol agents, intended to “massacre” law enforcement, a characterization the White House has distanced the president from.
Pretti was shot and killed on Saturday by Border Patrol agents while recording federal immigration operations in Minneapolis. An ICU nurse, Pretti appeared to be attempting to attend to a woman agents knocked down when he was sprayed with an irritant, pushed to the ground and beaten. An agent was seen pulling Pretti’s gun from his waistband before other agents fired several shots and killed him.
Some reports stated Bovino was removed from his role as Border Patrol “commander-at-large” and will return to his former job as chief patrol agent in El Centro, California, but Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said he has “NOT been relieved of his duties” and remains a “key part of the President’s team.”
Law enforcement officers stand during a protest outside SpringHill Suites and Residence Inn by Marriott hotels on Monday, Jan. 26, 2026, in Maple Grove, Minnesota. (AP)
Bovino also reportedly had access to his social media accounts stripped over his public comments.
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The White House also sought to distance itself from comments by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who called Pretti a “domestic terrorist,” and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller, who labeled the man as a “would-be assassin,” with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt saying she has “not heard the president characterize” Pretti that way.
The shooting of Pretti followed recent unrest over the ICE-involved killing of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis earlier this month.
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Minnesota Killing Produces Backlash Against Trump Administration From Second Amendment Advocates
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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 U.S. citizen and protester killed this month by a federal officer in Minneapolis, as 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 Donald 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’ Second 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 Second 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 czar 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!).”
Swift reactions from gun rights advocates
The National Rifle Association, 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 that, “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 First and Second 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 “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 counter-protester acquitted after fatally shooting two men and injuring another in Kenosha, Wisconsin, 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 Second 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 reticent 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 last fall. Asked Monday whether Pretti’s death and the Minneapolis protests might affect debate, an aide to Speaker Mike Johnson 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, from rolling back gun-free zones around schools and churches to 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 following the Pretti shooting. Trump’s vacillating, he said, is “very likely to cost them dearly with the core of a constituency they count on.”
Associated Press writer Kimberlee Kruesi in Providence, Rhode Island, contributed to this report.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Photos You Should See – January 2026
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There isn’t evidence that Minnesota protesters are paid
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With throngs of people in Minnesota protesting the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement surge, President Donald Trump and some of his allies repeatedly described the protesters as paid.
“The thugs that are protesting include many highly paid professional agitators and anarchists,” he said Jan. 18 on Truth Social.
“They’re paid agitators and insurrectionists,” Trump said at a Jan. 20 press conference.
The next day in Davos, Switzerland, Trump said the “fake” protests were “done by agitators and professional insurrectionists. … They’re professional troublemakers.”
He added, “We are looking very strong at the money, too, in Minnesota and other places.”
We asked the White House for Trump’s evidence about “paid” protesters and received no response. Although some people on social media have provided what they said is evidence of such activity, we found none of the claims held up to scrutiny.
Yet Trump’s claim has become a talking point among his leaders and supporters. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on CBS “Face the Nation” that Minneapolis is distinct from other cities, where she said officials didn’t see “funded protesters.”
Vice President JD Vance at a Jan. 8 White House press briefing asked, “When somebody throws a brick at an ICE agent or somebody tries to run over an ICE agent, who paid for the brick?” (Bricks are commonly falsely described as evidence of organized, paid protests.)
Interviewed Jan. 13 on CNN’s “The Source” about Renee Good’s fatal shooting by an ICE officer, Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., called for an investigation of “paid protesters, and who’s paying them to obstruct federal officers from doing their job.”
Minnesotans have responded to immigration agents’ presence in their communities for weeks. The protests have been widely covered and there’s no evidence any of it is staged. None of these politicians explained who they believed was underwriting the protests.
Experts told us that the majority of protesters are locals showing their dissent. We found a large volunteer protest movement in the Twin Cities.
Yohuru Williams, a historian and director of the Racial Justice Initiative at Minnesota’s University of St. Thomas, told PolitiFact in an email that “most protesters are residents of the state who are concerned not only about the presence of ICE in the state but also the President’s usurpation of power.”
People participate in a protest and noise demonstration calling for an end to federal immigration enforcement operations in the city, Jan. 9, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP)
How Minnesotans are protesting immigration action
The Twin Cities have a long tradition of community organizing among civic groups and institutions. Labor unions, faith-based groups and immigrant organizations have played roles in resisting the federal immigration operation in Minnesota. Groups have staged high school walkouts, marches and sign-waving demonstrations.
The group Singing Resistance holds peaceful vigils with singing. Volunteers have donated to food drives and delivered groceries to families scared to leave their homes. The Smitten Kitten, a Minnesota shop that sells sex products, has collected food, diapers and other necessities for immigrants staying at home. St. Paul’s Mischief Toy Store distributed free whistles for people to alert others to ICE activity. Restaurants offered special menu items such as “f— ICE cold brew” to raise money for an immigrant rights group.
