For nearly two months, Minnesota has been the target of the largest operation of U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, with 3,000 federal agents flooding the state and arresting at least 3,000 people for deportation.
Since Jan. 7, it has been the site of the most furious and sustained resistance to Mr. Trump of his second term so far, after Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Jonathan Ross gunned down Renee Nicole Macklin Good, a mother of three, near a spontaneous anti-ICE protest on a snowy Minneapolis street.
And this weekend in the city, a Border Patrol agent shot to death Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse – like Ms. Good, a U.S. citizen – touching off a protest as angry crowds confronted federal officers, who opened fire with pepper balls and tear gas.
Now, both sides are digging in.
Kristi Noem, Mr. Trump’s Secretary of Homeland Security, is accusing Mr. Pretti of “domestic terrorism,” despite video that shows him doing nothing more than recording officers on his phone before they tackled him. At the spot where he died, meanwhile, protesters said his death had only steeled their resolve to keep fighting until federal forces leave.
“It’s a war zone here,” Nicole Wehr, a 50-year-old social worker, told The Globe and Mail on Sunday as she stood next to a sidewalk memorial for Mr. Pretti. “To President Trump and his three-ring circus: Stop killing us, get out, stay away from us.”
Federal officers shot and killed a man in Minneapolis amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, according to a hospital record obtained by the Associated Press. Minneapolis Gov. Tim Walz said in a social media post that he had been in contact with the White House after the shooting.
The Associated Press
It all means that the clashes in this Midwestern state of 5.8 million may be about to intensify, even as the struggle extends to Washington, where Democratic legislators threatened to partially shut down the government to cut off funds to Mr. Trump’s immigration sweeps.
Mr. Pretti was killed shortly after 9 a.m. Saturday on Nicollet Avenue, a commercial street south of downtown Minneapolis. Videos from the scene show people blaring car horns, shouting and blowing whistles, tactics employed to alert residents to the presence of federal officers in a neighbourhood.
Mr. Pretti, who worked in the intensive care unit of a hospital for war veterans, appeared to be videoing agents with his phone. When he intervened to help a woman who had been shoved to the ground by an agent, the agent pepper sprayed him, then at least six other agents rushed in and the group wrestled Mr. Pretti down.
After one agent emerged from the scrum with what appeared to be a gun, another agent shot Mr. Pretti and continued firing as he lay immobile on the ground.
In the hours that followed, thousands of people converged on the intersection. Officers used gas and batons in a bid to disperse them, while protesters dragged dumpsters, trash cans and pieces of plywood into the street to create a makeshift barricade.
Man killed by federal officer in Minneapolis was an ICU nurse, family says
Throughout the weekend, a parade of Trump administration officials characterized Mr. Pretti as violent without presenting any evidence. Officials released a photograph of a pistol they said was taken from Mr. Pretti, who had a licence to legally carry one. The videos do not show Mr. Pretti holding the gun when police took him down.
Ms. Noem said at a Washington news conference that Mr. Pretti was engaged in “domestic terrorism.” Stephen Miller, the immigration hard-liner and top adviser to Mr. Trump, called him “an assassin” on social media.
In cable news interviews on Sunday, Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino said his agents were “the victims” and FBI Director Kash Patel doubled down: “You do not get to attack law enforcement officials in this country without any repercussions.”
By Sunday morning, the scene was calm as hundreds of protesters came and went in -20C weather. An icy snowbank had become a shrine to Mr. Pretti, with pine boughs, flowers and votive candles surrounding a wooden cross.
A mourner visits a makeshift memorial in the area where Alex Pretti was shot dead a day earlier by a federal immigration agent in Minneapolis on Sunday.OCTAVIO JONES/AFP/Getty Images
Lucy Kail, 23, sank to her knees and cried in front of the tribute. “People need to see this. People need to know it’s real. It’s senseless and it’s unneeded and we’re begging for it to stop,” she said of the federal clampdown.
Ms. Wehr, the social worker, recounted her own experience with ICE. Shortly after Ms. Good’s killing, she said, agents went from door to door in her northern Minneapolis neighbourhood, asking if they could come inside.