Jillian Hiscock, owner of the women’s sports-themed A Bar of Their Own, told PolitiFact the protesters are not paid.
“We’ve had folks from literally every walk of life stopping in to make posters and grab whistles — families with small children, bundled up seniors with walking canes that we helped create a necklace for their sign so they wouldn’t have to hold onto anything, and everything in between,” Hiscock said in an email.
Hiscock said she has heard many people who are protesting now say they never took action in the past, and the descriptions of “paid protesters” aim to undermine their voices.
“I truly think it’s a made-up sentiment to try to minimize the groundswell of the movement here on the ground,” Hiscock said.
Neighbors joined Signal chats to alert each other to immigration enforcement actions nearby and take action. The Monarca Movement has held “upstander” trainings to teach people how to record video of immigration agents or how to respond if agents leave behind a child or abandon a car during an arrest.
On Jan. 23, thousands of people marched in downtown Minneapolis in subzero temperatures before rallying at the Target Center. Earlier in the day, about 100 clergy members were arrested in an airport protest. Hundreds of businesses closed Jan. 23 for the “ICE Out of Minnesota Day of Truth and Freedom” event.
Describing the weather that day on air, Minnesota Vikings radio announcer Paul Allen joked about protesters getting “hazard pay.” Three days later, he apologized after backlash, calling it “a cheap one-liner” and “insensitive and poorly timed,” and said he would take a few days off.
Danielle K. Brown, a Michigan State University journalism professor who formerly worked at the University of Minnesota, told PolitiFact in an email, “There is no evidence of philanthropic efforts funding expansive civilian protest efforts.”
Professional community organizers have been involved in the protests, which is normal for all protests, Brown said. Groups with different ideologies routinely speak at such events.
However, “The majority of protesters are still locals who do not get paid to engage in protest and resistance work,” Brown said.
Generally, it’s not uncommon for groups to distribute signs.
Timothy Zick, a First Amendment expert and William & Mary law professor, said residents of the community were protesting “what they view as lawless misconduct by ICE agents.” He said the Trump administration’s descriptions of paid protesters are “baseless” and aim to diminish and dismiss dissent.
Critics of 2024’s Israel-Gaza campus protests and 2025’s anti-Trump “Hands Off” protests in Washington, D.C., also used the term “outside agitators” or other terms, but our reporting found the claims lacked merit. Zick previously told PolitiFact the description has been used throughout history to discredit large historical movements, regardless of how peaceful they were.
Attendees hold signs during a rally against federal immigration enforcement at Target Center on Jan. 23, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP)
These videos aren’t evidence protesters are getting paid
Social media users amplified allegations that professional protesters or agitators are in Minnesota to make money. When we reviewed their posts’ evidence, we found they were generated with artificial intelligence or recycled content from years ago.
In one example, an artificial intelligence-generated video shared on TikTok claimed to show conservative influencer Nick Shirley interviewing a protester in Minneapolis, who says he’s jobless but is getting $20 an hour to protest. The video has a watermark for Sora, OpenAI’s video-generating platform. It came from an account which has shared many other AI-generated videos.
(Screenshot of TikTok post showing Sora watermark.)
In another example, an X post shared photos of documents it said were contract paperwork for paid protesters. “This is 100% proof that NONE of the Democrat protests are organic,” the Jan. 20 post said. “They can all be IGNORED because they are FAKE.”
The same images were shared in previous years, including in a 2018 blog post claiming to show proof that protesters were paid to plan the 2015 Baltimore riots; in 2020 to claim people protesting George Floyd’s murder were following a manual; and in 2024 by Shirley to falsely claim paid protesters were marching outside of the Democratic National Convention to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.
(Screenshot of page of a fake contract for paid protesters.)
One Fox News video was shared widely as if it showed one protester’s admission she had been paid. In it, Fox News host Laura Ingraham stood in the streets of Minneapolis questioning a protester who was shouting, “Shame! Shame! Shame!” in front of the camera. “Do you have a job?” Ingraham asked the woman, whose face was partially covered by a scarf. “I’m getting paid right now,” the protester answered. Ingraham flashed a thumbs up to the camera. PolitiFact couldn’t confirm the protester’s identity or motives and we found no further reporting on the incident.
Our ruling
Trump said protesters against the federal immigration crackdown in Minnesota are conducting “fake protests done by agitators and professional insurrectionists. …They’re professional troublemakers.”
Minnesotans have been protesting immigration agents in their communities for weeks. Some professional community organizers are involved in the protests but evidence shows a large volunteer protest movement in the Twin Cities.The accusation that protesters are “paid” is a frequent talking point to dismiss the legitimacy of grassroots activism and criticism of the government.
The social media posts we found that claimed to show evidence of paid protesters were either AI-generated, recycled conspiracy theories or unsubstantiated.
We rate this statement False.
RELATED: In Context: What did Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey say about police fighting ICE?