The officers asked questions about Ms. Wehr’s neighbours, she said, and appeared to be soliciting information about whether anyone in the area was undocumented. She sent them away. “We all deserve to be here. This country was founded on immigration,” she said.
Outside the Whipple Federal Building, a concrete fortress between the airport and an expressway, a group of protesters kept up a 24-hour vigil. The building houses detention facilities where people rounded up in immigration sweeps are held. It is also the base of operations for ICE and Border Patrol agents deployed to the city.
As unmarked cars, pickup trucks and vans drove in and out, several dozen people behind a security fence jeered at them.
A family member reacts after a federal immigration officer used a battering ram to break down a door before making an arrest on Jan. 11, in Minneapolis.John Locher/The Associated Press
Kelly Callaway, a 56-year-old who works in the non-profit sector, said the weekend’s violence would motivate people to redouble their efforts. “We have to stand up for each other. I will not stop so long as they’re here,” she said, gesturing to federal agents across the street.
Ms. Callaway is among the networks of people who roam the city, looking for ICE patrols. On one occasion earlier this month, she said, she saw agents stop a man on the street in the suburb of Columbia Heights. About 25 neighbours came out of their houses and surrounded the officers, who left.
On Sunday, she said, she planned to surveil “hot spots” for agents. “If we don’t stop this here, it’s coming for everyone in the United States.”
Later in the afternoon, thousands gathered for a march through the downtown business district. In the evening, a smaller group of demonstrators converged on a hotel in nearby Saint Paul, where they believed ICE agents were staying. The protesters barricaded the street with recycling bins and pallets, then banged pots and pans and turned on a siren, in a bid to disrupt officers’ sleep. They were prevented from entering the lobby by security.
After about three hours, Border Patrol agents fired tear gas, made arrests and cleared the street.
Mr. Trump took aim at Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, both Democrats, demanding they help him carry out his deportation campaign.
“Democrat run Sanctuary Cities and States are REFUSING to co-operate with ICE, and they are actually encouraging Leftwing Agitators to unlawfully obstruct their operations,” he wrote on Truth Social on Sunday.
Mr. Walz said it was Mr. Trump who was trying to provoke unrest.
“If fear, violence and chaos is what you wanted from us, then you clearly underestimated the people of this state and nation,” he told a news conference. “We are tired, but we’re resolved. We’re peaceful, but we’ll never forget.”
The President ordered the Minnesota crackdown, dubbed Operation Metro Surge, after dozens of members of the city’s Somali community were charged in connection with a welfare fraud scheme. Mr. Trump has long fixated on the state, particularly Somali-American Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a firebrand leftist, and Mr. Walz, the 2024 Democratic nominee for vice-president.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer threatened to block a funding bill that includes money for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a move that could partially shut down the federal government at the end of the month. “What’s happening in Minnesota is appalling – and unacceptable in any American city,” he said in a statement.
Jacky Rosen, a moderate Democratic senator from swing-state Nevada, called for Ms. Noem’s impeachment. “The abuses of power we’re seeing from ICE are the latest proof that she has lost control over her own department and staff,” Ms. Rosen said in a statement.
Alex J. Pretti, the man who was shot by federal officers in Minneapolis on Saturday, in an undated photo provided by Michael Pretti.Uncredited/The Associated Press
Even Mr. Trump’s own Republican caucus began to fracture, with senators Thom Tillis and Bill Cassidy calling for a full investigation of Mr. Pretti’s shooting, with state involvement. So far, Minnesota officials have said federal authorities have blocked them from accessing evidence.
In a statement, Mr. Cassidy warned that the “credibility of ICE and DHS are at stake” absent an independent investigation.
Mr. Pretti’s parents decried the “sickening lies” the Trump administration was telling about their son, pointing out that he was not holding a gun in the videos of his shooting.
“We are heartbroken but also very angry. Alex was a kind-hearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for,” Michael and Susan Pretti said in a statement. “Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man.”