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What We Know About the Investigations Into the Minneapolis Shooting Death of Alex Pretti
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The fatal shooting over the weekend of a Minneapolis man has prompted calls for a thorough independent investigation into the second death at the hands of federal immigration officers since the Trump administration began its large-scale operation in the city late last year.
But many of the investigation’s details, including the identities of the officers involved and precisely what evidence is being examined, remain unclear even as tensions soar in Minneapolis over the death of Alex Pretti, 37, an ICU nurse.
Any investigation into the details of the shooting will likely be highly scrutinized. The Trump administration has been quick to cast Pretti as an armed instigator, although videos emerging from the scene and local officials contradict that claim.
Here’s a look at what’s known about the investigation into the shooting and what’s not:
The White House says three federal investigations into the shooting are underway.
During a briefing Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI were investigating the shooting and U.S. Customs and Border Protection was “conducting their own internal review.”
“As President (Donald) Trump said yesterday, the administration is reviewing everything with respect to the shooting, and we will let that investigation play out,” Leavitt added, without providing additional details on the probes.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, which normally plays a key role in any case in which a federal law enforcement officer kills a civilian, is instead only lending support in processing physical evidence from the scene, such as Pretti’s gun.
Historically, the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department investigates shootings of civilians by law enforcement officers for potential criminal violations, but there’s no indication that they intend to do so in Pretti’s case. In the case of Renee Good, who was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis on Jan. 7, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement earlier this month that “there is currently no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation.”
Gil Kerlikowske, who headed Customs and Border Protection during the Obama administration, said that when he was at the agency, if a Border Patrol agent used deadly force on the job, it would be “routine” for the FBI to conduct a criminal civil rights investigation, even in cases where the force may have been justified and even if the probe wouldn’t necessarily lead to prosecution.
Kerlikowske also questioned why Homeland Security Investigations, an arm within DHS that traditionally probes cross-border issues like drug smuggling and human trafficking, would take a lead role in this investigation.
“This isn’t something that HSI has real expertise or does at all,” said Kerlikowske. “Shooting and use of force and potential criminal liability is not something that would be in their portfolio.”
Videos, firearms and questions about Pretti’s phone
FBI Director Kash Patel said Sunday on Fox News that the agency will be assisting HSI by “processing physical evidence.”
Patel said they’re in possession of “the firearm, which is going to go to our laboratory,” in reference to Pretti’s gun.
But Patel made no reference to whether the bureau had gathered the firearms of the officers or agents who were on the scene or what other evidence the FBI was processing.
DHS officials did not respond to questions Monday about whether they are in possession of Pretti’s phone or whether they have recovered the video he was recording when he was killed.
Pretti’s family told The Associated Press they don’t have the phone and don’t know where it is. Pretti’s father, Michael Pretti, said Monday the family had still not been contacted by or provided any information by federal law enforcement.
Investigators also have an extensive array of videos to sift through, including multiple videos shot by activists and protesters at the scene.
Use-of-force experts have said that bystander video undermined federal authorities’ claim that Pretti “approached” a group of lawmen with a firearm and that a Border Patrol officer opened fire “defensively.” There has been no evidence made public, they said, that supports a claim by Border Patrol senior official Greg Bovino that Pretti, who had a permit to carry a concealed handgun, intended to “massacre law enforcement.”
Investigators have video from at least four Border Patrol agents on the scene who were wearing body cameras, said DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin. Those videos have not been made public.
Neither have the identities of the Border Patrol agents involved. The officer who shot the man is an eight-year Border Patrol veteran, federal officials said Saturday.
State officials say they are being shut out
The incident has shined a light on the increasing mistrust between officials in the state and the Trump administration over who should take the lead in investigating.
Drew Evans, superintendent of Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which investigates police shootings, told reporters Saturday that federal officers had blocked his agency from the scene of the shooting even after it obtained a signed judicial warrant.
“We will continue to investigate this case and others that we have recently been involved with. But I would be remiss if I didn’t state that it would be difficult to obtain all of the evidence and information obtained without cooperation,” Evans said Saturday.
A federal judge has already issued an order blocking the Trump administration from “destroying or altering evidence” related to the shooting after state and county officials sued.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said the lawsuit filed Saturday is meant to preserve evidence collected by federal officials that state authorities have not yet been able to inspect.
McLaughlin dismissed the lawsuit, saying claims that the federal government would destroy evidence are “a ridiculous attempt to divide the American people and distract from the fact that our law enforcement officers were attacked — and their lives were threatened.”
Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Tim Walz said he called for an impartial investigation in a phone call with Trump Monday.
Trump, in an earlier social media post, said after their call he and Walz “seemed to be on a similar wavelength,” although he did not mention the investigations. Later, Leavitt said Trump supports the probes that are underway.
Associated Press writers Michael Biesecker and Eric Tucker contributed.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Photos You Should See – January 2026
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